Willem van Aelst (1627–after 1682)
Introduction to a Transcendental Criticism of Philosophic Thought
Introduction to a Transcendental Criticism of Philosophic Thought
by Herman Dooyeweerd
Evangelical Quarterly XIX (1) Jan 1947
"Let us now compare the theoretic attitude with the pre-theoretic attitude of common experience. The latter is characterised by an absolute lack of all antithetic relation. In the attitude of common experience we find ourselves completely within empirical reality with all the functions of our consciousness. There is no distance, no opposition between the logical aspect of our thought and the non-logical aspects of reality. But if there is an absolute lack of the antithetic relation, naïve [ie common] experience is none the less characterised by another relation, namely the relation of the subject to the object of our experience. Current philosophy has very erroneously confounded this relation with the antithetic relation of theoretical thought. It is precisely the opposite.
"In naïve experience we attribute without hesitation objective qualities – sensory, logical, cultural, social, aesthetic, even moral – to the objects of our common life. We know very well that they cannot function as subjects which feel, distinguish logically, live together in a society, or make value-judgments. We know perfectly that these objective qualities belong to them only with reference to the subjective functions of some possible consciousness. We experience this relation of subject and object as a structural relation of reality itself. That is to say, sensory colour belongs to the rose only with reference to a possible sensory perception, not to my individual perception or yours. To sum up: the subject-object relation leaves reality intact, together. The antithetic relation on the contrary is the product of an analysis, an abstraction."
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See J Glenn Friesen's
Dooyeweerd Glossary
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