 |
| ABC Dooyeweerd 3: Inquietum Acknowledgement: Portrait by Alan Wilson (after Rembrandt) |
Previous Next
For the reality of a thing is indeed dynamic; it is a continuous realization in the transcendental temporal direction.
The inner restlessness of meaning as the mode of being of created reality reveals itself in the whole temporal world. To seek a fixed point in the latter is to seek it in a "fata morgana", a mirage, a supposed thing-reality, lacking meaning as the mode of being which ever points beyond and above itself. There is indeed nothing in temporal reality in which our heart can rest, because this reality does not rest in itself.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Prolegomena, pp 11-12 and Vol 3 p109)
CONTEXT of QUOTE:
The restlessness of meaning in the tendency of philosophic thought towards the origin.
This restlessness manifests itself in the tendency of philosophic thought to move toward the origin. It is essentially the restlessness of our ego which is actually operative in philosophic thought. It issues from our own selfhood, from the root of our existence. This restlessness is transmitted from the selfhood to all temporal functions in which this ego is actually operative.
Inquietum est cor nostrum et mundus in corde nostro!
Our selfhood is actually operative in philosophic thought. As certainly as philosophic self-reflection is impossible apart from the direction towards the ego, so certainly does it require to be directed towards the ἀρχή (arché) of our selfhood and of the totality of meaning. The ego must participate in this totality, if genuine thinking in terms of totality is to be possible.
Philosophic thought as such derives its actuality from the ego. The latter restlessly seeks its origin in order to understand its own meaning, and in its own meaning the meaning of our entire cosmos!
It is this tendency towards the origin which discloses the fact, that our ego is subjected to a central law. This law derives its fulness of meaning from the origin of all things and limits and determines the centre and root of our existence.
Thus, a two-fold pre-supposition of philosophic thought is discovered at the outset. In the first place, philosophic thought pre-supposes an Archimedean point for the thinker, from which our ego in the philosophic activity of thought can direct its view of totality over the modal diversity of meaning. Secondly, it presupposes a choice of position in the Archimedean point in the face of the ἀρχή (arché), which transcends all meaning and in which our ego comes to rest in the process of philosophic thought. For, if the attempt is made to go beyond this ἀρχή (arché), the formulating of any question has no longer any meaning.
***
Reality as a continuous process of realizationFor the reality of a thing is indeed dynamic; it is a continuous realization in the transcendental temporal direction.
The inner restlessness of meaning as the mode of being of created reality reveals itself in the whole temporal world. To seek a fixed point in the latter is to seek it in a "fata morgana", a mirage, a supposed thing-reality, lacking meaning as the mode of being which ever points beyond and above itself. There is indeed nothing in temporal reality in which our heart can rest, because this reality does not rest in itself.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Prolegomena, pp 11-12 and Vol 3 p109)
