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Linking Dooyeweerd with Other Thinkers and Ideas

Dooyeweerd held an attitude of critical respect for other thought and tried to forge links with is. His thought, though radically different, easily links with other thought, of almost all kinds, because he treats everything as meaningful, and he recognises the importance of bringing presuppositions to the surface so they can be compared and discussed openly. (See more below.)

Three main sections:

Warning and promise: This page is like a junk store: higgledy-piggledy, but search and you will find items of interest and value! You will find both recent and ancient ideas, both thinkers and topics, and all of academic, professional, and ordinary reflective thinkers. Some discussions are fuller, some only tiny bits.

Enjoy!

Dooyeweerd believed: "It is a matter of life and death for this young philosophy that ... scholars in all fields of science seek to put it to work in their own specialty." Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I, p.vii.

Readership? This page is offered to both the Dooyeweerdian community and the communities of thought outwith Dooyeweerd, to stimulate some understanding and discussion of how Dooyeweerd links with other thought, for mutual benefit.

Recent pages, worth looking at:

See also the sub-site on Using Dooyeweerdian Philosophy

Links To Other Thinkers

Dooyeweerd is able to engage with thinkers across a very wide range of fields. This list puts thinkers in alphabetical order. In order to understand how we approach other thinkers, see Comparisons - On comparing Dooyeweerd with others.

Links to Topics Discussed by Others

See also the more haphazard, but wonderful, original index page, which ceased to be used on 7 September 2017.

The page on Using Dooyeweerdian Thinking also furnishes examples of links with external thinking.

Dooyeweerd's Approach to Other Thinkers

Dooyeweerd held an attitude of critical respect for other thought and tried to forge links with is. His thought, though radically different, easily links with other thought, of almost all kinds, because:

In philosophy, for example, Dooyeweerd shares with Historicism that knowledge is always changing, with Phenomenology, the dignity and importance of everyday thinking alongside theoretical, with Postmodernism, an emphasis on the role of commitments and presuppositions, with Augustine, in recognising the need to take the Creator into account in understanding the self, and so on. He goes beyond all, however, offering important critique to each. With Dooyeweerd, each might flourish in a new, fuller way.

In the sciences, for example, he offers an understanding of why and how each of the core interests of each science is meaningful, how and why each requires a distinct methods and norms of research and practice, and how they can relate to each other.

In everyday experience, Dooyeweerd offers an understanding of its complexity and beauty, its importance, and its diverse yet coherent meaningfulness.

In this sub-site of The Dooyeweerd Pages, you will find a growing collection of discussions on how Dooyeweerd might relate to ideas and thinkers within philosophy, the sciences and everyday experience. With each, we seek to Listen, Affirm, Critique, Enrich (LACE), rather than either merely acquiesce or annul.

Some Early Comments on How Dooyeweerd Tried to Respect Other Thought

Much mainstream philosophy moves forward by reacting to earlier thought. Dooyeweerd was not content merely to react to other thought, because it narrows the thinking down. He wanted an understanding that respects all reality {Note 1} - including the reality of our activity of understanding. Call his desire 'totalising'? Call it 'holistic'? Whatever!

Since Dooyeweerd started from pre-theoretical experience rather than a philosophical theory, and did so in a critical way that recognises the diversity and coherence of that experience, it is not surprising that almost everything that has been discussed by other thinkers through the ages is within the remit of Dooyeweerd's thinking {Note 2}. So it is no surprise to find echoes reverberating back and forth between Dooyeweerd and many other thinkers. The echo affirms the thought of the other thinker, but at the same time critiques it and enriches it. (This might surprise some followers of Dooyeweerd who see his thought as antithetical to other thought.)

So my approach to commenting on other thinking is to both affirm and question that thinking. Affirmation is appropriate because, in a multi-aspectual cosmos created by God, almost all thought contains useful or valid insights. Questioning is appropriate because all thought is contaminated by flawed presuppositions or even human sin and pride, and is based on flawed worldviews and paradigms. For a longer discussion of comparing with other thinkers, click here. We look for:

Notes

1. That is, as far as reality is susceptible to being understood. He found fundamental reasons why some reality, such as the human self, cannot be understood.

2. Some of it has yet to be thought through, of course, while other matters, especially to do with the juridical aspect and the state, were subjected to intensive thought by Dooyeweerd himself.

This page, 'http://www.dooy.info/ext/index.html', gives access to a collection of pages that discuss how Dooyeweerdian thought links to various thinkers. It is part of The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Email questions or comments would be welcome.

Written on the Amiga and Protext in the style of Classic HTML.

Copyright (c) at all dates below Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.

Created: 20 May 2001 Last updated: 10 July 2001 link to rot. 6 February 2002 link to vigotsky. 12 February 2002 started the Habermas sub-site. 22 February 2002 link to choi/. 27 February 2002 corrected name. 11 March 2002 link to Runner's tribute. 4 April 2002 link to Latour's ANT. 26 June 2002 Polanyi. 2 August 2002 Giddens. 17 September 2002 John Searle and comparisons.html moved here with links. 12 November 2002 link to Parsons. 20 November 2002 new link to Enrich CT/Habermas, to SST, and links to Alexander's patterns. 28 November 2002 Link to Heidegger by RH, some links reordered. 1 March 2003 Choi link relocated, .nav. 3 March 2003 link to Dennett. 4 March 2003 Buber. 25 April 2003 Grounded Theory link. 28 June 2003 added what our approach looks for. 10 July 2003link to heidegger. 25 July 2003 Hartmann. 22 September 2003 von Baader link, upd Hdg. 12 November 2003 st.html. 15 June 2004 Bhaskar's Critical Realism; some rearrangement of page, plus rewrite of admin part, corrected a link. 14 August 2004 ps link. 23 August 2004 Apel. 26 January 2005 Reid, Habermas' lifeworld. 11 March 2005 SCOT. 16 April 2005 E.A.Singer and Churchman. 22 April 2005 corrected link to hab/lw.html. 11 July 2005 Spinoza. 3 October 2005 Bunge. 24 June 2006 Hirst. 9 February 2008 Frege. 29 July 2008 schutz, berger.luckmann. 12 June 2009 Luhmann + correction. 23 November 2009 wenger, buber update. 27 April 2010 more in intro. 10 July 2010 Bernstein. 23 October 2010 foucault. 21 August 2011 emergence. 7 November 2013 Donald Davidson, hermeneutic circle. 16 December 2013 james. 15 October 2014 bourdieu. 8 May 2015 duality.tgy. 24 August 2016 smuts, merleau-ponty. 4 November 2016 ai, floridi. 7 September 2017 bergson, alpha index, new .end, .nav. ---- 7 September 2017 redid this index page into alphabetical order. 25 September 2017 vwoudenberg03.cmts. 8 June 2018 plantinga.ctq, and warning. 27 September 2018 ryle.caterr. 11 January 2019 corrected link. 22 May 2020 Schwartz.values. 11 June 2020 value.theory. 5 November 2021 becker.tca. 28 January 2022 new intro, title, bgcolor, canonical, and ending. 7 April 2022 metaphor. Also rearranged the list into thinkers and topics. 19 April 2022 Moved discussion to end; link to using/.