Academics: Philosophy: Prof Lambert Zuidervaart's research paper "After Dooyeweerd: Truth in Reformational Philosophy

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ARTICLE: 20081007-1
TITLE: After Dooyeweerd: Truth in Reformational Philosophy


AUTHOR: Zuidervaart, Lambert


ISSUE DATE: August 2008


TYPE: Article


SERIES/JOURNAL:


KEYWORDS: Herman Dooyeweerd, reformational philosophy, truth, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, religious truth, theoretical truth, epistemology, truth theory, reformational ontology, artistic truth, authentication, objectivity, propositional truth, transcendent truth


NOTES: Author note: This is the long version of my paper 'After Dooyeweerd: Truth in Reformation Philosophy'. There are two essays derived from this paper that are forthcoming in the publication Philosophia Reformata.


CITATION FORMAT: Zuidervaart, Lambert. After Dooyeweerd: Truth in Reformational Philosophy. Toronto, ON: Institute for Christian Studies, 2008.

Additional Resources:

• PDF Version (best for printing)

After Dooyeweerd: 
Truth in Reformational Philosophy

Lambert Zuidervaart

Institute for Christian Studies
229 College Street
Toronto, ON
Canada M5T 1R4

© Lambert Zuidervaart, 2008

Abstract (August 2008)

A transformed idea of truth is central to the project of reformational philosophy. This paper lays groundwork for such an idea by critically retrieving Herman Dooyeweerd’s conception of truth.

Section 1 explicates relevant passages in A New Critique of Theoretical Thought.

Section 2 demonstrates several problems in Dooyeweerd’s conception: he misconstrues religious truth, misconceives its relation to theoretical truth, and overlooks central questions of epistemology and truth theory. Section 3 proposes an alternative reformational conception of truth, in five stages. First I compare my “critical hermeneutics” with other reformational models of critique. Then I summarize my account of artistic truth and indicate its origins in reformational ontology. Next I sketch my general conception of truth and show how it responds to issues in Dooyeweerd’s conception. Then I take up the topics of objectivity and propositional truth. Finally I introduce the notion of “authentication” as a way to appropriate insights from Dooyeweerd’s emphasis on “standing in the Truth.” While abandoning his idea of transcendent truth, I seek to preserve the holism and normativity of Dooyeweerd’s radical conception.


Outline (August 2008)

1. Dooyeweerd’s Conception
1.1 Synthesis and Intuition
1.2 Horizon of Experience
1.3 Religious Truth
1.4 Standing in the Truth
1.5 Theoretical Truth

2. Critical Retrieval
2.1 Structuralized Religion
2.2 Limited Experience
2.3 Self-Referential Incoherence
2.4 Tautologous Truth
2.5 Privileged Access

3. Truth and Authentication
3.1 Critical Hermeneutics
3.2 Artistic Truth
3.2.1 Imagination
3.2.2 Imaginative disclosure
3.2.3 Reformational ontology
3.3 Fidelity and Disclosure
3.3.1 Societal principles
3.3.2 Life-giving disclosure
3.3.3 Dynamic correlation
3.4 Propositional Truth
3.4.1 Heidegger’s contribution
3.4.2 Predicative availability
3.4.3 Predicative self-disclosure
3.5 Authentication
3.5.1 Bearing witness
3.5.2 Discursive justification
3.5.3 Correctness and truth

These newsworthy data and theories at the research edge of the conceptualization and the very possiblioty of theoretization of an idea of truth, in an anti-propositionalist tradition that is constructively dialogical with the moments of truth that Dr Russell Kirk discovered in The Conservative Mind about the nature of society, and nature disturbed.  Kirk cites the romances of Sir Walter Scott, the speeches of Sir Edmund Buke, as especially emphatic emblems of what conservatism meant and perhaps still means today.  Steve, my list of top reformational reads for the year just past, 2011, is coming in my next blog entry  — Owlb.