IN MEMORIAM J. P. A. MEKKES by J van der Hoeven (1987)

Now Johan Mekkes has also left us. At the age of 89, the good fight came to an end for him. Earlier, in his gaze, the recognition of friends and students increasingly made way for a prospect of meeting our Forerunner. In this way, we too were gradually and at a distance prepared for his passing. Yet the farewell is still too close, the incision of it still too sharp, to make more than a few words of remembrance possible. Appropriate reflection on the depth and scope of Mekkes' thinking requires a longer period of time than the editors were granted for this issue - although the reader will already encounter references to Mekkes with remarkable frequency in this issue. How shall we characterize his thinking and writing? If it must be in one word, I choose: penetration. First of all, this says something about his personal way of philosophizing. Any lack of commitment was alien to it. Deeply aware of the provisionality and fallibility of human thought, including his own, he nevertheless practiced philosophy with genuine commitment. Readers of Philosophia Reformata know that this commitment was marked by mission. Precisely for that reason, with the passion of the personal, it was at the same time aimed at real encounter with others: students, but also non-kindred spirits and opponents. That trait of penetratingness has not failed to be both infectious and stimulating. Could it be otherwise? With Karl Jaspers he criticized 'passive tolerance', and even more than this he shunned publishing for a vague audience. He was drawn into thinking by the human, the striving and choosing, the struggling and suffering, the rebellious and sought-after.

But he respected the demands and possibilities of thought. The step-by-step, the complicated and the multifaceted were taken into account. The structure and articulation of an argument, of a conversation with a predecessor or contemporary, were his great concern. Living in wonder and reverence, he was also sensitive to nuance. However, the frame of an argument often tensed and bent under the persistent concentration on the heart of the matter and the heart of the human being. Accessibility and lucidity are therefore not the most striking features of his way of thinking and writing. But those who took the trouble were lastingly struck by a penetration which, in addition to those already mentioned, was given by the nature of the matter which occupied him. That matter was the all-pervading meaning-dynamics of reality as creation, propelled towards its destination. And although in sharpness of drawing distinctions he was no one's inferior, yet the striking feature of his philosophical work consists above all in the combination of that acumen with an intense awareness of the dynamics of meaning. That is why he was also wary of schematic analyses - tempting especially when a philosophy of impressive architecture is 'available'. All too easily an ingenuity arises that seems pale and bloodless. Mekkes himself was interested in systematic distinctions insofar as it resembled the search for the power grid of an electric power station. (I borrow this image from one of his older articles).

In addition, there were the special accents and the unique style of presentation, also when compared with the circle of reformational philosophers. Meaning dynamics, creation, concentration, - these are big, imposing words; but they only gain real expressiveness in the personal connection with the Master and His way. 'Law-idea' is also a word worth keeping, but only if it remains related to the law of the grain of wheat. When the 'Biblical ground-motive' speaks of 'redemption' this word will not be able to do without the continuous tones of humility, trial, exercise for its pure sound to resonate; these are also indispensable for a Biblical philosophy of history.

Mekkes' own style of presentation: we knew him as combative, uncompromising. But deeply moved by the word of the dying grain of wheat, he managed to keep these features free from triumphalism and warlike fervour. He was also blessed with a nobility that is rare, 'left' as well as 'right'. He felt formed - as he once told me - above all by three teachers of great stature: General Jhr. W. Roell ('a deeply religious nobleman of the old stamp', - G. Puchinger), H. Dooyeweerd and the Walloon minister - at some distance from Dutch Reformed Protestantism - G. Forget.

Mekkes has made a particularly valuable contribution to this journal. He held the always demanding position of editorial secretary from 1945 to early 1959. Especially in that period he wrote many concise and finely crafted reviews. But then and later he wrote several great articles of a high standard which greatly promoted study and reflection - I will only mention “Wilhelm Dilthey's 'Kritik der historischen Vernunft' in de wending der eeuw,”, 20 (1955), p. 7-45, and “Wet en subject in de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (Onze wijsbegeerte op een driesprong)”[Law and Subject in the Philosophy of the Law Idea (Our Philosophy at a Crossroads)], 27 (1962), p. 126-190.

Pending a more detailed and thorough consideration of his work - as anticipated above - I think it appropriate to close now by leaving the last word to Mekkes himself. I quote a few passages from a little-known publication that appeared in 1959 in the Leiden University Press under the title “The scientific-critical attitude and the acceptance of revelation” [De wetenschappelijk-critische houding en het aanvaarden van de openbaring], which contained both a lecture by Mekkes and one by his then Leiden colleague J. H. M. M. Loenen, both delivered at a meeting of the Christian Student Council.

'Divine Revelation only exercises its critique in this regard in order to keep science a science. It wants to prevent science from degenerating into the cult of the idol of thought, scientific, historical, theological thinking. It does not lay claim to any scientific results, not even partially. It does not provide scientific data. It points the way, or perhaps better yet: it warns against false directions. It warns against taking paths that inevitably lead to a dead end - that is, in truth, a religious - contradiction (...). It does not accept for science any residual theoretical truths and stresses the permanently hypothetical and subjective character of all scientific practice and of all methods, including Christian ones  (...) It does not fail to point out the solidarity involved in the task of the entire human community to bring science into culture in open communication, but within this communication the thesis of 'open reasonableness' as a separate thesis will have to demonstrate its merits, instead of directing the tournament from the outset (...) The critique of Revelation thus points to the horizon, which - far beyond the scientific horizon - is the true human horizon ( ... )'

'Where is the decision finally made about the entire practice of my life, about my scientific insight integrally and totally? Where lies the crisis of my daily, my scientific, my philosophical, my ... theological actions?

That crisis, the court of criticism, lies in the most displaced place in the entire history of humankind, and it is from that place alone that I can see the furthest horizon, which also encloses my widest horizon of thought.

I can only come to that place as a child. For it is the cross from which the Most Despised of the despised has been cast out. And where the Risen One says to me: everything is yours and you ... are Mine!' (p. 10, 11, 12, 13).

J. van der Hoeven

Dooyeweerd and the history of modern philosophy

Dooyeweerd is often misunderstood to reject all prior philosophy. His claim that philosophy has deep religious roots is taken to imply that a Christian is thereby duty bound to reject all philosophy that is not explicitly founded on the Christian religion. However, he rejects this view thoroughly and repeatedly. Here is one such example.

“Philosophic thought as such stands in an inner relationship with historical development, postulated by our very philosophical basic Idea, and no thinker whatever can withdraw himself from this historical evolution. Our transcendental ground-idea itself requires the recognition of the “philosophia perennis" in this sense and rejects the proud illusion that any thinker whatever, could begin as it were with a clean slate and disassociate himself from the development of an age-old process of philosophical reflection.

…

Whoever takes the pains to penetrate into the philosophic system developed in this work, will soon discover, how it is wedded to the historical development of philosophic and scientific thought with a thousand ties, so far as its immanent philosophic content is concerned, even though we can nowhere follow the immanence-philosophy.” (NC I, 118)

I’ve made a provisional translation of Johan van der Hoeven’s assessment of Dooyeweerd’s engagement with modern philosophy. See here.

Article in Philosophia Reformata

My article "Herman Dooyeweerd and Marburg Neo-Kantianism" will be in the next issue of Philosophia Reformata. It is available in the "advanced articles" now.

It is a review of Israel Costa's excellent Masters thesis “Herman Dooyeweerd e a construção dos problemas da crítica transcendental do pensamento teórico”.

Mekkes on "Present Thinking"

Life such as it is now, for us twentieth-century people, has not fallen out of the sky. Neither has science: it has its history. Everyone knows and understands this, except Western science itself, especially since the previous century. It believes in the always 'present thinking', which, like a camera on a tripod, takes snapshots of the 'factuality' in front of the lens - snapshots that, as in a film, give the illusion of movement, of events, of history. However, the camera itself stands fixed, positioned outside that movement. From that point the story begins and ends, and the person behind the camera remains completely out of the picture. This “present thinking” can itself at most focus somewhat more sharply, reflecting and correcting itself, but it remains holding the first and last word for itself.

How has science become so uncritical and pretentious in our Western mind, especially in this West that was once Christianized, and thus could have known that history is the history of life, and not a result of thought? 

...

Various thinkers had already warned against this in the nineteenth century: people such as Kierkegaard (who emphasised the subjective existence of the thinker) and Marx (philosophers have interpreted the world, but the point is to change the world); in the Netherlands, and especially for our Christian circles, Abraham Kuyper. But that this raised questions concerning the privileged position of thought, and pointed to another core, remained misunderstood or was ignored: people fitted Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kuyper into their own frame of thought.

But it was precisely reformational philosophy that made it clear that Kuyper had indicated a different central point of reflection than thinking.

With this, reformational philosophy had provisionally found a basis from which to proceed to the attack. If there is a central point that transcends thinking – central because it is the centre of everything in life – then a break with 'thinking' as a fixed point must be made. 

...

It is not enough to make critical comments on the content of humanistic assertions, now included in a broader framework as 'general-natural'. The content could not be the primary target; it is a question of the point out of which people operate, namely the exclusive universal validity of thinking, regardless of how critically praised. The 'Self-criticism' of thinking, as provided by Immanuel Kant, is also not enough, according to reformational philosophy: self-criticism must be pushed so far that I, thinking, see that thinking is not an independent activity, and therefore know that I have to account for what precedes science. In other words; self-criticism must penetrate to the question: where do the outflows of life come from, including thinking, which is after all an activity of life? 

Johan Mekkes “God’s Normaal en de wijsbegeerte.” (1974) pp.35-37 

New books from Zuidervaart

Two new books from Lambert Zuidervaart. 

Social Domains of Truth: Science, Politics, Art, and Religion

Shattering Silos: Reimagining Knowledge, Politics, and Social Critique

A philosophical maxim

Here is a philosophical maxim from James Conant:

"Do not read the character of the logically primitive phenomenon off the model of its logically alienated counterpart!" The Logical Alien p.368

I'm tempted to stop there. Let it sit, and just think more about what this means. It would take too much to trace out the role it plays in Conant's thought, in a book I am only starting to get into, and to unpack what interests me about it. But I'm going to push on a bit:

"a philosopher who suffers from logical alienation is one who mistakes a case that suffers from logical privation - a logically alienated case of consciousness, or of the exercise of a cognitive capacity, or form of human life - for the logically primitive form of the phenomenon under philosophical investigation." (368)

What is it to mistake a logical privation for something logically primitive? It seems to me that Conant's target, the kind of common philosophical mistake that he is trying to get a perspicuous view of, is the same that is under attack in Dooyeweerd's New Critique Vol. II, part 2 "The Epistemological Problem in the Light of the Cosmonomic Idea". It is the "dogmatic attitude in epistemology" that fails to see that "what has been theoretically isolated is never the 'datum'." (NC II, 433). The "logically primative form of the phenomenon" is what Dooyeweerd here calls the 'datum':

"The real 'datum' is the systatic coherence of meaning. In mature naive pre-theoretical experience reality is grasped in the full systasis of its modal functions. In this systasis the psychical and the logical functions prove to be bound up with all the other modal functions of human experience in an insoluble temporal meaning-coherence." (NC II, 433)

The logically alienated case comes into view as a result of a theoretical disjunction. It is a feature of the "dogmatic attitude in epistemology" that it:

"simply took for granted that which should be the chief problem of any critique of knowledge, viz. the abstraction of the sensory and logical functions of consciousness from the full systasis of meaning of the modal aspects of human experience." (NC II, 431)

If I am correct in thinking that Conant is making a fundamentally parallel point to Dooyeweerd then I think that in the 1026 pages of The Logical Alien there may just be the start of an answer to Rene van Woudenberg's question: "How exactly can naive experience and common sense function as touchstones in philosophy? How does this work in practice?" ("Two Touchstones for Philosophy: Naive Experience and Common Sense" in Philosophia Reformata 85:1 (2020), 38). To put it simply:

Do not read the character of the logically primitive phenomenon off the model of its logically alienated counterpart.

Or, remember that what has been theoretically isolated is never the 'datum'.

Hopefully I can come back to this and show the significance of these twin-maxims for a number of philosophical problems.

Distinctions, separations, dialectics and dualisms

One of the things that Herman Dooyeeerd is known for is his criticism of various dualisms. Many of those who have taken inspiration from Dooyeweerd have taken opposition to all manner of dualisms as a central task of thinking from a Biblical worldview. A good example is the book The Transforming Vision by Brain Walsh and Richard Middleton which has a chapter titled "The Problem of Dualism" followed up by another called "The Development of Dualism" (chapters 6 & 7). The zelousness with which this has sometimes been done has caused some annoyance. A good example is J.V Fesko who dedicates chapter 7 of his book Reforming Apologetics to responding to these criticisms as they relate to natural theology and assessments of Thomas Aquinas. On page 184 he criticises Dooyeweerd for failing to "recognize the difference between a true dichotomy (or separation) and a mere distinction". As with much else in the chapter this is a silly criticism (and one that undermines his central point about the importance of reading the primary sources. I document his failure to read Dooyeweerd's work here). Even Walsh and Middleton in their more popular presentation state clearly "there is a world of difference between dualism and duality" (95). Neverthelss, it is helpful, and interesting in its own right, to get a clearer view of how Dooyeweerd himself understood the difference between a distinction and a dichotomy or dualism.

A nice example of Dooyeweerd discussing this very point is in his response to Cornelius van Til in Jerusalem and Athens. 

The objectivism implied in traditional scholastic rationalism evokes as its alternative subjectivism, etc. It is consequently quite understandable that from your standpoint you consider my distinction between conceptual knowledge and central religious knowledge a result of an irrationalist mystical view of the latter. In line with Robbers and van Peursen you interpret this distinction as a separation, so that the central supra-conceptual sphere and the conceptual sphere of knowledge are conceived of as opposite to, and independent of, each other. In this way the distinction is naturally transformed into a dialectical tension, testifying to a dualistic trend in my thought. [emphasis in bold added]

Dooyeweerd claims that his distinction has been "transformed into a dialectical tension". How has this transformation ocurred? First there is an assumed position from which Dooyeweerd's view is interpreted. Dooyeweerd calls it "objectivism" or "rationalism". This view itself already posits an opposition, one between "objectivism" and "subjectivism". That is to say, that objectivism, on its own understanding, sets itself up against an opposed view, subjectivism. It is part of the self-understanding of objectivism (or rationalism) that it is on the right side of an opposition of views with subjectivism on the wrong side.

In the context of the discussion it would appear that "objectivism" is a position that understands knowledge in terms of "conceptual knowledge". The crucial assumption is that "conceptual knowledge" is taken to be a complete account of knowledge such that it is self-standingly intelligible on its own terms. This is the kind of position that Dooyeweerd elsewhere describes as the "pretended autonomy of thought". Such a description draws out the point that "conceptual knowledge" is understood to be free from dependence on any further element. It also highlights Dooyeweerd's typical strategy of challenging such self-dependence as an illusion.

Now objectivism, with its view that conceptual knowledge is complete and indepedent on its own terms, is committed to the view that whatever can be understood as distinct from "conceptual knowledge" must be separate and outside of its sphere. Whatever is not "conceptual knowledge" must therefore be of a totally different nature, it can only be "irrational" or "mystical". When Dooyeweerd claims that "central religious knowledge" is not the same as "conceptual knowledge" the guiding assumptions of objectivism must put such religious knowledge outside of "rational" conceptual knowledge and into its opposite: "irrational" mystical knowledge.

How is it that Dooyeweerd can resist this move? How can he claim that central religious knowledge is not something "opposite to, and independent of" conceptual knowledge while maintaining the importance of the distinction? Dooyeweerd's strategy is to reject the assumption that conceptual knowledge is something that we can make sense of as a self-standing and independent factor of our thinking and experience. His theory of the modal aspects makes this clear. Conceptual thinking is impossible without a multiplicity of distinguished elements brought together into a conceptual unity. This demonstrates the necessity of a basis in the numerical aspect of reality. There is further the logical extension of a concept pointing to the spatial aspect, the movement of thought, the relation of logical grounds to consequents, the life of thought resting on the functioning of the brain and logical representation based on our sensations. Any deepened sense of conceptual thought whereby the thinker can be said to have some rational control over the development and evaluation of their thinking and so can be held accountable involves the historical-formative aspect, the symbolic representation of thought points to the lingual aspect, the possibility to pursuade, to engage in dialogue, to evaluate requirements of the economy of thought, justification of reasons, while showing a proper concern for truth, each point beyond the merely logical-conceptual to all the other aspects of our experience. This integral coherence and multidimensional character of experience undermines the assumption that rational or conceptual knowledge can be taken as an independent sphere separated from the rest of our experience.

On Dooyeweerd's view the integral coherence that marks the multidimensional character of human experience finds it unity in the central religious root of the human heart. Now, sometimes, when people are first introduced to Dooyeweerd's theory of the modal spheres, and especially when the emphasis is laid on their irreducibility, there is a temptation to interpret his theory as involving a series of layers that sit on top of each other. It can then seem to be an important task to work out what sphere different things "belong" to in a way that makes the modal spheres appear to be separate and independent from each other. Such an interpretation can only end up transfoming Dooyeweerd's distinctions into a whole series of dialectical tensions! Exactly the kind of dialectical problems that his theory is designed to disolve are then interpreted back into his theory. It is essential then, for a correct understanding of Dooyeweerd, that we learn the lesson of the opening paragraph of the New Critique:

If I consider reality as it is given in the naive pre-theoretical experience, and then confront it with a theoretical analysis, through which reality appears to split up into various modal aspects then the first thing that strikes me, is the original indissoluble interrelation among these aspects which are for the first time explicitly distinguished in the theoretical attitude of mind. A indissoluble inner coherence binds the numerical to the spatial aspect, the latter to the aspect of mathematical movement, the aspect of movement to that of physical energy, which iself is the necessary basis of the aspect of organic life. The aspect of organic life has an inner connection with that of psychical feeling, the latter refers in its logical anticipation (the feeling of logical correctness or incorrectness) to the analytical-logical aspect. This in turn is connected with the historical, the linguistic, the aspect of social intercourse, the economic,the aesthetic,the jural,the moral aspects and that of faith. In this inter-modal cosmic coherence no single aspect stands by itself; everyone refers within and beyond itself to all the others. [emphasis in bold added]

We can now return to the first passage quoted above and give two reasons why his distinction between the central supra-conceptual sphere and the conceprtual sphere of knowledge avoids the pitfall of becoming a dialectical tension. The first is Dooyeweerd's account of the unity rooted in the human heart which undermines any sense in which rational thought could be considered as opposite to or cut off from central religious knowledge. Instead it is from out of the human heart that come the issues of life, which is to say that rational thought cannot be understood except in intimate connection with the central supra-conceptual sphere. Equally, Dooyeweerd claimed that the human heart, this central "I", is nothing in itself outside of its relation to God, other humans and the world, all of which are expressed through the diverse aspects including that of rational thought. The second is the way Dooyeweerd's theory of the modal spheres helps us see the incoherence of thinking of rational thought as something that could exist in itself, independent of the rest of human experience. In this way Dooyeweerd allows for a rich variety of distinctions to account for our living experience in the world without those distinctions becoming transformed into dialectical tensions.