Transcendental Pragmatism

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See also: Religious Ground Motives Behind Human Thought

Bibliographic Guidance

Matthew McNatt:

"One way to think of Dooyeweerd is as a transcendental pragmatist, who explored not (as Kant did) what beliefs we must hold in order to make sense of our recurrent encounters with what we cannot deny but, rather:

1. Ways in which all of us are already acting to make sense of our world(s),

2. Conditions under which each way of acting stop reliably working,

3. Ways that new ways of acting (have) thereby emerge(d), and

4. Ways that these later ways of acting—including those through which we develop distinctive ground motives—(have) then spill(ed) back into and, inevitably, continue(d) to shape what any of us do when our actions are "led" by prior ways of acting.

These ways of acting, for Doyeweerd, were and are always meaningful, and they constitute how each of us—as thoroughly interdependent creatures—carry forward in the world. It is not that primarily, we consciously "make meaning" of things (though of course we come to do so), but rather that from our earliest moments we are already enmeshed in a network of meaning, of which our activity is a part. "Meaning is the being of all that is created," he wrote, "and even of our selfhood and the nature even of our selfhood." Dooyeweerd saw rationalism—and, especially dualism—as an idol that had displaced, in the hearts of too many Christians, a sense of responsiveness to and participation in and with the Divine already at work in the world. In logic and mathematics, Dooyeweerd's project is related to Brouwer's intuitionism, which was carried forward by Arend Heyting's (and, independently, Andrey Kolmogorov's) intuitionist logic and, later, carried forward by Martin-Löf type theory.

If you're interested in exploring Dooyeweerd further, the gateway I recommend is not actually by a scholar of Dooyeweerd but by a more contemporary philosopher whose work I also consider "transcendental pragmatist": Eugene (Gene) T. Gendlin. Rob Parker has provided a very helpful introduction to Gendlin's Philosophy of the Implicit (which Gendlin laid out in "A Process Model") here: http://www.lifeforward.org/id2.html. Dr. Parker also acts as sherpa for "deep dives" into Gendlin's "A Process Model." I participated in one for over three years and benefited immensely.

Once you can "think with" a transcendental pragmatist mindset, the resources that Dr. J. Glenn Friesen recommends for exploring Dooyeweerd are a great launching pad: https://jgfriesen.wordpress.com/herman-dooyeweerd/

You can also dialogue with others interested in Gendlin and Dooyweerd at Nondual Spirituality and Gendlin's Focusing Approach and Reformational Philosophy, respectively."