Herman Dooyeweerd 7th October 1894 – 12th February 1977: Dooyeweerd loved art and music and was an accomplished pianist, he enjoyed detective stories and was a supporter of Ajax, the famous Amsterdam football team, but it is not for these things that Dooyeweerd is remembered. He was the pioneer of the school of ‘the philosophy of the cosmonomic principle’ or more simply reformational philosophy.
He has been described as one of the foremost philosophers of the Netherlands. Dr. P.B. Cliteur, [1] wrote in 1994: ‘Herman Dooyeweerd is undoubtedly the most formidable Dutch philosopher of the 20th century. … As a humanist I have always looked at “my own tradition” in search for similar examples. They simply don’t exist. Of course, humanists too wrote important books, but in the case of Herman Dooyeweerd we are justified in speaking about a philosopher of international repute.’
G.E. Langemeijer, attorney general of the Dutch Appeal Court and chairman of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, wrote in the Trouw [2] that Dooyeweerd was “the most original philosopher Holland has ever produced, even Spinoza not excepted”.
Giorgio Delvecchio, an Italian neo-Kantian philosopher, viewed Dooyeweerd as ‘the most profound, innovative, and penetrating philosopher since Kant’. [3]
More recently philosopher Alvin Plantinga stated that ‘Dooyeweerd’s work was comprehensive, insightful, profound, courageous, and quite properly influential.’ [4]
Dooyeweerd was born on 7th October 1894 in Amsterdam to Hermen Dooijeweerd, an accountant, (1850-1919) and Maria Christina Spaling (1862-1948). Maria was Herman’s second wife, his first had died leaving him three daughters. Herman was the only boy of a family of five children.
Dooyeweerd?s father was greatly influenced by Abraham Kuyper and Dooyeweerd, who became a Christian at a young age, was immersed in kuyperian thought and neo-calvinism. He would have heard Kuyper’s newspaper articles read aloud at home and he attended a Christian school whose headmaster Dr J. Woltjer was an associate of Kuyper.
In 1912 he attended the Free University (Vrije Univeriteit, VU) in Amsterdam. There he studied law. He was disappointed with the VU as he expected to get a good grounding in the kuyperian worldview. The VU had been founded in 1880 by Kuyper and in Dooyeweerd?s time there were only three faculties. The law faculty only had three professors: Fabius, Anema and Diepenhorst. In 1917 he received his doctorate for a thesis entitled: ‘De Ministerraad in het Nederlandsche Staaatsrecht’ (‘Cabinet Ministers under Dutch Constitutional Law’).
He then took up the post of an assistant tax collector in Friesland. In 1918 he moved to Leiden where he had the post of an assistant to a municipal councillor. He was then asked to become the deputy head of the Public Health department in The Hague.
During this time, he studied independently legal philosophy. He found that there was much conflict between the different approaches to legal philosophy and this made him convinced that there was a need for a ‘genuinely Christian and biblically based insight and foundation’. [5]
Dooyeweerd began to correspond with his brother in law D. H. Th Vollenhoven – Vollenhoven, also a graduate of the VU, had married Dooyeweerd’s sister in 1918. In these correspondences Dooyeweerd expressed a desire to ‘work out the philosophical foundations of science and of developing a theistic position, along Calvinist lines’. [6]
In May 1921 Vollenhoven became a pastor in The Hague and this gave the two more time to talk together and develop their ideas.
In October 1922 the newly founded research institute of the Ant-Revolutionary Party, a party associated with Kuyper, appointed the 27-year-old Dooyeweerd the first director. This gave Dooyeweerd the time and opportunity to develop his philosophical ideas.[7] He married on Jantiena Wilhelmina Fernhout on 19th September1924.
It was during this time that he developed the idea of the religious root of theoretical thought ? the idea that all the sciences are dependent on pre-theoretical presuppositions.
He worked for the ‘Kuyper Institute’, as it was known, for four years. He then accepted an offer to become professor of law at the VU, a position he held for 40 years until his retirement in 1965 at 70.
His brief at the VU was to teach ‘Introduction to the Science of Law’, the ‘History of traditional Dutch law’ and ‘Jurisprudence’. He replaced the ‘Introduction’ with an ‘Encyclopaedia of Legal Science’.
It was at the VU that Dooyeweerd completed his De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (Amsterdam: 1935-36). This was translated into English in 1953 as The New Critique of Theoretical Thought. This translation contained extensive revisions and additions. His next planned project was Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy [8] and then the Encyclopaedia of Legal Science. [9] He was not able to complete these fully during his lifetime.
He founded and was editor in chief (1936-1976) of the journal Philosophia Reformata.
After the Second World War he travelled extensively to Switzerland, South Africa, France, Belgium, the United States ? including several times to Harvard University – and Canada. It was the lectures during one of the tours to North America that formed the basis of In the Twilight of Western Thought (1960).
During 1945 to 1948 he wrote a series of articles in the weekly Nieuw Nederland these formed the basis for his book Roots of Western Culture (1979).
In 1948 he was inducted into the Royal Academy of Dutch Sciences.
Dooyeweerd was a prolific author and wrote around 200 articles and books. The last article he wrote was for Philosophia Reformata in 1975.
Dooyeweerd’s son had this to say of him:
Dooyeweerd was a gifted man but in ways of a very down-to-earth person with his feet on the ground. We in the family loved him dearly and are, we think justifiably, proud of him. We remember him as someone who was humble before his God and always strove to be in his service. In the days just before his death I personally witnessed how he struggled greatly with the fact that in his own eyes he had not done all that he seemingly felt God had called him to do.
Footnotes
1. President of the `Humanist League’ in The Netherlands and professor of philosophy at the Technical University of Delft. Cited in Witte Jr.
2. October 6, 1964. On the occasion of Dooyeweerd’s 70th birthday. Cited in Witte Jr.
3. Cited in Witte Jr.
4. In ‘Christian philosophy at the end of the twentieth century’.
5. Dooyeweerd Jr p. 107.
6. Henderson p. 27.
7. According to Witte Jr: ‘His work in these four years culminated in five major articles, including a fifteen-part tract In the Struggle for a Christian Politics [Herman Dooyeweerd, “In den strijd om een Christelijke Staatkunde. Proeve van een fundeering der Calvinistische levens- en wereldbeschouwing in hare Wetsidee,” I Antirevolutionaire Staatkunde (henceforth A.R.S.) 7-25 62- 79, 104-118, 161-173, 189-200, 228-244, 309-324, 433-460, 489-504, 528- 542 581-598, 617-634, (1924-5); 2 A.R.S. 244-65, 425-445 (1926). A.R.S. was the monthly journal of the Dr. Abraham Kuyper Foundation, which Dooyeweerd edited for several years. This work will appear as volume B5 of the Collected Works of Dooyeweerd.] and an important monograph ?Calvinism and Natural Law? (contained in volume B1 of the Collected Works of Dooyeweerd).? Details can be found here.
8. The three volume work has now recently been published by Edwin Mellen Press as A5, A6 and A7 of the Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd series.
9. The first volume of this has now been published (translated by Robert D. Knudsen) by Edwin Mellen as A8. A9-11 will appear shortly. Details can be found here.
A bibliography of works by Dooyeweerd compiled by Harry Van Dyke is available here.
Dutch articles available here
Herman Dooyeweerd Jr, ‘Herman Dooyeweerd – a biographical sketch’ in Herman Dooyeweerd Christian Philosophy and the Meaning of History (Edwin Mellen Press: Lewsiton,1996).
Herman Dooyeweerd ‘The Last Interview of Dooyeweerd’ in J.M. van Dunné, P. Boeles and A.J. Heerma van Voss (eds): Acht civilisten in burger (Zwolle: W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, 1977). (Translated for study purposes by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen)
R. D. Henderson Illuminating Law: The Construction of Herman Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy 1918-1928(Buijten & Schipperheijn, Amsterdam, 1994)
H. Evan Runner Dooyeweerd’s passing and appreciation The Banner 1977
Witte Jr., John, ‘Introduction’ in A Christian Theory of Social Institutions, by Herman Dooyeweerd, trans. Magnus Verbrugge. (Paideia Press: Ontario, 1986)
Dooyeweerd’s English writings
The Reformational Publishing Project and Paideia Press are working hard to get out the Collected works of Herman Dooyeweerd out at an affordable price.
The following is a tentative list of Dooyeweerd’s Collected Works as currently envisaged by the General Editor:
A Series – Multiple Volume Sets 1. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Vol. 1/1 (564 pp.)
2. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Vol. 1/2 (596 pp.)
3. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Vol. 1/3 (781 pp.)
4. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought. Vol. 1/4 (257 pp.)
5. Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. Vol. 5/1 (404 pp.)
6. Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. Vol. 5/2 (420 pp.)
7. Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. Vol. 5/3 (294 pp.)
8. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law. Vol. 8/1 (260 pp.)
9. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law. Vol. 8/2 (260 pp.)
10. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law. Vol. 8/3 (260 pp.)
11. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law. Vol. 8/4 (260 pp.)
12. Encyclopedia of the Science of Law. Vol. 8/5 (260 pp.)
B Series – Smaller Works and Collections of Essays
13. Inaugural Address (1926). (130 pp.)
14. Time, Law, and History. (320 pp.)
15. Essays in Legal, Social, and Political Philosophy. (176 pp.)
16. The Crisis in Humanist Political Theory. (214 pp.)
17. The Struggle for a Christian Politics. (334 pp.)
18. The Roots of Western Culture. (256 pp.)
19. In The Twilight of Western Thought. (180 pp.)
20. Christian Philosophy and the Meaning of History. (130 pp.)
21. Transcendental Problems of Philosophical Thought. (100 pp.)
22. Political Philosophy. (132 pp.)
D Series – Thematic Selections From Series A & B
23. Articles on Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.
24. Articles on Philosophy and Theology.
25. Articles on Law, Society, and Political Thought.
26. Volume To Be Determined.
27. Volume To Be Determined.
28. Volume To Be Determined.
A number of Dooyeweerd’s works are being made available on-line by the Reformational Publishing Project and Paideia Press.
See also https://herman-dooyeweerd.blogspot.com/
- Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular, and Christian Options PDF (pdf file 11 meg)
- Sociology of Law and Its Philosophical Foundations PDF (pdf file 1 meg)
- A New Critique of Theoretical Thought I PDF (pdf file 53 meg)
- A New Critique of Theoretical Thought II PDF
- A New Critique of Theoretical Thought III PDF (pdf file 7 meg)
- A New Critique of Theoretical Thought IV PDF (pdf file 7 meg)
- Beteekenis Der Wetsidee Voor Rechtswetenshap en Rechtsphilosophie PDF (pdf file 6 meg)
- Creation and Evolution PDF (pdf file 4 meg)
- De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee I PDF (pdf file 22 meg)
- De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee II PDF (pdf file 24 meg)
- De Wijsbegeerte Der Wetsidee III PDF (pdf file 26 meg)
- Introduction to a Transcendental Criticism of Philosophic Thought PDF (pdf file 593 k)
- The Analogical Concepts PDF (pdf file 2 meg)
- The Contest About the Concept of Sovereignty in Modern Jurisprudence and Political Science 1 PDF(pdf file 1 meg)
- The Criteria of Progressive and Reactionary Tendencies in History PDF (pdf file 1 meg)
- The Theory of Man: Thirty-two Propositions on Anthropology PDF (pdf file 935 k)
- Vernieuwing en Bezinning PDF (pdf file 15 meg)
On Dooyeweerd: a bibliography Complied by Steve Bishop
Study guides to Dooyeweerd’s work
Steve Bishop In the Twilight of Western Thought
Steve Bishop Roots of Western Culture – under construction
Steve Bishop Christian Theory of Society Institutions
Steve Bishop Christian Idea of the State — under construction
Paul Robinson New Critique of Theoretical Thought – under construction
Steve Bishop Roots of Western Culture – under construction
Rudi Hayward’s YouTube videos on Dooyeweerd’s Roots of Western Culture
Richard Gunton’s YouTube videos on Dooyeweerd’s Secularization of Science
Useful sites
The Dooyeweerd Centre for Christian Philosophy is committed to making available in English the works of Dutch Christian philosopher, Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), and through this to promote philosophical work shaped by Christian beliefs.
The Dooyeweerd Pages is a growing website – managed by Andrew Basden – designed to aid scholars in understanding the philosophical framework of the late Herman Dooyeweerd.
Glenn Friessen’s site Studies relating to Herman Dooyeweerd- including this linked glossary of Dooyeweerd’s terms
allofliferedeemed 