Philosophia Reformata

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In this article I argue (i) that truth is the goal of science, (ii) that there is no clear demarcation between science and non-science (the demarcation is not to be found in method, nor in certain assumptions being made, nor in the nature of the results of scientific inquiry, nor in a supposed disinterestedness on the part of scientists), and (iii) that notwithstanding the absence of a clear demarcation, there are truths, that science obviously can touch, but also truths, even truths that we can know, that science obviously cannot touch.


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This study focuses on D.H.Th. Vollenhoven and H. Dooyeweerd in the early years of their philosophical contact. We find that Dooyeweerd allied himself to Vollenhoven when working his way into philosophy. Vollenhoven’s “critical realism” at the time was their common ground. Towards the end of 1922 there are signs of new developments. Vollenhoven was motivated to purge realism of its latent scholastic features so as to express a clearer Calvinist-Scriptural position. Dooyeweerd in turn introduced into critical realism the perspective of eternity, as seat for the role of faith. From 1928 on, he traded critical realism in for transcendental criticism, the latter as guided by an intuitive viewing that takes place from the human being’s transcendent spiritual centre of personality. The discussion first clarifies what the initial critical realism of Vollenhoven was and that Dooyeweerd worked in its framework; then it highlights the diverging ways in which each moved away from that position.


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Although Friesen’s recent article on “Clouser’s Aristotelian Interpretation of Dooyeweerd” (in this journal, volume 75(2010), 97-116) directs its criticisms mainly to me, I will not be at pains in what follows to reply to all of them. What I will concentrate upon instead is the correct understanding of Dooyeweerd. It is far more important that readers of this journal get Dooyeweerd straight than that they get me straight, and Friesen has proposed a number of misconstruals of fundamental concepts and ideas in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Therefore, in part one I will try to clear up only a few of the more glaring misrepresentations of my position in order to clear the way for considering the more serious mis-understandings of Dooyeweerd in part two. Part three will focus on Friesen’s panentheism.

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