Background
De Vogel, Cornelia Johanna was born in February 1905 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
De Vogel, Cornelia Johanna was born in February 1905 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.
Classical Philology and Philosophy, University of Utrecht.
1946-1974, Professor of Ancient and Patristic Philosophy, 1946-1968, Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Utrecht.
De Vogel wrote extensively on Greek, patristic and medieval philosophy, but her closest attention was given to Plato and the later pagan and Christian Platonic writers. She held that Platonic Ideas have been understood by many Christian authors, including Augustine, as constituting the Divine Wisdom. She maintained that the doctrine of Ideas is an aspect of a theory of predication since, in Plato's view, all predication of designations involves the assertion of Ideas. At the same time, it is more than a theory of predication, for 'the great', ‘the small’, ‘the beautiful' and so on are not just logical entities but real existents in a transcendent world. Her interpretation of Plato is in sharp contrast with those of the English Platonists Owen and Cherniss. In opposition to the theologian Karl Barth, she defended the possibility of natural knowledge of God. De Vogel was a Roman Catholic. She did not espouse feminism in the modern style, but her interpretation of Aquinas’s concepts of natural and eternal law enabled her to argue for a woman's right to contraception on the grounds that reason requires protection from nature. She maintained that there are no theological arguments against the priesthood of women.