Vollenhoven
Dirk Vollenhoven worked with Herman Dooyeweerd (or Dooyeweerd worked with Vollenhoven) on their Cosmonomic Philosophy. Also they were brothers-in-law. This section of the Dooyeweerd Pages will briefly introduce Vollenhoven's thought, and link to other pages. It is only started.
Are you a Vollenhoven afficionado? - Please email me with other material, especially links.
As I understand it:
- While Dooyeweerd was a Critical philosopher, Vollenhoven was more of an Analytical philosopher. Vollenhoven's philosophy is laid out with clearer structure. So taking them together seems useful.
- Both agreed on a notion of irreducibly distinct aspects or functions of our experience. But there were subtle differences in understanding between them. It seems that Dooyeweerd had a wider notion of the philosophical roles of aspects; to Vollenhoven they were mainly functions.
- As I understand it, to Vollenhoven, law was the boundary between God and the cosmos; to Dooyeweerd, law was an enabling framework, which God gave to enable the cosmos to Be and Occur. (But to me, these can be the same thing seen from a different viewpoint.)
- It seems that Vollenhoven wished to speak mainly into Christian (and especially Calvinian) circles, while Dooyeweerd tried to engage with all thinkers, and made much more reference to and links with what he differentiated from Christian thinking (viz. Greek, Scholastic and Humanist).
- Both together were accused of Heresy - and acquitted.
What we have of Vollenhoven's thought thus far includes:
Here are some links to Vollenhoven material (sent to THinkNet by Rudi Hayward; many thanks):
This is part of The Dooyeweerd Pages, a website set up to discuss Herman Dooyeweerd's interesting thought. This part of the site is devoted to the thought of his colleague, Dirk Vollenhoven.
Created: 9 May 2005.
Last updated: 16 May 2005. 3 August 2005 RH's voll links.