Linked Glossary

I have transferred the Linked Glossary to this website. This involves transferring hundreds of subfiles. I would appreciate being alerted to any broken links. This Linked Glossary was created when I translated the excerpts from Herman Dooyeweerd’s De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (Philosophy of the Law-Idea) [‘WdW’]. I was surprised to see that many essential terms of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy were not included or indexed in Volume 4 of A New Critique of Theoretical Thought [NC], which is a translation and revision of the WdW. I was also surprised how many of these terms are defined in terms of each other, and are used in ways that the translators had not understood. Nor had the terms been translated in a consistent way, which is not surprising, since different translators were used for each volume of the NC. By linking these definitions in a glossary, I was able to understand Dooyeweerd’s philosophy in a unified way, and in a way that I believe honours his original intent. It also allowed me to connect his ideas to the sources that he used for his philosophy.

Nabokov’s advice

If I had known in 1970 what I know now of reformational philosophy, it is very, very doubtful that I would have pursued it. I was unaware of the bad blood, political infighting at the Free University of Amsterdam, and its atmosphere of theological narrowness. And, like everyone else, I wrongly assumed that Vollenhoven and Dooyeweerd were saying the same thing. Nevertheless, I am not sorry that I have spent such a large part of my life studying Dooyeweerd, learning Dutch, and studying at various institutions. I am comforted by what Nabokov told his students:

“The more things we know the better equipped we are to understand any one thing and it is a burning pity that our lives are not long enough and sufficiently free of annoying obstacles, to study all things with the same care and depth as the one we now devote to some favorite subject or period. And yet there is a semblance of consolation within this dismal state of affairs: in the same way as the whole universe may be completely reciprocated in the structure of an atom,…an intelligent and assiduous student [may] find a small replica of all knowledge in a subject he has chosen for his special research….and if, upon choosing your subject, you try diligently to find out abut it, if you allow yourself to be lured into the shaded lanes that lead from the main road you have chosen to the lovely and little known nooks of special knowledge, if you lovingly finger the links of the many chains that connect your subject to the past and the future and if by luck you hit upon some scrap of knowledge referring to your subject that has not yet become common knowledge, then you will know the true felicity of the great adventure of learning, and your years in this college will become a valuable start on a road of inestimable happiness. “

I have indeed found many interesting byways and branching paths. By concentrating so much of my work on Dooyeweerd, perhaps I have found a small replica of all knowledge. I have discovered the sources of his philosophy in Christian theosophy, and I have been able to relate many of his ideas to nondualism. I hope that my work will be of help to others.

Sophia, Androgyny and the Feminine in Franz Von Baader’s Christian Theosophy

My article “Sophia, Androgyny and the Feminine in Franz von Baader’s Christian Theosophy” has been published in “Adyan/Religions”, a bilingual Arabic/English journal based in Doha, in its issue devoted to the topic “Women and the Feminine in World Religions.”
Baader’s view of humanity’s original androgyny is a good counterweight to the early church’s wrongheaded emphasis on asceticism and denial of female sexuality.  Baader’s “40 Propositions Taken from a Religious Philosophy of Love” celebrates the ecstasy of sex and provides the basis for a positive appreciation of marriage. His views on the inner feminine and masculine also anticipate C.G. Jung by almost a century. But of course Jung read Baader.
The Reformed theologian J.H. Gunning, Jr. adopted Baader’s views, and regarded Jesus as having been androgynous. Abraham Kuyper followed many ideas of Gunning and Baader, but disagreed on this point. Dooyeweerd was silent on this and most other theological issues.

 

Designing this website

Website design has been greatly simplified since I designed my first website in 2002, using Dreamweaver, which was one of the first WYSIWYG editors. I am impressed with the capabilities of WordPress and I recommend it for those wanting to start their own websites. The image of the ocean that I have used in the header has many associations for me. It is from my own photo collection from the north coast of Kauai. There is a wild beauty in this image of the ocean that reminds me of romantic paintings of nature by artists like Caspar David Friedrich. Any philosopher that takes nondualism seriously must integrate nature into his or her ideas and worldview. Conversely, any ascetic turning away from nature and the world is inherently dualistic. We are said to have our beginnings in the sea, and the sea is also used in many metaphors of unity of our self and God (although I believe that our individuality remains). Finally, just as there are dangers navigating in rough seas, so there are risks to philosophical self-enquiry. I hope that my writings have identified some of the shoals and reefs that we may encounter, and that even if what Karl Jaspers referred to as philosophical shipwreck is necessary if we are to overcome our previously limited ideas, we may have the hope of ultimate transcendence. Here is another image from nature in Kauai that I have used on the cover of one of my books: a rainbow eucalyptus tree displaying a prism of colour that reminds me of the prism of our many modes of consciousness that arise from the unity of our selfhood.

Christian Nondualism

Christian Nondualism is a mysticism that does not try to escape from the world. Instead, it seeks to fully experience the world, in both a theoretical and a pre-theoretical way, from out of our nondual center or heart. It seeks a nondual perspective for understanding the nature of our selfhood, of our relation to God, of our relation to others, and our relation to the world. In my books and on this blog, I compare this with other traditions, both eastern and western, and to understand what the specific dualisms are that each tradition seeks to overcome, such as the dualism between body and soul.  Click on the menu above for details on my books and for access to published papers on these and other topics.