THE COLLECTED WORKS OF HERMAN DOOYEWEERD Series B, Volume 14 GENERAL EDITOR: D.F.M. Strauss Time, Law, and History SELECTED ESSAYS Herman Dooyeweerd Paideia Press Grand Rapids 2017 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dooyeweerd, H. (Herman), 1894-1977. Time, Law, and History Herman Dooyeweerd. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes ISBN 978-0-88815-202-2 (so!) This is Series B, Volume 14 in the continuing series The Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd (Paideia Press) ISBN 978-0-88815-202-2 The Collected Works comprise a Series A, a Series B, a Series C and a Series D Series A contains multi-volume works by Dooyeweerd, Series B contains smaller works and collections of essays, Series C contains reflections on Dooyeweerd's philosophy designated as: Dooyeweerd’s Living Legacy, and Series D contains thematic selections from Series A and B A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2017 The Dooyeweerd Centre for Christian Philosophy Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario CANADA L9K 1J4 All rights reserved. For information contact: PAIDEIA PRESS Grand Rapids, MI 49507 www.reformationalpublishingproject.com Printed in the United States of America Time, Law, and History Herman Dooyeweerd SELECTED ESSAYS All articles in this volume are translated by Daniël Strauss Edited by Harry Van Dyke, Roy Clouser and David Hanson General Editor Daniël Strauss Foreword From a systematic and genetic point of view this Volume of Se- lected Essays is exceptional in various respects. The problem of time dealt with in the first part of this Volume could be seen as the fourth Volume of his magnum opus, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (1935-1936 – see page 1, footnote 1). After a penetrat- ing assessment of the diverse conceptions of time found in the history of philosophy and the special sciences, Dooyeweerd explains his own unique understanding of “cosmic time”. While traditional conceptions of time by and large defined one aspect of time only, Dooyeweerd’s view acknowledges the fact that cosmic time comes to expression within each modal aspect in accordance with the nature of the aspect concerned. Accord- ing to Dooyeweerd there is a strict correlation between the law-side and factual side of cosmic time – evinced in the differ- ence between time-order and time duration. The time-order in the first three aspects is reversible, but in the physical and post-physical aspects it is irreversible. Succession reflects the numerical time-order and should be distinguished from the (irreversible physical) relation of cause and effect (causality). There is a succession of day and night and night and day, but neither is the day the cause of the night, nor the night of the day. The article on legal principles shows elements of the intellec- tual development of Dooyeweerd’s thought – even that at this stage he contemplated distinguishing between the kinematic and physical aspects. Of importance is also his reflections on the element of positivity in the structure of the post-historical norm-spheres. The scope and depth of this article stretches be- yond merely looking at jural principles, for it addresses key el- ements of Dooyeweerd’s developing social philosophy as well. In his discussion of Michael Wilhelm Scheltema‘s disserta- (i) tion, Beschouwingen over de vooronderstellingen van ons denken over Recht en Staat (1948), Dooyeweerd is mainly interested in the problems generated by historicism. It is followed by an equally penetrating investigation of Aristotle‘s concept of jus- tice, this time in the form of a review article devoted to a study by Peter Trude, Der Begriff der Gerechtigkeit in der aristotelischen Rechts- und Staatsphilosophie, that started as a dissertation pre- pared under the supervision of Ernst von Hippel and pub- lished in 1955 in the series Neue Kölner Rechtswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Dooyeweerd positions his discussion against the background of a general characterization of Greek philoso- phy. In the next article Dooyeweerd engages in a discussion of a problem that is very much alive today, namely “The Debate about the Concept of Sovereignty.” Of particular importance for a proper understanding of the idea of a just state (Rechts- staat) is the way in which he compares the traditional concept of sovereignty with the theory of sphere-sovereignty. These issues are continued in his reflection on the “Relation- ship between Individual and Community in the Roman and Germanic Conceptions of Property,” positioned in the context of the prevailing contrast between the Roman and the Ger- manic conception of property. Some of the initial sections of this article enter into a most insightful exposition of the nature and differences between the spheres of public law, civil (pri- vate) law and non-civil private law (see pages 345-350). The culmination-point of everything discussed in this work up to this point is indeed found in the last article on “Law and History.” It takes the criticism on historicism to a new level, particularly because it brings the basic distinctions of his phi- losophy to bear upon the inherent problems of historicism – and then he contrasts this with a novel understanding of the process of disclosure in cultural development and legal life. Daniël Strauss 20-04-2017 (ii) Table of Contents I My Philosophy of Time Part A The Problem of Time and Its Antinomies on the Immanence Standpoint 1. Dependence of the insight into the problem of time upon the Archimedean point of a thinker ............. 1 2. The basic antinomy of immanence philosophy. The temporality of the logical thought-structure .........2 3. Time structure (the horizon of time) and temporal duration .......................... 3 4. The subject-object relation in time duration ............5 5. The immanence standpoint fails to appreciate this time structure ............................. 6 6. The expression of cosmic time within the structure of the modalities ........................... 8 7. The temporal structure of the modality of logical analysis ............................ 8 8. The urge towards the Origin of all temporality .........14 9. The inner antinomies of the Eleatic concept of being in connection with a denial of the temporal structure of space. Spatial simultaneity ................... 15 10. Eternity, time and aevum ...................... 19 11. The meaning of the aevum in the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea ........................... 22 12. The horizon of time on the immanence standpoint .......23 13. Once again the distinction between time as structural order and time as subjective duration.........25 14. The subject-object relation in the order of time in its inter-modal and modal structure................ 26 15. Subjectivistic and objectivistic time conceptions .........27 16. The influence of a modal basic denominator for the diversity upon the conception of time .............. 27 17. The uncritical character of theoretically dissolving human self-consciousness in time ................. 28 18. The dialectical nature of the time problem on the immanence standpoint. The dialectics of reason and decision making .................... 28 19. Kant's conception of time is entirely contained within the boundaries of his “Vernunftdialektik”.........29 (iii) 20. The dialectical tension between science ideal and personality ideal in the humanistic philosophy of time .....29 21. The influence of the new substance concept on the humanistic conception of time ................... 30 22. Two fundamental questions in respect of Descartes' concept of space and motion.............. 33 23. After-effect of the Aristotelian-Scholastic theory of material extension .................... 34 24. The localization and contact theory of Thomas Aquinas ....36 25. The form-matter scheme as violating the sphere- sovereignty of the modal aspect of space ............. 36 26. The Cartesian compromise between the humanistic science ideal and the Scholastic concept of space ........37 27. The Aristotelian-Thomistic view of time. Its objectivistic and rationalistic character ..................... 39 28. The Cartesian view of time. The rationalistic distinction between time and duration .............. 40 29. The principle of relativity in Descartes' mechanics .......42 30. The general theory of relativity in the light of the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea.................. 42 31. Why Descartes' conception of relativity had to remain fruitless in a scientific sense ................ 45 32. More's conception of time ..................... 45 Part B The Problem of Time in the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea 1. The experience of time and the limits of a concept and a definition of time in theoretical knowledge ........47 2. The two basic structures of temporal reality ...........49 3. The modal aspects of time and their cosmic continuity .....50 4. The customary opposition of time and space and the ge- neral theory of relativity. Is the opposition between time and time-measurement logically sound? ..........51 5. The connection between the standard opposition between time and space and the metaphysical substance concept. All “definitions” of time are essentially definitions of modal time aspects...........52 6. Within each one of the modal aspects time expresses a peculiar meaning .......................... 53 7. The necessity of abstracting from the cosmic continuity of time in the theoretical attitude of thought. The difference with the naive attitude .........61 8. Cosmic time and the problem regarding