The Best Known but Least Understood Part of Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy

Abstract

Dooyeweerd once said that the part of his philosophy that is best known within academic circles is his theory of the modal aspects of reality, but that this section at the same time is the least understood part of his philosophy. This article sets out to investigate six of the most prominent prevailing misunderstandings and to assess their relative merit in confrontation with the original ideas of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, in terms of newly introduced systematic distinctions (for example regarding the “cross-fertilization” between the dimensions of aspects and entities regarding the way in which both these dimensions can be characterized), with reference to certain historical tendencies and by emphasizing the crucial element of modal universality of every modality. A more extensive analysis is given of the view that modal aspects are “properties of individual things.” It is argued that this misunderstanding does not properly distinguish between modal properties and typical properties and that it also does not realize that the modal aspects serve as universal spheres within which every concrete (natural and social) entity and process have specified (so-called typonomic) function. Special attention is also given to the nominalistic legacy in terms of which reality is tripped from its modal dimension – a la Descartes who already claimed that number and all universals are mere modes of thought.