Herman Dooyeweerd

Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society

Jonathan Chaplin

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780268077129
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates.

Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to present-day debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-à-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good.

APPENDIX 1

Dooyeweerd’s Conception of the Task of Social Philosophy

In chapter 3 I introduced Dooyeweerd’s “theory of theory”—his hugely ambitious “transcendental critique of theoretical thought.” I noted that this critical project was launched not for its own sake or to do down rivals but to clear the way for the development of constructive philosophical work in many fields. This book outlines the substantive content of that work in social and political philosophy. Here I outline the basic methodology it implies for the field of social philosophy.

For Dooyeweerd the task of social philosophy is the critical, systematic elucidation of the invariant normative structural principles undergirding the actually existing institutions populating modern society. We saw in chapter 3 that the burden of the transcendental critique is to demonstrate, through an analysis of the structure of theoretical thought, the inescapable determination of such thought by pretheoretical commitments of a religious character (ground motives). This determination takes place, Dooyeweerd asserts, through the medium of a transcendental ground-Idea, a theoretical Idea (or complex of Ideas) that is immediately generated by a religious ground motive, and which frames the fundamental concepts of philosophy. Philosophy is a distinctive branch of theoretical thought in that it examines not any single part of reality but its total structure.1 The foundational philosophical concepts of which such a total account is composed in turn determine the basic concepts of each of the special disciplines, or, as Dooyeweerd calls them, “sciences.”2

Dooyeweerd holds that philosophy comprises five mutually presupposing fundamental areas of investigation: the transcendental critique, the theory of modal aspects, the theory of structures of individuality, epistemology, and philosophical anthropology.3 The methodological problem now under discussion arises in the field of epistemology, which investigates the structures of the various forms of human knowledge, including theoretical knowledge.4 It is one of the central tasks of epistemology to reflect on the methodologies appropriate for each different science. This involves, among other things, indicating the role played by philosophy in such methodologies. An epistemology will point to the indispensable role of the philosophical subdisciplines, the special philosophies—the philosophies of history, economics, law, language, biology, and so on—in each of the special sciences. These special philosophies will thus presuppose a conception of the appropriate methodology for their field, supplied by epistemology. Special philosophies analyze the fundamental ontic structures of their own area of reality, while general philosophy analyzes the structures of the totality of reality (time, modality, individuality, etc.). The central preoccupation of the special philosophies is with the modal and typical structures specifically related to their field. Thus, for example, economic philosophy will be focused on the structure of the economic aspect and the design of economically qualified structures of individuality, whereas general philosophy will concern itself with the coherence between the economic aspect and all the other aspects and between economically qualified structures and other kinds of individuality structures. The special philosophies therefore cannot be reliably pursued apart from such a general philosophy, nor can a general philosophy avoid having implications for each of these particular areas.5 Philosophical reflection is a seamless robe, whether or not a philosopher is aware of it.

These special philosophies must be distinguished from the special sciences, economics, biology, law, physics, and so on, each of which focuses on a particular modal aspect.6 Dooyeweerd’s claim is that the latter are all conceptually founded in a special philosophy.7 In view of the fact that philosophical concepts are themselves conditioned by religious ground motives, this is therefore also a claim that the special sciences are (indirectly) religiously determined. Religion conditions science but through the intermediary of a philosophical framework. In contrast to the positivist conception of scientific objectivity, widely influential when he wrote, Dooyeweerd holds that no science can be, or ought to strive to be, religiously neutral, since it is precisely religious commitment that makes the scientific enterprise possible at all. Far better to acknowledge its influence openly than to succumb to it unwittingly, and so uncritically.8

A special science could only be autonomous with respect to philosophy if a specific aspect of reality could be investigated without considering its coherence with other aspects. But since all the aspects of reality are mutually cohering, scientific analysis of each of them must take account of their coherence with all the others.9 We can see, therefore, how Dooyeweerd’s integral ontology of cosmic time necessarily implies an interdisciplinary methodology of scientific research in which philosophy plays the conceptually determinative role: consequently, “an interpenetration of philosophy and special science is inescapable.”10

What, then, is the relation between the philosophical concepts underpinning all special sciences and the empirical investigations carried out by those sciences? Dooyeweerd rejects any version of what he terms “speculative metaphysics,” by which he means any attempt to impose philosophical constructions in a priori fashion on empirical reality. This he regards as completely incompatible with his own “integral empirical method.”11 Rejecting the charge that the philosophical concepts he employs are a priori constructions, he insists that he acquired them by means of critical philosophical analysis of empirical reality itself. Philosophy is not to be classed as a purely “theoretical” discipline in distinction from the “empirical” disciplines. It is neither simply deductive nor inductive, though it may involve both these logical tools. All systematic analytical investigation is both theoretical in character and empirical in object.12

One of the most fundamental philosophical issues on which special scientists will necessarily have to adopt a position is the delimitation of the field of investigation appropriate to their enterprise. Empirical phenomena obviously do not present themselves neatly parcelled up into such fields complete with labels attached. Since every phenomenon displays every modal aspect, the practitioner of these sciences will have to make a choice about which of these to abstract for purposes of scientific research. Biologists will need a criterion of “the biotic,” economists a criterion of “the economic,” and so on. These criteria cannot be arrived at apart from a view of the relation of one field to all the others, and this can only be supplied by an overarching philosophical view aspiring to take in the whole of reality.

Such scientists will also need to be able to distinguish between various typical structures that function in, say, the biotic or economic aspects. The specific structure and laws of a modal aspect can only be analyzed by examining concrete existents, each of which has a typical structure. To analyze the juridical aspect, for example, a legal theorist must be able to distinguish between the different types of law found within a variety of societal structures (e.g., constitutional law in the state, ecclesiastical law in the church, industrial law in the corporation or between corporations, international law among states). The general modal concept of law cannot in itself supply these distinctions. What is necessary is a grasp of the typical structures within which law functions. For example, the general concept of law in itself tells us nothing about the specific content of state law. For this we need to grasp the structure of the state itself.13 It thus appears that every special science will be indebted to philosophy for both modal and typical concepts, which it inevitably, if unwittingly, must assume.14

The main feature of the general relation between philosophy and the special sciences applies also to that between social philosophy and empirical sociology.15 Actually, Dooyeweerd prefers the term positive sociology (not to be confused with positivist sociology) to empirical sociology since, as we noted, he holds that philosophy too is an empirical discipline.16 The science of empirical sociology depends upon basic concepts given by social philosophy. Dooyeweerd’s “integral empirical method” implies a continuous mutual interaction between the two fields, with positive sociology supplying the data upon which social philosophy reflects, in order, in turn, to generate the concepts that positive sociology must use. Throughout this interactive process social philosophy itself depends upon broader concepts given by a general philosophical framework, which concepts are in turn forged out of reflection on empirical reality.

We can now state what this implies for the field of investigation of positive sociology. Dooyeweerd distinguishes in NC between two different areas of sociological investigation.17 First, there is the special science of sociology that investigates the structure of the social aspect. This is on par with other “modal” sciences like physics, chemistry, psychology, economics, law, theology, and so on. The scope of the modal science of sociology is indicated by the nuclear moment of the social aspect, namely, “intercourse,” and its task is to examine the various modal norms of social intercourse, such as politeness, respect, and so on.18 Some modal sciences are natural sciences; some (e.g., economics, law, or ethics) have as their object particular aspects of human societal life. The latter are “special social sciences.”19 Sociology understood as the science of the social aspect is thus one of the special social sciences, since it investigates merely one modal aspect of (a multimodal) human society. Dooyeweerd’s distinction between the “social” as a modal aspect and the “societal” as a realm of institutions must continually be kept in mind.20

Second, there is the totality science of sociology that takes into its purview the entire range of typical societal structures.21 Its object of research is defined not with reference to a specific modal aspect but rather with reference to the comprehensive or “total” structure of human society, which displays all aspects.22 To grasp this total structure requires a standpoint that can be provided only by social philosophy.23 Social philosophy investigates the invariant ontic order of social structures, their structural principles, while the totality science of positive sociology investigates the variable concrete forms of these structures in the light of a philosophical view of their ontic order.24 The social philosophy that Dooyeweerd elaborates, in over five hundred pages of the third volume of the NC and in many other writings, is intended to serve as the foundation both for this totality science and for the various special social sciences (including the modal science of the social aspect).25

The basic challenge of the totality science of positive sociology is to attain “a theoretical total view of human society.”26 Such a view cannot be acquired merely by synthesizing the results of the special social sciences.27 Attempts to acquire a “total view” apart from an integrative social philosophy will inevitably lead to the conscious or unconscious singling out of one particular modal aspect and attempts to explain the whole of society in terms of that aspect alone. This is a standing temptation, one easily succumbed to on account of the phenomenon of the “sphere universality,” or “ubiquity,” of every modal aspect. Precisely because every social structure functions in, for example, the economic aspect, it appears prima facie plausible to seek explanatory accounts of their concrete functioning in terms of economic causality alone. Such theories are indeed reckoning with what Dooyeweerd calls “indubitable states of affairs,” but they are doing so at the cost of inflating the explanatory power of the economic aspect out of all proportion. They are guilty of a gross form of exaggeration, an “absolutization” of the economic aspect. And, as we have seen, aspectual absolutization leads necessarily to reductionism. Indeed the presence in Dooyeweerd’s time of many competing schools within sociology—mechanism, biologism, psychologism, evolutionism, economism, and so on—was for him testimony to such absolutization.28

We are now in a position to see how the role that Dooyeweerd attributes to social philosophy can be more precisely specified as the provision of answers to the three “transcendental” questions facing all comprehensive philosophical frameworks.29 These questions correspond to the three “transcendental basic problems of theoretical thought” lying at the base of all philosophies. The first question can be put thus: is there some fundamental ontological structure underlying all the diverse social structures that are distinguished for theoretical purposes? In theorizing about society, each structure needs to be abstracted from the others in order to grasp its typical character. Yet the object of a social philosophy is to construct a total view of society. To do this the different structures need subsequently to be compared with one another. What makes such comparison possible is that all of them are ontically grounded in the universal order of cosmic t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• ONE. Christianity, Civil Society, and Pluralism
• TWO. Dooyeweerd in Context
• THREE. Religion and Philosophy
• FOUR. Plurality, Identity, Interrelationship
• FIVE. A Philosophy of Cultural Development
• SIX. A Philosophy of Social Pluralism
• SEVEN. A Medley of Social Structures
• EIGHT. The Identity of the State
• NINE. The Just State
• TEN. An Active, Limited State
• ELEVEN. Civil Society and Christian Pluralism
• Epilogue: Religious Discourse in State and Civil Society
• Appendix 1. Dooyewerd’s Conception of the Task of Social Philosophy
• Appendix 2. Dooyeweerd on Natural Law and Legal Positivism
• Notes
• Bibliography