Dirk Hendrik Theodoor Vollenhoven ( 1892 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). Events January-June January 1 - Ellis Island begins accepting immigrants to the United States. January 14 - Death of Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, second in line heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain... 1892- Events January January 1 - The Copyright Act of 1976 takes effect, making sweeping changes to United States copyright law. January 1 - Air Indias Boeing 747 explodes near Bombay - 213 dead. January 4 - Referendum in Chile supports policies of Augusto Pinochet. January 7 - Emilio Palma is born in Antarctica, making... 1978) was with Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) was a Dutch legal scholar by training, who by vocation was a philosopher, and the founder of a new approach called, the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea. Dooyeweerd attempts to provide a philosophy which accounts for not only the differences between one thing and another, but... Herman Dooyeweerd the first generation of reformational philosophers, an intellectual movement with which Vollenhoven worked communally from his election in 1936 as President of the newly-organized group formed to advance the movement; the organization is now known as the Association for Reformational philosophy.

(Outside formal settings Vollenhoven always preferred to be addressed simply as "Theo," pronounced in his native Dutch with only a "t" sound, but spelled "Th" in deference to the Theta-sound in the Greek origins of the name.)

Pastor

After Vollenhoven's marriage, he became a pastor in the Gereformeerde Kerk in Oostkappelle from 1918 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). Events January-February January 8 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his Fourteen Points for the aftermath of World War I. January 24 - a decree of the Council of Peoples Commissars, introducing the Gregorian calendar in Russia since February... 1918. In 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). Events January 2 - The first religious radio broadcast ( KDKA AM in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) January 2 - Spanish liner Santa Isabel sinks off Villa Garcia - 244 dead January 2 - DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park San Francisco opens. January 20... 1921 he moved pastorates to Den Haag ( This article is about the city in the Netherlands; there is also a region known as (the) Hague in France. Arms of The Hague Flag of The city of The Hague. The Hague (Dutch: Den Haag, or officially s-Gravenhage) is the administrative capital of the Netherlands, located in the... The Hague) which afforded Vollenhoven and his friend Herman Dooyeweerd opportunities for discussions. These discussions formed the foundation of what became known as Reformational philosophy.

Doctorate and the Free University

While pastoring his congregation in Den Haag, Vollenhoven was appointed the first full-time Professor of Philosophy at the The Vrije Universiteit is a university in Amsterdam, The Netherlands The Vrije Universiteit should not be confused with the University of Amsterdam. The name is often abbrevated as VU. It is the university of the Vereniging voor Christelijk Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs (Association for Christian Scientific Education). The association was founded in... Free University of Amsterdam – partly because his academic background was strong in Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. Start the CLASSICS article If you have created this page in the past few minutes and it has not yet appeared, it may not be visible due to a delay in updating the database. Please wait and check again... classics, Philosophy (from the Greek words philos and sophia meaning love of wisdom) is understood in different ways historically and by different philosophers. It, therefore, requires a meta-philosophy to adjudicate. Although it can be conceded that philosophy aims at some kind of understanding, knowledge or wisdom about fundamental matters such... philosophy, and Theology is literally rational discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, rational discourse). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics. History of the term The term theologia is used in Classical Greek literature, with the meaning... theology and partly in consideration of his interdisciplinary A doctorate is an academic degree of the highest level. Traditionally, the award of a doctorate implies recognition of the candidate as an equal by the university faculty under which he or she has studied. There are essentially three types of doctorates: research, first-professional (USA only), and honorary. Research... doctoral This article is about the thesis in dialectics and academia. For the 1996 Spanish film Thesis, see Thesis (film). A thesis (literally: position from the Greek θέσις) is an intellectual proposition. In dialectics, its combination with an antithesis produces a synthesis. An academic thesis is a... dissertation in theology and the philosophical foundations of Mathematics is commonly defined as the study of patterns of structure, change, and space; more informally, one might say it is the study of figures and numbers. Mathematical knowledge is constantly growing, through research and application, but mathematics itself is not usually considered a natural science. One reason is that... mathematics: 'Foundations of Mathematics: Theistic Standpoint' (not yet translated from the The word Dutch when used alone, has several possible meanings in the English language. Most, if not all, of these meanings are in reference to the European country the Netherlands, its people, or its culture. The term Dutch, when used by itself can refer to: The Dutch language (Nederlands in... Dutch). He successfully defended it in 1918. To prepare for it, Vollenhoven - whose undergraduate and Master's level studies were pursued at the Free University in Amersterdam (Vrije University te Amsterdam or "VU") - turned to VU's larger rival, the From Athenaeum Illustre to University In January 1632 two internationally acclaimed scientists, Caspar Barlaeus and Gerardus Vossius, held their inaugural speech in the Athenaeum Illustre - the illustrious school - which had its seat in the 14th-century Agnietenkapel. This school is commonly regarded as the predecessor of the University of Amsterdam... University of Amsterdam (UA) in order to study under its Professor of Mathematics, Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (February 27, 1881 - December 2, 1966), usually cited as L. E. J. Brouwer, was a Dutch mathematician, a graduate of the University of Amsterdam, who worked in topology, set theory, and measure theory and complex analysis. The Brouwer fixed point theorem is named in his honor... Dr Lutgen Brouwer, an In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach to mathematics as the constructive mental activity of humans. Any mathematical object is considered to be a product of a construction of a mind, and therefore, the existence of an object is equivalent to the possibility... Intuitionist in mathematics and a Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. Marx drew on Georg Hegels philosophy, the political economy of Adam Smith, Ricardian economics, and 19th century French socialism to develop... Marxist in other respects. Vollenhoven in his dissertation criticized Brouwer's version of Intuitionism, but retained and revised the definition of the term "Intuitionist" for his own emerging position,¹ which would become a component of Vollenhoven's This article or section should include material from Episteme Epistemology (from the Greek words episteme=science and logos=word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. Definition of knowledge Justified true belief Platos Theaetetus. defined knowledge as justified true belief... epistemology. Once inaugurated into the chair of Philosophy at the Free University, Vollenhoven shouldered the responsiblities of his task from the time of his appointment, being a relatively young scholar, to the time of his retirement in ripe old age.

Christian philosophy

Vollenhoven was one of the leading intellectuals at the Free University and in the broader The Reformed churches are a group of Protestant denominations historically related by a similar Zwinglian or Calvinist system of doctrine but organizationally independent. Each of the nations in which the Reformed movement was established had originally its own church government. Several of these local churches have expanded to worldwide denominations... Reformed community of his country, who were dedicated to work formatively at the task of founding a distinctively Christian Philosophy. At the time, philosophical thought was dominated by German neo-Kantianism, and that movement's main challenger, the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (April 8, 1859 - April 26, 1938), philosopher, was born into a Jewish family in Prossnitz, Moravia (Prostejov, Czech Republic), Empire of Austria-Hungary. He is known as the father of phenomenology. He was a pupil of Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. Among others, he... Edmund Husserl. An affinity for mathematics linked some of Husserl's and Vollenhoven's ideas. Vollenhoven also absorbed significant influence from the maverick Neo-Kantianism means a revived or modified type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. It has some more specific reference in later German philosophy. There are two notable groupings: the Baden School of Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert and Emil Lask... neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer (July 28, 1874 - April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. He became a doctor of philosophy at University of Marburg in 1899 where he studied with Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, thus being widely considered a neo-Kantian although he later developed his own philosophy of culture. As... Ernst Cassirer.²

Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd

The main influences on Vollenhoven's thought were the VU's founder Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch, Calvinist theologian, scholar, and statesman. He was a professor of theology and also a major force behind the start of the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) in Amsterdam. He was the founder of two newspapers, De Standaard (The Standard) and De Heraut (The Herald... Abraham Kuyper and leading theologian Herman Bavinck who both taught a theistic realism, along with a number of other VU professors and outside sources - Anema taught a transcendental realism, Wilhelm Geesink introduced Vollenhoven to the critical philosophy of Kant, Jan Woltjer taught him Classical languages and the literature and philosophy those languages carried, Woltjer also brought Vollenhoven into awareness of the modern natural-scientific theories of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (July 18, 1853, Arnhem – February 4, 1928, Haarlem) was a Dutch physicist and the winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on electromagnetic radiation. Lorentz attended primary school in Arnhem until he was 13 years of age when he entered the new... Lorentz, Johannes Diderik van der Waals, a 1910 Nobel Prize winner, was responsible for a number of advances in physical chemistry which are named after him. See: Van der Waals bonding Van der Waals force Van der Waals equation Van der Waals radius This is a disambiguation page — a navigational... Van der Waals, and For other topics related to Einstein see Einstein (disambiguation). Portrait of Albert Einstein taken by Yousuf Karsh on February 11, 1948 Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory... Einstein. The professor of medical thought L. Bouman raised the questions of body and soul, and the lector F.J.J. Buytendijk the questions of the psychic aspect of human and animal life. Both Vollenhoven and the two-years-younger Herman Dooyeweerd had been educated at the Gereformeerd Gymnasium (an academic highschool in Amsterdam) and both studied straight through the VU curriculum to achieve their doctorates, with the younger Dooyeweerd always two years behind. ³

Vollenhoven first met Hermina Maria ('Mein') Dooyeweerd, a secretary, a year after he became a VU student in 1911; Mein typed a report for Vollenhoven on a summer evangelization project in Amsterdam during 1912. Once aware of Mein, Vollenhoven also became better acquainted with her younger brother Herman. Theo and Mein married in 1918; and fourteen days after, September 27, Vollenhoven obtained his doctoral degree; his dissertation supervisor and "promoter" (as the Dutch say) was Prof Geesink.

Thus the two emerging philosophers became more than friends but also brothers-in-law, while later they also became colleagues as professors at VU. For a while in Den Haag, Vollenhoven was also Dooyeweerd's pastor. In 1926, Vollenhoven received appointment as professor of philosophy at VU, the first full-time appointment in the discipline. By 1933, he served as VU's first University Dean, a rotating position, and published Calvinism and the Reformation of Philosophy (not translated, Het Calvinisme en het Reformatie van de Wijsbegeerte). Two years later Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) was a Dutch legal scholar by training, who by vocation was a philosopher, and the founder of a new approach called, the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea. Dooyeweerd attempts to provide a philosophy which accounts for not only the differences between one thing and another, but... Herman Dooyeweerd published a first full-dress statement of their philosophy, although by no means did they agree on everything.[3] The two-volume work was entitled Der Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (The Philosophy of the Law-Idea, often abbreviated "WdW"). Both scholars surged forward as a team to lead the intellectual movement that crystallised around it.

As a result of the interest that the WdW generated, together Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd founded the The Association for Reformational Philosophy was once called the Association for Calvinist Philosophy. Incorporated in the Netherlands where the majority of its members are still located, the official Dutch names involved in the change are respectively that from Veregining voor Calvinistsche Wijsbegeerte to the Veregining voor Reformatorische Wijsbegeerte (VRW). The... Association for Calvinist Philosophy (ACP)(Vereningen voor Calvinistsche Wijsbegeerte), which soon counted some 500 members. Vollenhoven was the first president of the association, and remained in that office for many years.

Vollenhoven played a very large role in all the development of the ACP, and mentored most of the philosophers who emerged from this intellectual movement for much of the time, while Dooyeweerd mentored students in the specialty of jurisprudence.

Problem-Historical Method

As professor of philosophy at VU, Vollenhoven discovered that a systematic approach alone would not be sufficient for the formation of the kind of upcoming PhDs that he envisioned as graduating under his mentorship. He determined that systematics in the case of philosophy required a close historical reading of the entire common tradition of Western philosophy is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in Ancient Greece, and including the predominant philosophical thinking of Europe and its former colonies up to the present day. The concept of philosophy itself originated in the West, derived from the ancient Greek word philosophia (φιλο... Western philosophy, from the early The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Greeks onward. Vollenhoven was well equipped by his classical studies for this pursuit of an adequate Historiography is writing about rather than of history. Historiography is meta-analysis of descriptions of the past. The analysis usually focuses on the narrative, interpretations, worldview, use of evidence, or method of presentation of other historians. Historians definition of historiography Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris define historiography as the... historiographical backup for a systematic philosophy which would prove meaningfully and distinctively Christian. So, he started from scratch and worked methodically, employing the tools that he had garnered from the Problem-Historical Method with which the neo-Kantians and others associated themelves in European philosophy. As Vollenhoven attempted to learn from the best articulations and uses of the method, while pursuing the early moments of his reading of the Greek philosophical fragments, he soon came to revise and advance the method itself.

As his horizon grew in those early years of professorship, Vollenhoven envisioned writing nothing less than a historiography of Western Philosophy. He sketched out ideas for a ten-volume work, actually produced the first volume covering the fragments of the Pre-Socratics which was published as the first volume of Gescheidenis der Wijsbegeerte Deeel (History of Philosophy). This was to be the proof to the academic community and the government that he was competent to undertake the ambitious programme of a full ten-volume work, as he envisioned. He would need grants to secure the best sources, to employ research assistants and to maintain a working office for the project - while all along he intended to pursue a full teaching load of course offerings for undergraduate philosophy majors and graduate students in philosophy.

However, by the time his first volume appeared in Events January January 5 - US Senator Estes Kefauver introduces a resolution calling for examination of organized crime in the USA January 6 - The United Kingdom recognizes the Peoples Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with Britain in response. January 9 - The Israeli government recognizes the... 1950, his method was so innovative and unfamiliar that the editors, reviewers, and most of all the fellow academics in the field who sat on the committee to approve the government grants for "pure research" reacted negatively to his offering. Recovering from this keen disappointment⁴, Vollenhoven was nevertheless able to use his first volume as a textbook at VU; and an American student of his, H. Evan Runner, later created an English translation in mimeo form to use as course syllabus at Calvin College logo Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Founded in 1876, Calvin College is an educational institution of the Christian Reformed Church and stands in the Reformed tradition of historic Christianity. In 2003, student body of Calvin was around 4,300 students... Calvin College. There were also the better parts of two further volumes extant and a pile of notes for the later volumes, but at this point, Vollenhoven changed direction.

Critical Problem-Historical Method

Prof. Vollenhoven started work on what became the Schematic Charts⁵ for the history of Western Philosophy according to what he now began calling his Consequent Problem-Historical Method to distinguish it from other methods with less rigour and less sense of the scope of problems to be explored and connections to be clarified. The Schematisch Kaarten (Schematic Charts) finally appeared in Dutch long after Vollenhoven's retirement and death in 1978, posthumously in 2000. This was due to the devoted work of Dr Kor Bril who did the lion's share of the editorial work and devised the celebrated visual display that makes the work so effective as a reference source on every philosopher's desktop, assisted by (now Dr) P. Boonstra. This belated publication, still in Dutch only, constitutes a veritable revolution in our knowledge of the 16,000 philosophers whose views it classifies and briefly charactrises, based on close empirical attention to the fragments and the works the thinkers offered, each in his or her day.

Vollenhoven's successor and students

The Netherlands

Vollenhoven's successor as historian of philosophy at the VU was Jacob Klapwijk. Dr. Klapwijk picked up many of the loose ends in Vollenhoven's prodigious work, especially those around a central distinction within the new philosophy - namely, the problem that can be approached in terms of an antithesis/common-grace distinction with its theological overcast, and the problem of radicality/normalcy within the history of Western philosophy, which leads to an inquiry regarding reformational philosophy's place within its broader context, synchronically and diachronically. In Vollenhoven, these questions were often reduced to the label of "synthetist thought", the presumed synthesis of a pure Christian ideational system, problem by problem, with the contaminants of a purely antithetical pagan, atheist, or humanist position. Klapwijk took up a careful attention to Vollenhoven's blind spots on these important issues, making the larger burden of Vollenhoven more accessible. As additional professors were added to the Faculty of Philosophy over the years at VU, a line of thinkers using V's Method continued to develop, so that not only did Chairs in the Faculty grow in number, but Chairs devoted to the history of philosophy increased in number and specialization. In the Chair devoted to the Presocratics and Classical Greek philosophers, Dr Abraham Bos has become world renown for his re-writing the book on Aristotle (sculpture) Aristotle ( Greek: Αριστοτέλης Aristotelēs) ( 384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher. Along with Plato, he is often considered to be one of the two most influential philosophers in Western thought. He... Aristotle, principally by exhuming the popular philosophical writings by which Aristotle continued to be known after his philosophical works disappeared for a few centuries. The works of Aristotle which were quoted, sometimes at length, by Cicero and many others, have been exhumed by Bos and subjected to philosophical analysis and evaluation. This development stresses the importance of the addressee of a given work by a philosopher, not least of all Aristotle. Such a consideration berings literary, rhetorical, stylistic, and genre issues into the proper concerns of philosophy proper.

Two scholars of immigrant families to Canada studied who had studied under Evan Runner at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan) journeyed back their country of birth to the Free University to study philosophy under Vollenhoven, and while writing their dissertations received employent in the Center for Historical Documentation at VU. They are again Netherlanders, returned former emigrants. They continued to work in the Documentation Center, using it as a base to further knowledge of V's Consequent Problem-Historical Method. Dr Anthony Tol is one; he had an avenue of interest based in V's attention to mathematics, as well as V's overall work at developing his Method for the entire history of Western philosohy. Dr Kor Bril is the other; in addition to his work in the Center's Archives, Bril more than any other over twenty years brought to fruition the publication of Vollenhoven's Schematic Charts (later, Dr P. J. Boonstra also helped in this project). Dordt College Press which is seeing several titles of Vollenhovian scholarship through to publication in the Spring of 2005.

South Africa

Three South Africans who studied under Vollenhoven must be named as well, Dr D. F. M. Strauss who is the world's leading expert on this philosophy's modal-scale theory; Dr Elaine Botha, known for her philosophy of metaphor; Dr Bennie van der Walt, an outstanding activist-scholar who headed the Centre for Reformational Studies at the University of Potchestroom (now North-West University), and pushed along that university's adaptation to the post-apartheid opportunities for Christian higher education in Africa. Dr Ponti Venter is a law scholar at the main campus in Potchefstroom of North-West University, who teaches in the midst of dynamic changes throughout South Africa's legal system.

North America

The first person among the newer genetion to note for his use of Vollenhoven's consequent problem-historical method (CPHM) in the United States is John VanderStelt who had studied theology under G. C. Berkouwer at VU, but had attended V's lectures and read the philosopher's books, much of them available for years in mimeo editions in Dutch. With Berkouwer's retirement, VanderStelt who was already teaching philosophy at Dordt is a private, Christian, liberal arts college located in Sioux Center, Iowa. The school was founded in 1955 by Dutch Calvinists. It is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) and has an enrollment of about 1400 students. External link College website Categories: Universities and colleges... Dordt College (Sioux Center, Iowa), decided to write his dissertation using V's method in an inter-disciplinary way and geared to his American mileux. The dissertation for the The University of South Africa is a distance education university, with headquarters in Pretoria, South Africa. With approximately 130,000 enrolled, it qualifies it as one of the Worlds mega universities. Founded in 1873 as the University of the Cape of Good Hope, the University of South Africa (or... University of South Africa (since Berkouwer in the meantime had retired and his successor was unfamiliar with VanderStelt's thematic) was enititled Philosophy and Scripture. A Study in Old Princeton and Westminister Theology (1978); the volume was part of the author's personal process of intellectual indigenization, as well as an important scholarly contribution.

In the North American situation, the two main exponents today of Vollenhoven's consequent problem-historical method (CPHM) are Dr John Kok of Dordt is a private, Christian, liberal arts college located in Sioux Center, Iowa. The school was founded in 1955 by Dutch Calvinists. It is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) and has an enrollment of about 1400 students. External link College website Categories: Universities and colleges... Dordt College, who wrote his dissertation on Vollenhoven's early development; and Dr Robert Sweetman ( Institute for Christian Studies is the name of several schools. The Institute for Christian Studiesin Toronto, Canada is a school founded in 1967 and affliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America. It is also the former name for Austin Graduate School of Theology. The name was changed in... ICS, Toronto), who holds the Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy, who is a Medieval philosophy specialist, and who brings an incipient theory of discourse to a gap in the archtectonics of this school of historical-philosophical thought. Sweetman stresses that beyond the Schematic Charts, there is the task and opportunity of writing historical narrative, a matter which becomes a problem of concern in itself. Philosophy and its history are always written in genres, styles, and in historical narratives of philosophy, in which considerations of voice, plot, characters, and metaphory all come into play in the realisation of the narrative structure. The story of the slow but steady diffusion in North America of Vollenhoven's influence, along with Dooyeweerd's, remains to be told. The issue of translation of the Schematic Charts and other works of Vollenhoven into English and Spanish in particular, remains a priority task.

Footnotes

1. Post by Jan de Koning (http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199704/0004.html) from the discussion list at the American Scientific Affiliation on his experience with Vollenhoven.
2. Biography of Ernst Cassirer (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cassir.htm)
3. J. Stellingwerff Vollenhoven's biographer,  (http://home.wxs.nl/~srw/nwe/vollenhoven/stelling.html/)
4. "Report of Divergences I" (http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Divergentierapport.html) by Vollenhoven.
5. Schematic Charts (http://home.wxs.nl/~srw/nwe/teksten/teks.html)

References

• John H.Kok. 1992. Vollenhoven: His Early Development, Dordt College Press: Dordt.
• Anthony Tol. 1978. In memoriam: Dirk Hendrik Theodoor Vollenhoven. Philosophia Reformata 43: 93-100.
• Al Wolters. 1979. On Vollenhoven's problem-historical method. In Hearing and Doing: Philosophical Essays Dedicated to H. Evan Runner. John Kraay and Anthony Tol (eds). Wedge: Toronto.

External links

• Vollenhoven studies (http://www.members.shaw.ca/jgfriesen/Notes/VollenhovenNotes.html)
• Vollenhoven resources (http://www.freewebs.com/reformational/vollenhoven.htm/)
• Vollenhoven's History of the Presocratic Philosophers translated by H. Evan Runner  (http://www.freewebs.com/presocratics/)