Part I: Prolegomena

Introduction:
The Necessary Presuppositions of Philosophic Thought
The Religious Apriori and
the Archimedean Point of Philosophy

[WdW p. 5. Study Notes]

Whenever I give an account of reality, the first thing that I notice is that in my naïve,
pre-theoretical attitude [of en-stasis], reality is originally given to me in an indissoluble
interrelation [systasis] of all of its various sides. Whenever I confront this naïve
experience with my theoretical or scientific attitude [of dis-stasis], reality appears to
split up into various sides. These sides or aspects of reality are first articulately
distinguished from each other by the theoretical attitude. But although I can distinguish
the aspects, they continue to be inter-related. A continuing mutual dependence binds the
numerical aspect to the spatial aspect, the spatial aspect with the kinetic aspect, the
kinetic aspect with the aspect of organic life, organic life to the aspect of psychical
feeling. Psychical feeling is connected with the analytical-logical aspect, which is
connected with the historical aspect, the linguistic aspect, the social aspect, the
economic aspect, the aesthetic aspect, the juridical aspect, the ethical aspect and the
aspect of faith. Nothing exists in and of itself in the temporal coherence of the world;
everything points within and beyond itself to all the others in their mutual coherence.

The coherence of all sides of the cosmos also expresses itself within each aspect of our
cosmos. And this coherence points beyond itself to a deeper totality which has
expressed itself in this coherence.[1]

Our selfhood, our "I-ness” expresses itself as a totality in the coherence of all its
functions in all aspects of cosmic reality. And man, whose I-ness is expressed in the
coherence of all his cosmic functions, was himself created by God as the expression of
His image. [2]

[WdW I, 6] Study Notes

Meaning as the mode of being of all creaturely being

This universal referring [heen-wijzende] and expressing [uitdrukkende] character of all

our created cosmos, stamps created reality as meaning, in accordance with its
dependent, non-self-sufficient way of being. Meaning is the being of all creaturely
being. It is also the mode of being of our selfhood. It has a religious root and is of divine
origin.

Now philosophy requires us to obtain a theoretical insight into the coherence of the
[temporal] world. This temporal coherence in turn points towards a meaning-coherence
that is a totality. We are fitted into this coherence of meaning with all our functions–
what are called the natural functions as well as what are called the spiritual functions.
Philosophy must direct the theoretical view of totality to our cosmos and within the
boundaries of its possibilities it must answer the question, “Wie alles sich zum Ganzen
webt.” [How everything moves towards totality].
The actual character of philosophic thought can never be misunderstood with impunity.
Philosophic thought is theoretical thought directed to the meaning-totality of our
cosmos.

These few introductory propositions already contain in themselves the whole

problematics of the possibility of a truly philosophical thought!

Philosophic thought is an actual activity. In a philosophic concept, we abstract from the

selfhood, the I-ness that is actually at work in this thinking. Such a reduced
[afgetrokken] concept is therefore made at the expense of the actuality of the activity of
philosophy.

Such an abstraction from the actual, complete I that thinks, may be necessary for a
conceptual delimitation of philosophic thought. But even in this conceptual
delimitation, the I-ness itself is actually doing the work. That I is not only actually at
work in its thinking, but in all the functions in which it expresses itself within our
temporal coherence. And there is no single meaning-side of our cosmos wherein I do
not actually function. I have an actual function in the meaning of number expressed as
unity, in space, in movement, in organic life, in psychical feeling, in logical thought, in
historic development, in language, in association with my fellow man, in economic
valuation, in aesthetic consideration or activity, in juridical life, in morality, in faith. In
this whole composition [samenstel] of cosmic meaning-functions I am actually at work,
in connection with other I’s.

[WdW I, 7] Study Notes

The direction of philosophic thought towards
meaning-totality implies critical self-reflection

Can philosophy, which in its theoretical actuality should be directed by the Idea of
meaning-totality, ever be possible without philosophic reflection on the self-hood?
Evidently not. A philosophy that in its philosophic thought does not arrive at
philosophic reflection on the selfhood must necessarily miss its direction towards the
meaning-totality of our cosmos. The Gnothi seauton, the “know thyself” must indeed be
written above the entranceway of philosophy.

But a great problem is hidden in just this philosophic demand for self-knowledge.

The I-ness that thinks philosophically, is certainly actually at work in this thought, but
the I-ness necessarily transcends the philosophical concept. But, as shall be seen, the
selfhood is the concentration point of all my cosmic functions. It is a subjective totality
that can not be comprehended in philosophic thought nor in any other function, nor in
the coherence of these functions. Rather it lies as the foundation of all of my functions
as their presupposition [voor-onderstelde]. But without conceptual delimitation we
cannot think at all; thus we cannot think in a philosophic way without conceptual
delimitation.

How then is philosophic self-knowledge possible, unless this self-knowledge transcends

the concept? [In for example Husserl’s phenomenology] there seems [at first sight] to be
a way out of this difficulty. [Husserl says that] one cannot meaningfully ask philosophic
thought to exceed its immanent boundaries in order to reach self-knowledge. Then, if it
is admitted that I am actually at work in philosophic thinking, then philosophic thought
must from the beginning concentrate on this I-ness, but only insofar as it reveals itself in
thought itself as a subjectivity that cannot be eliminated. This I-ness is then the residue
of a methodical elimination of all those moments in the concrete, temporally
functioning “individual self,” which I cannot make into a “Gegenstand” of my thought.

[WdW I, 8] Study Notes

The supposed reduction of the I-ness to
an immanent subjective pole of thought

[According to this rejected viewpoint] what then remains as subject is the so-called
“transcendental logical subject of thought,” that has nothing individual in itself anymore
and that is also not transcendent to thought, but rather an immanent subjective pole of
thought. The counter-pole to this pole of thought is then the whole of experienceable
reality.

The I-ness, which should arrive in philosophic self-reflection at a subjective turning

inwards, is [in this rejected viewpoint] dissolved into an immanent “pure” actuality of
thought [denk-actualiteit], which is then regarded as the necessary pre-requisite of all
theoretic thought. Philosophic self-reflection [on this rejected view] then consists of
nothing else than a reflexiveness of philosophical thought on its own actuality.

But in this experiment of thought [of Husserl’s], the ghost of the “blessed
Münchhausen” again appears. For what is called the 'transcendental logical subject of
thought,' in which the ego is actually active, is here again truly abstracted (while still
theoretically thinking) from our I-ness. In fact it is abstracted to the highest conceivable
level of abstraction, since it is the product of a methodical process of elimination, in
which the thinker supposes he is able to finally direct the thought-function entirely upon
itself.

[WdW I, 9] Study Notes

The transcendence of our selfhood above theoretical
thought. The so-called transcendental subject of thought is
as a theoretical abstraction and cannot be self-sufficient .

But this whole reduction of the thinking selfhood to a supposed “transcendental logical
subject” can only be carried out by the thinking of our I-ness. And this theoretical
thinking I-ness cannot itself be a product of abstractive thought. The “transcendental
logical subject” in the supposed sense of a supra-individual subjective pole of thought,
is finally nothing other than the bare concept of the subjective thinking subject that
presupposes the thinking I-ness.

Philosophic thought can really not isolate itself in its subjective actuality. For as mere
thought, as the so-called “reines Denken” [“pure thought”] it has no selfhood. All
actuality in the act of thinking comes from the I-ness that transcends thinking. The
“transcendental logical subject” remains an abstraction of the thinking I-ness. It is
therefore a meaning-less, internally contradictory abstraction, because the actual
thought-function can never be “an sich,” in itself. This is because without the
transcending I-ness, this thinking function is just not actual, or rather it has no
determined existence [aanzijn] at all.

Philosophic self-knowledge thus always supposes that our selfhood, which in its actual
activity of thinking transcends the boundaries of thinking, directs its temporal activity of
thinking to itself. It is not that philosophic thought reflexively turns inwards towards
thought itself, but rather that I am required, in the process of philosophic thought, to
turn inwards to my self. And this actual turning inwards in the act of thinking
necessarily transcends the boundaries of philosophic thought if it is really to arrive at
the desired self-knowledge. We may reach this same conclusion by another train of
thought, which derives from the idea that philosophic thought is thinking about a
totality.

[WdW I, 10] Study Notes

How does philosophic thought arrive
at the Idea of the totality of meaning?

As we have said, philosophic thought has the character of being directed to the totality
of meaning. This cannot be disregarded with impunity. It is cosmological thought.

To therefore even make a beginning in philosophic thought, I already need the Idea of
the totality of meaning in order to give my thought a fixed direction. If this Idea is not
to remain completely without content, if it is to really give my philosophic thought a
direction, then it must be possible for me, who wants to practice philosophy, to choose a
standpoint for myself in the totality of meaning of our cosmos so that it does not remain
foreign to me. My self-hood [I-ness] must participate in the totality of meaning if I can
have an Idea of it in my philosophic thought.

To use an image: In order for my philosophic thought to be directed in this Idea to the
totality of meaning, I must myself be able to climb a lookout tower above all
particularized meaning that functions within the temporal world-coherence. From that
standpoint I can then look out over the world-coherence with all the diversity of
meaning enclosed within it. In other words, I must be able to occupy a standpoint that
transcends all particular functions within which I am actually at work in the world
coherence. If I can not occupy such a standpoint I would in the process of philosophic
thought, lose myself within such particularized meaning. Only in transcending
particularized meaning can I obtain an actual view of the totality of meaning that
transcends such particularized meaning.

[WdW I, 10b] Study Notes

The Archimedean point of philosophy and the tendency
towards the Origin in philosophic thought

We call this fixed point, from out of which alone in the course of philosophic thought
we can form the Idea of totality of meaning, the Archimedean point of philosophy. But
standing in this Archimedean point, our selfhood discovers that the view of the totality
of meaning is itself not possible without the view of the Origin, the Arché of both the
totality of meaning and particularized meaning.
The totality of meaning of our cosmos, in which our selfhood is understood to
participate, must, as the actual fullness of meaning, transcend all particularized meaning
in the coherence of its diversity. But this in turn still remains meaning that cannot exist
in itself, but which supposes an Arché, an Origin that gives meaning.

All meaning is from, through and to an Origin, which itself cannot be meaning.

The genetic relativity, the non-self-sufficiency of meaning lies in its essential character,
and since philosophic thought cannot be other than thought that is directed to the totality
of meaning of our cosmos, then a direction to the Arché is also necessarily included in
this tendency to totality.

All truly philosophic thought is therefore begun as thought that is directed to the Origin
of our cosmos. Non-Christian philosophy seeks this Origin within temporal meaning,
even if it gives such a starting point an elevated name. This is a point that I will
temporarily let rest. I now only want to place in the forefront the genetic ground-
tendency [grondtendenz] of philosophic thought, as thought that is from and towards the
Origin.

A premature appeal to the critical motive [motief] of the limits of our knowledge might
appear to banish this entire genetic ground tendency of philosophy thought as directed
to a transcendent Origin; but such a verdict cannot be peremptory. It would be
premature as long as it is not seen that the philosophical question: "What are the limits
to our knowledge?" presupposes insight into the meaning of knowledge, in its necessary
relationship to our I-ness.

[WdW I, 11] Study Notes

The opposition between the so-called critical and genetic
methods is terminologically confusing, since their sense
is not clearly defined

For the ground-tendency mentioned above is so essential to philosophy that it is itself

revealed in the heart of all epistemological questions. The critical question: How is
universal knowledge of our cosmos possible? may in its emphasis on the apriori
conditions of all human knowledge be sharply distinguished from all questions
regarding the non-apriori moments of our knowledge. Nevertheless it is highly
confusing to speak of a critical manner of thinking in opposition to a genetic manner, as
is common in certain currents of Kantian philosophy.

After certain reflection, the critical question necessarily leads to the genetic: What is the
origin of our knowledge and the knowable reality? [3] Everything depends on the
meaning of the genetic question, and one need only ask this question of meaning in
order to see that therein the possibility of epistemology itself is made into a problem.

As we have said, meaning always refers outside and above itself to an origin, which no
longer is meaning. Meaning remains in the relative. In contrast, the true Origin is
absolute, self-sufficient!
If from the outset we theoretically regard one or more of our cognitive functions in their
apriori structure as being in themselves, that is regarded apart from all further possible
determinedness (as is done in certain idealistic attitudes of philosophic thought,
improperly referred to as ‘critical’ thought), then they will necessarily be elevated to the
apriori origin of our knowable cosmos.

If philosophic thought stops with this supposed Arché, then we have precluded the
question of the meaning of our knowledge itself. Because the Arché is always
transcendent to all meaning. But in this case where there is a supposed origin, the
knowable cosmos rather derives all its meaning from the self-sufficient apriori structure
of the cognitive functions. At this stage of the preliminary fundamental questions
relating to the foundation [grondlegging] of philosophy, philosophic thought has thus
come to rest in its pretended origin of all knowable meaning.

So for example, from the neo-Kantian standpoint of the so-called Marburg school, it has
no more meaning to ask as to the origin of the transcendental-logical meaning, in which
they believe to be able to understand the entire cosmic reality. According to them, the
origin or our knowable world is always of a transcendental-logical nature. From this
standpoint, the cosmos obtains all its possible meaning from transcendental-logical
thought!

But if the thinker finds no rest in logical meaning, then he is necessarily driven further
into preliminary philosophical questions. The pretended Arché then appears not to be
the true origin, but itself to exist only as meaning, which points towards its true origin.

Thinking does not come to rest in these preliminary philosophical questions, at least as
long as the Arché is not discovered, which first gives meaning to philosophic thinking
itself, and first gives creaturely determined being [aanzijn].

Philosophic thought cannot withdraw itself from this tendency towards the origin.

It is its immanent conformity to law for philosophic thought, to find no rest in meaning,
but rather for it to think from and to the origin, in which meaning finds its ground and
determined being [aanzijn]. Only where the meaning of questions ceases does
philosophic thought come to its origin and is it set at rest.

[WdW I, 13] Study Notes

The restlessness of meaning in the tendency
towards the origin of philosophic thought

This restlessness, which reveals itself in the tendency towards the origin of philosophic
thought, is essentially the unrest of our selfhood, which is actually at work in our
philosophic thought. This restlessness comes from out of our own I-ness, out of the root
of our existence, and it is transmitted in all the temporal functions in which this I-ness is
actually at work:

Inquietum est cor nostrum et mundus in corde nostro!

[Our heart is restless and the world is restless in our heart!]
Our selfhood is actually at work in our philosophic thinking. And just as it is certain that
philosophic thought in philosophical self-reflection does not exist without the direction
to the selfhood, so it is also certain that it requires a direction to the Arché of our
selfhood and to the totality of meaning. Our I-ness must participate in this totality of
meaning if a genuine thinking of totality is to be possible.

Philosophic thought as such acquires the actuality of its meaning from the selfhood,
which restlessly seeks its origin in order to understand its own meaning and in its own
meaning to understand the meaning of our whole cosmos!

And it is just in this tendency towards the origin that our selfhood reveals its subjective
subjected-ness [onderworpenheid] to a law. This law obtains the meaning-fullness of its
validity from out of the Origin of all things, and it limits and determines our selfhood.

With this we have already discovered at the outset the twofold presupposition of
philosophic thought: 1. an Archimedean point for the thinker, from out of which our
selfhood can direct a view of totality over our cosmos and 2. a choice of position in the
Archimedean point over against the Arché, which transcends all meaning and in which
our selfhood comes to rest in its philosophic thought. If it tries to go beyond this Arché,
there is no meaning in the asking of any further questions.

[WdW I, 14] Study Notes

The three requirements that must be
satisfied by the Archimedean point

And the Archimedean point must satisfy these three conditions:

1. It may not be separate from our own subjective selfhood, for it is this selfhood that is
actually at work in philosophic thought and in which alone we can transcend the
diversity of meaning.

2. It may not be separate from the law, for without the law the subject sinks into chaos,
or rather into nothingness, because it is only limited and determined through the law.

3. It must transcend all diversity of meaning and be located in the totality of meaning of
the cosmos, in which our selfhood must participate if it can have an Idea of totality in its
philosophic thought.

[WdW I, 15] Study Notes

The immanence standpoint in philosophy

The prevailing philosophy views the self-sufficiency of philosophic thought as the alpha
and omega of philosophic insight for accomplishing its task, as opposed to accepting
any divine revelation. It will certainly admit the necessity of an Archimedean point.
Since Descartes in his “cogito ergo sum” believed he had discovered the one fixed point
as against the universal methodical skepticism with respect to all reality that offers itself
to experience, the necessity of an Archimedean point has been generally acknowledged,
at least insofar as philosophy sees the necessity of a critical self-reflection. But it will
have to rise with all its might against the position defended here, that this Archimedean
point cannot be found in philosophic thinking itself (whether or not in its coherence
with other functions of consciousness). It must with respect to the Archimedean point of
philosophy hold fast to the immanence standpoint, which rejects any support of thought
in that which transcends the immanent boundaries of the functions as such of
consciousness. [4]

Every attack on this immanence standpoint will mean for immanence philosophy an
attack upon the scientific character of philosophy itself.

[WdW I, 16] Study Notes

The immanence standpoint does not itself exclude
the so-called metaphysical way to what transcends
human thinking

If the immanence standpoint is accepted, this certainly does not thereby exclude the so-
called metaphysical way to what transcends human thinking. Classical immanence
philosophy was itself founded wholly in a metaphysical prima philosophia [first
philosophy].

This metaphysical way to totality of meaning and the Arché, at least in the rationalistic
currents of thought, necessarily involves the attempt to exceed the creaturely boundaries
of philosophic thinking in the Idea of an absolute deified thought which comprises in
itself the fullness of being. It is the noesis noeseos, the “intellectus archetypus”
[archetypal intellect].

The rationalistic-metaphysical way from out of the immanence standpoint to an Arché

transcending human thought is in other words the way of absolutization of the [logical]
function of thought.

Deified thought, the noesis noeseos, becomes the Arché; human thought, in its supposed
participation in divine reason, is understood as the Archimedean point; the totality of
meaning is sought in the system of Ideas of immanent thought.

The immanence standpoint does not necessarily imply a belief in the self-sufficiency of
human thought as against the rest of the immanent functions of consciousness. It shows
rather the most divergent positions from metaphysical rationalism to modern
irrationalistic life-philosophy. It also reveals itself in the form of the modern so-called
existentialism, which has broken with the Cartesian (rationalistic) “cogito” as an
Archimedean point, and supposes to have replaced it with life (vivo), as Dilthey does.

[WdW I, 17] Study Notes

‘Immanence philosophy’ is used in the
widest possible sense

We therefore take the term “immanence philosophy” not in the commonly used narrow
meaning of philosophy, which posits all reality as immanent to consciousness and that
has broken every bridge between human functions of consciousness and an “extra-
mental reality,” but rather in the broader meaning of all philosophy that seeks its
Archimedean point immanently in philosophic thought itself. We do this regardless of
how this philosophic thought is then more precisely viewed, whether it be in a
rationalistic, or an irrationalistic, or a metaphysical, or a transcendental-logical, or in a
psychological, or in a historical sense.

From the immanence standpoint, the task of philosophy can be viewed broadly or more
narrowly. So in the modern immanence philosophy there is a strong current that has
emphasized the theoretical character of philosophical research, and that denies that the
theoretical is just one of the many points of view by which we can view the cosmos,
although it is the only one in which we can really grasp it in the view of totality.

Next to the theoretical cosmos, immanence philosophy acknowledges the religious, the
aesthetic, the moralistic and other a-theoretical “worlds,” and philosophy is then
expressly denied the right to claim a monopoly of value for its theoretical cosmos.
Through this philosophical direction the self-sufficiency of “transcendental” theoretical
thought as Archimedean point for philosophy and Arché of the “theoretical cosmos” is
even more powerfully brought to the fore.

On this standpoint, the theoretical cosmos is in fact that “creation” of philosophic

thought. Theoretic thought must first methodically demolish all the atheoretical to a
chaotic material of consciousness, which is then to be ordered to a cosmos in the
creative forming of philosophic thought (Rickert).

The immanence philosopher in this conception of philosophy has the honest conviction
that only in this way can the scientific character of philosophic thought be maintained.
What would become of the “objectivity,” of the “universal validity,” of the
controllability of philosophic thought if philosophy would bind itself to pre-
suppositions that transcended its immanent boundaries? Religious and
“weltanschauliche” convictions may be highly worthy of honour. Yes, the philosophy
that understands its limits will be careful about attacking these convictions. But within
the domain of philosophy the claims of these convictions cannot be recognized. It is
said that this does not concern believing in what exceeds “the limits of our ability to
know,” but rather is it a matter of objective truth that is valid equally for anyone who
wants to think theoretically.

The so-called neutrality postulate can be regarded in the same way. It is by no means
inherently acknowledged by the immanence standpoint, but only [expressly] accepted
by those currents in immanence philosophy that do not acknowledge to philosophy any
dominion over our personal life. All the shrewdness possessed by representatives of this
standpoint is directed to demonstrating the correctness of the neutrality postulate. Two
of the most discerning pleas for this have been made by Heinrich Rickert and Theodor
Litt, which we will later examine, when we later deal in a more particular way with the
relation between philosophy and life-and-world views.

[WdW I, 18] Study Notes

The inner problematic of the immanence standpoint

In this Introduction it is sufficient for us to bring to the fore the inner problematic of the
immanence standpoint, and to demonstrate how the choice of this standpoint is not
possible without an actual transcendence above philosophic thought and above all
immanent functions of consciousness in the diversity of meaning.
In this connection we proceed from that which we earlier learned was essential for the
Archimedean point of philosophy. We argued that this Archimedean point must be
elevated above the diversity of meaning if it is really to offer to us a fixed point. Were
the Archimedean point to itself lie in the diversity of meaning, then it would be per se
unsuitable as a point of departure from which a view of totality over the diversity of
meaning could be directed.

The Archimedean point must also transcend the meaning coherence within the diversity
of the meaning-sides. Of this we shall now give a further account.

[WdW I, 19] Study Notes

Why the totality of meaning cannot lie in the
coherence of the diversity of meaning

The totality of meaning can also not lie in the immanent coherence in the diversity of
meaning of the arithmetical side, the spatial side, the movement side, the side of organic
life, the psychical side, logical, historical etc. sides of cosmic reality. The immanent
coherence among all particular meaning-sides of our cosmos lacks in itself the inner
concentration point in which all particular functions of meaning come together in the
fullness of meaning. This truth is immediately revealed to us in self-reflection.

We began in this Introduction to observe that our selfhood expresses itself in all
particular meaning-sides of our existence. This is only possible because all of these
particular meaning functions find their transcendent concentration point in the selfhood,
in the I-ness, elevated above the diversity of meaning. But our selfhood is not congruent
with the mutual coherence between all the functions that we possess in the cosmos.

The diversity of meaning exists only in the mutual coherence of all particularized
meaning, but this is the expression of a fullness of meaning that particularizes
(verbijzondert) itself in the diversity of meaning.

As the fullness of meaning, the totality of meaning is the necessary transcendent center,
where all particular meaning functions in their mutual coherence coincide in the unity of
direction to the Origin, to the Arché, of all meaning.

[WdW I, 20]
The Archimedean point as concentration
point for philosophic thought

In relation to the foregoing, the Archimedean point for philosophy must therefore be the
concentration point for philosophic thought, and as such must also transcend the
diversity of meaning in its coherence. Now can this concentration point itself be
immanent to philosophic thought? In other words can we find anywhere in thought a
point that really transcends the diversity of meaning?

[WdW I, 20b] Study Notes

Does the so-called transcendental subject of thought
satisfy the demands of the Archimedean point?
With all sorts of terms that have not been properly analyzed as to their meaning, men try
to suggest that we possess such a unity above the diversity of meaning in our
philosophic thought: the “transcendental consciousness,” the “transcendental cogito,”
the “phenomenologically purified consciousness” (as the absolute, meaning-giving
consciousness) etc. etc. are conceived as the subjective pole of thought against which
stands all the knowable in the counter-pole of objectivity.

This immanent subjective pole of thought, which we have already learned to know as
the product of a theoretical abstraction, is then supposed to transcend as Archimedean
point all coherence of the particular meaning sides of our cosmos.

And in fact, does not thought already elevate itself in its subjective pole above all
meaning coherence in the diversity of meaning in that I have to think about such a
meaning coherence if I want to speak about it?

But this argument rests on a serious misunderstanding, that is caused by the pitfall that
lies hidden in the conception of the so-called “transcendental cogito” itself.

Although it is true that I myself transcend the coherence of all particular meaning-sides
of cosmic reality, the same does not hold true for my [logical] function of thought in its
subjective actuality that can never be made a “Gegenstand” of my thought.

In place of the cogito, place credo [faith]. In the place of the “I think”, place “I believe.”

It would have to be admitted that I can direct not only my thought, but also my function
of belief on the coherence among the particular meaning-sides of our cosmos. If this
meaning coherence of my functions in the cosmos is now transcended in my function of
belief is there in other words also an actual immanent faith pole in which the diversity
of meaning in its coherence is transcended?

But believing and thinking are distinguished in their functional meaning and I cannot
transcend this cosmic diversity of meaning in my thinking itself, much less in my
immanent function of belief.

But, someone may object, the diversity of meaning that you refer to is itself a state of
affairs that first has meaning for our distinguishing thought? They may say, although it
may be true that the [logical] function of thought, insofar as it is itself thought of as a
side of the experienceable reality, is caught in the diversity of meaning, that does not
show that the transcendental subject of thought, as subjective pole of thought could not
transcend the coherence of the meaning-sides. And they will say, does it not just appear
here that all diversity of meaning is unavoidably dependent on this transcendental
subject of thought, so that we can indeed speak of the subjective pole of thought as a
“Transcendenz in der Immanenz?” [Transcendence within Immanence]. We have here
come to a very key point in our discussion with the adherents of the so-called
“transcendental” immanence standpoint.

In the last objection a new pitfall is hidden, which we must carefully lay bare if it is not
to repeatedly capture us. In the subjective pole of thought of which we here continually
speak, there resides logical meaning as the pole of thought. As the subjective pole of
philosophic thinking this is theoretical-logical meaning.
Just as we shall later demonstrate more fully, in our theoretical thinking we are always
active in the placing over-against [tegen-overstellling] of the non-logical to the
immanent-logical meaning of thought, and it is just in this opposition that the theoretical
problem is born.

[WdW I,22] Study Notes

The theoretical joining of meaning [synthesis] presupposes
the diversified meaning of the logical. The non-logical
that is set over-against it

In this theoretical, over-against thinking rests all correct concept formation and
distinctions of the meaning sides of the cosmos, and upon a joining [verbinding] or
synthesis of the logical meaning of thinking with the opposed non-logical meaning,
which synthesis in itself is a fundamental problem [grondprobleem] of philosophy.

This joining of meaning or synthesis of meaning, by which, as we shall later see,

theoretical thought distinguishes itself from all non-theoretical thought, already
presupposes the meaning coherence in the diversity of meaning of logical and non-
logical meaning.

Therefore, the logical meaning of the subjective pole of thought is as logical meaning
distinguished from all non-logical meaning functions, but at the same time it is fitted
[gevoegd] with them in an unbreakable coherence of meaning.

There is now a logical diversity, which is immanent to the logical meaning of thought,
but which could not exist without a cosmic diversity of meaning, within which the
logical itself functions.

[WdW I,22] Study notes

The pitfall in the conception of the so-called transcendental
subject of thought as Archimedean point: cosmic diversity
of meaning and diversity within particularized logical meaning

The pitfall that is hidden in the last objection from the adherent of the so-called
transcendental immanence standpoint consists in the identification of the cosmic
diversity of meaning with the diversity [distinctions] within particularized logical
meaning.

The adherent of this standpoint should will continue to refuse to acknowledge the
particularized meaning of his concept of the transcendental thinking subject. The
transcendental-logical pole of thought remains for him the self, determined by nothing,
but determining everything else; it is for him the origin of all diversity of meaning. The
diversity of meaning can for him only be constituted through the apriori categories of
thought.

How can the essential diversity of meaning, in which the logical meaning necessarily
remains bound, itself be of a logical origin? If this thought is taken seriously, then
already at the outset it would dissolve in the following antinomy: "The proclamation of
logical meaning as the origin of cosmic diversity of meaning is the same as the giving
up of diversity of meaning and thereby the abandonment of theoretical thought itself,
which is only possible in the distinguishing and joining of meaning." This is a
conclusion that was already made by the sophists from the logicism of Parmenides.

The so-called transcendental subject of thought can only be maintained if from the
outset the apriori joining of meaning is included in transcendental thought [regarded in a
purely logical sense]. As soon as this happens, the “transcendental subject of thought” is
thrown back into the middle of cosmic diversity of meaning. Because the synthesis of
meaning presupposes the diversity of meaning of the logical and of the non-logical sides
of the cosmos, and their mutual coherence. How then can my Archimedean point remain
within theoretical thought?

[WdW I, 23] Study Notes

Misunderstanding of cosmological joining
of meaning as a transcendental-logical one

This transcendental logicism can only appear to be maintained by a peculiar shift of

meaning, which interprets the truly cosmological apriori joining of meaning and
distinguishing of meaning in a so-called transcendental-logical synthesis, as an act of
the pretended self-sufficient transcendental subject of thought.

What is really happening in this first choice of position is that the distinguishing and
joining of thinking has been absolutized (because it declares it self-sufficient) in a
transcendental-logical meaning, whereby Arché, and Archimedean point coincide.

In rationalistic metaphysics, where Arché and Archimedean point remained

distinguished, the actual [logical aspect] of thinking was absolutized only in the Arché,
as intellectus archetypus.

[WdW I, 24] Study Notes

The necessary religious transcending in the
choice of the immanence standpoint

This first choice of position, in which the attempt is made to elevate the [logical
function] of theoretical thought from the cosmic coherence of meaning and to treat it as
independent, is not the act of a “transcendental thinking subject,” which is only an
abstract concept, but much rather the act of the full I-ness that transcends thinking.
This is the case whether the logical aspect is elevated in this way to the Arché alone, or
in both the Arché and the Archimedean point together.

And it is a religious act, just because it is a choice of position in the concentration point
of our existence as against the Origin of meaning. In this reflexive choice of the
immanence position, I myself elevate philosophic thought whether in the
transcendental-logical, whether in the metaphysical logical sense to the Arché of the
cosmos. This Arché stands as origin, above which it is no longer meaningful to ask
questions, and in my view it no longer stands in the heteronomous mode of being that is
meaning. In immanence philosophy, it is supposed to exist by and through itself.
This choice of position with respect to the Arché transcends philosophic thought,
although it certainly does not occur without philosophic thought. It takes possession of
the fullness of the selfhood, the fullness of the heart, and it is the first concentration of
philosophic thought in a unity of direction. It is a religious choice of position in an
idolatrous sense and it is therefore an act that falsifies meaning, that subtracts all
philosophic thought from the fullness of Truth.

The proclamation of the self-sufficiency of philosophic thought, even with the addition
“in its own domain,” is an absolutizing of meaning kai exochen [par excellence]. It loses
none of its idolatrous character merely because the thinker is prepared to acknowledge
that the absolutizing that he carries out in the theoretical domain is not the only proper
one, and that philosophy should also give religious, aesthetic and moralistic man the full
freedom to serve other gods outside of the theoretical domain.

The philosopher who grants this freedom to the non-theoretician is, so to say, a
theoretical polytheist. He is shy of proclaiming the theoretical god to the one true god.
But within the temple of his god, there shall be no others worshipped!

Even on the immanence standpoint the choice of Archimedean point is therefore not a
purely theoretical act that prejudices nothing in a religious sense.

In truth, the selfhood is the religious root of existence, the player on the instrument of
philosophic thought. From the immanence standpoint this player is invisible.

Philosophic thought shows us the true state of affairs–that in itself it is no Archimedean

point, since it can only function in the cosmic coherence of meaning and nowhere
transcends this coherence of meaning.

The immanent Ideas of the coherence of meaning and the totality of meaning are
limiting concepts. They reveal the fact that theoretical thought is not self-sufficient in
the individual domain of philosophy. This is a point that we shall come back to in more
detail.

There is no other possibility to transcend the coherence of cosmic diversity of meaning

than in the religious root of existence out of which philosophic thought also proceeds.

[WdW I,25] Study Notes

The fall of our selfhood from the Arché, and the totality
of meaning, and the consequences for philosophic thought

In the fall from the totality of meaning of our whole cosmos, our selfhood has lost its
standpoint in that Archimedean point, apart from which it is not possible to have true
self-knowledge, no true insight into the totality of meaning and the Origin of all
meaning.

Apostate humanity has lost the concentration in the focus of its existence, the true
service of God. Man’s self-consciousness is in full rebellion against God, dispersed in
the diversity of meaning of our temporal cosmos.
The concentration of existence in the selfhood became in the fall a concentration in the
absolutizing of creaturely meaning. And the confusing diversity within immanence
philosophy is the theoretical consequence of this fallen relation in the religious root of
humanity.

The apriori religious choice of position, in which the Archimedean point of philosophy
is determined, must influence the whole direction of philosophic thought, in its view of
the coherence of meaning among the diverse sides of cosmic reality, in its view of law
and subject, in its view of truth, in its view of the conditions for the possibility of
knowledge, etc.

[WdW I, 26] Study Notes

The dispersal of the fallen self-consciousness in the cosmic
diversity of meaning and the beginnings of the –isms in immanence
philosophy, even in its so-called transcendental directions

And the fact that the fallen self-consciousness has dispersed itself in the diversity of
meaning and that it finds its concentration point only by way of absolutization, also
explains the countless –isms in the systems of immanence philosophy.

The synthesis of meaning, without which no theoretic thought is possible, is always a

joining together of meaning of the distinctions in particularized meaning. This synthesis
can only be realized by an I-ness that transcends all diversity of meaning. If I do not
know my self any longer, how shall I direct my philosophic thought to the totality of
meaning of our cosmos?

The theoretical distinction and joining of meaning thus comprises particularized

meaning. [If I do not know my self], particularized meaning provokes its own
absolutization. And even the transcendental direction in immanence philosophy, which
in its search for the apriori structure of “Vernunft” believes is has found the way of
critical self-reflection, cannot give any protection against such absolutization.

Along with transcendental logicism, immanence philosophy knows transcendental

psychologism, a transcendental moralism and aestheticism, and even further –isms, of
which it cannot give account because it has not critically reflected on its Archimedean
point. And ever since Dilthey broke with the rationalistic notion of the “cogito” as an
Archimedean point, and in a “Critique of Historical Reason” supposed he could elevate
the dynamic “vivo” to such Archimedean point, we can speak of an irrationalistic
transcendental historicism, which has taken up the battle against the whole earlier
transcendental philosophy. With this step, modern immanence philosophy has arrived at
a phase that is marked by a decline of its earlier self certainty, and there is a renewed
search for an Archimedean point for philosophic thought.

We will return in greater detail to this important phenomenon in the second volume.

Already in the present context we must however remark that the foundation of such an
irrationalistic transcendental life-philosophy involves a primary absolutization of the
theoretical synthesis of meaning, as will later be shown in more detail.
The immanence philosopher shall always convince himself that he has avoided the cliff
of these –isms. The idealist, who absolutizes the normative meaning sides of reality,
with help of meaning-synthesis thought, blames the naturalist for an absolutizing of the
domain of the natural sciences. The naturalist has fallen into a more primitive
absolutizing of the natural sides of reality, without being philosophically aware in a
meaning-synthesis that such an absolutizing lies at its foundation. But the idealist will
with indignation try to reject blame for the fact that he has fallen into a primary
absolutizing of the theoretical synthesis of meaning.

The logicist who supposes that the synthesis of meaning has a “purely” logical character
and that the cosmos and logos are identical, will accuse the psychologist of absolutizing
a specific area of thought that has not been understood in its supposed logical origin.
But the logicist will himself be of the opinion that he has fallen into no single –ism,
since he always acknowledges the various “domains of thought” as “autonomous” with
respect to each other!

The irrationalistic life-philosophy falsifies reality by proclaiming all regularity to be a

construction of thought. This kind of philosopher believes that by setting himself in the
subjective psychical or historical “stream of life” he is adequately able to contain true
reality. He is also convinced that only by this attitude of philosophic thought is the full
reality unveiled. Irrationalistic life-philosophy will not be convinced that its own
standpoint is rooted in an absolutization of the synthesis of abstracted particularized
meaning.

The modal diversity of meaning within our world coherence, in its apriori structure
(which we will later study), as well as in its law-sides and subject-sides, offers
numerous possibilities for our fallen self-consciousness to absolutize in its synthesis of
meaning in philosophic thought. In this absolutization, first one meaning-side, then a
different meaning-side of reality is elevated as the basic common denominator for all
others. This fact–that the root of all such –isms is to be found in the fallen selfhood–
remains hidden in the philosophic immanence standpoint.

[WdW I, 28] Study Notes

King Midas and immanence philosophy

The rich meaning of King Midas can offer us a symbol of these –isms in philosophy.

Everything that immanence philosophy touches with its wand of absolutized

particularized meaning, changes as if by magic into a modality of this particular
meaning. For the logicist, the cosmos becomes logos. For the psychologist all meaning
sides of reality become modalities of the psychical. For the historicist the whole cosmos
offers itself under the basic aspect of historical development. For the moralist the whole
natural reality becomes the sensible material of our moral duty, etc. etc.

But, just as Midas lost himself in his wish to change the world into gold, so in the
immanence standpoint, the thinker loses himself to the absolutization of theoretical
abstraction.

Philosophic thinking, if it is explained as self-sufficient, necessarily loses its direction to

the totality of meaning. From the immanence standpoint, the thinker gives the idea of
totality of meaning a false content and can then no longer see the true structure of our
cosmos, its particularized meaning and the coherence of meaning.

To summarize, we may say that the first pitfall of all immanence philosophy, in the wide
meaning that we give to it, is: Supposing it can naively maintain the immanence
standpoint and therein the self-sufficiency of philosophic thought as against divine
revelation, it misunderstands the religious transcendence that is necessarily hidden in
its attitude, and this misunderstanding comes out of a lack of radical-critical self-
reflection in philosophic thought.

[WdW I, 29] Study Notes

The Christian standpoint of transcendence as a
radical revolution in the attitude of philosophic thought

It is the radical meaning of Christianity for philosophy that it has again unveiled for us
the transcendent religious root of human existence in all its functions, and has laid open
the proton pseudos of immanence philosophy. The Biblical proverb, “Out of the heart
are the issues of life,” must when it is properly understood bring a radical revolution in
the attitude of philosophic thought. Greek metaphysics (with which Christian thought
sought a compromise in the Middle Ages), never was able to extricate itself from the
hypostasis of theoretical thought and also its conception of the essence of man as
“rational-moral” being and of the immortal soul, which was grounded wholly in this
absolutizing. In Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysical psychology, only the “reasonable,”
the thinking part of the soul (logistikon) possesses immortality, because at the outset
theoretical thought was hypostatized as the origin of reality, an origin that transcends the
temporal world coherence. Human thought was distinguished from the Divine as noesis
noeseos in that it was still bound to the lower part of the soul and therein bound to the
material.

Neo-Platonism arrived at the insight that in the nous as theoretical thought itself there is
still hidden a diversity and joining of meaning, and the Arché therefore must transcend
the nous, but this insight did not in any way lead the thinkers of this school to a break
with immanence philosophy as such, but only to a negative metaphysical conception of
the divine--divine unity as the avoidance of all diversity of meaning.

The idealistic metaphysics of ancient Greece clearly expresses the immanence

standpoint. It tore apart the immanent cosmic meaning-coherence into a noumenon and
a phenomenon. The noumenon was conceived as supra-temporal reasonable form, and
the phenomenon as matter that is immanent in time. Finally the form, as pure form or
actus purus, was deified as the Arché.

Man seeks the transcendence of truth in the immanence of theoretic thought.

The Christian religion is in an irreconcilable conflict with this whole attitude of

philosophic thought, because it unveils the fallen religious root of this philosophic
immanence standpoint, out of which this attitude of thought springs.

[WdW I, 30] Study Notes

The heart, as the religious concentration point of all
 human existence, is in fact the full selfhood, and also
the religious root of philosophic thought

The heart is truly the transcendent root of human existence, the one point in which we
transcend the temporal diversity of meaning in the coherence of time. Just as the
Scriptures say: "Eternity is set in the heart of man." The heart is the fullness of our
selfhood, the true transcendent concentration point of our existence, in which all
temporal meaning functions meet together. As such, the heart is also the point of
departure for philosophic thought, a point that truly cannot be disconnected, since in all
theoretical abstraction our selfhood is at work in thought. And the fullness of our
selfhood consists in the religious center of our creaturely existence, where the direction
of all of life is determined in relation to that which is Truth in its fullness, the absolute
Origin of all things. Christ has said: "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be
also."

This basic truth [of the heart], which humanity has lost sight of in its fall from God and
from the totality of meaning and from itself, is not the result of mere theoretical
discussion, since it transcends theoretic thought in the fullness of its meaning.

The adherent of the immanence standpoint may now say, "Therefore free philosophy
from it."

But what do we say if this basic truth embodies a necessary apriori condition for the
possibility of philosophic thought? Then it would be internally contradictory to suppose
that philosophic thought could abstract from it, in order to withdraw in self-sufficiency
back into a merely theoretical cosmos.

For the acceptance of the possibility of a merely theoretical cosmos presupposes a truly
religious proclamation of the absoluteness of philosophic thought (because of its self-
sufficiency).

[WdW I, 31] Study Notes

The immanence standpoint as a crypto-religious
attitude of philosophic thought

It is the Christian religion that has unmasked the immanence standpoint in philosophy
as a crypto-religious choice of position and thereby has discovered this standpoint as a
standpoint in the fall from the true Arché and therefore also from our true selfhood.

The basic truth [grond-waarheid], that lies in our heart as religious concentration point,
the transcendent root of our creaturely existence. It does not lie in theoretic thought, in
our feeling function, in our aesthetic function, nor in our rational-moral functions. This
basic truth first acquires its full rich meaning in the revelation of the fall of the human
race as a fall in the religious root of the cosmos, and in the revelation of the only
possible salvation in Jesus Christ as the New Root of the reborn cosmos.

[WdW I, 32] Study Notes

The irreconcilable antithesis between immanence
philosophy and true Christian philosophic thought
There is therefore an irreconcilable antithesis between the necessary religious apriori of
immanence philosophy and of a philosophy that truly set itself within [instelt] in the
Christian transcendence standpoint.

And this radically different attitude must influence the whole immanent course of
philosophic thought, just as we shall demonstrate in more detail. For there is no greater
error in philosophy than when one takes the position that the religious attitude of
philosophic thought is of no importance for the immanent course of philosophic
research.

We can make no greater error than that made by certain Christians in the late Middle
Ages, who supposed that in philosophy the ‘naturalis ratio’ [natural reason] could be
emancipated from the divine revelation of sin and grace, and that in grace they would
merely find her higher “fulfillment” that extended beyond the limits of nature.

The truth is that philosophy needs an Archimedean point, and that the choice of this
Archimedean point is a religious act that is all-determining for the whole direction in
which philosophic thought chooses to go.

Unless our heart is enlightened by Divine Revelation, no true self-knowledge is

possible.

And now at the close of our introduction, we must set aside another misunderstanding.

[WdW I, 33] Study Notes

Divine Revelation does not drop in the lap
of Christian thought an authoritarian solution to
the problems of immanence philosophy

The Divine Revelation that is fulfilled in Christ, that is directed to the religious root of
our whole existence, and therefore also to the root of philosophic thought, does not
solve a single essential immanent philosophic problem for us. This is because it
transcends philosophic thought in its religious fullness.

But this revelation gives our philosophic thought a fixed direction towards the true
totality of meaning and the Arché, a direction that this thought could never discover by
itself, but which it needs as philosophic thought in order to fulfill its task. The Christian
religion does not force itself externally into philosophic thought like a “Deus ex
machina” in order to drop in our laps an authoritarian solution by way of Revelation.
Rather, it brings our thought, which through sin has been diminished from its fullness of
meaning, to a new and joyful life, to a new unfolding in harmony with all our other
activities in the cosmos.

The direction to the totality of meaning and to the Arché, which revelation shows to
philosophic thought, must permeate this thought in an inner way and in all its
dimensions: in the formulation of problems, in the views of subjectivity and law, in the
method of forming concepts, in the view of the structure of reality, in the understanding
of meaning [zin-duiding] of naïve experience and of theoretical synthesis, in the
philosophic view of the problem of time, etc. etc.
A truly Christian philosophy can not be an immanence philosophy with an external
decoration of Biblical texts. Even less can it be a theology in the sense of a special
science. It is not possible except in a radical reformation of philosophic thought itself,
in a Reformation of Philosophy, just as my colleague Vollenhoven has so concisely
expressed.[5]

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Footnotes for these excerpts

[1] The reason that this deeper totality necessarily transcends the mutual coherence of
all aspects of cosmic reality, just as our selfhood transcends its cosmic functions, will be
discussed infra.

[2] This image was wiped out, when humans believed they were something in
themselves. Compare the splendid expression in Calvin’s Épitre à tous amateurs de
Jésus Christ 1535 (èd. J. Pannier, Paris; 1929), p. 36: “Car il l'avoit formé à son image
& semblance, telleme(n)t que la lumière de sa gloire reluysoit clairement en luy…Mails
le malheureux voulant estre qu(el)que chose en soy-mesme…son image & semblance
en estoit effacée.”

[3] The critical Marburg school speaks of the origin of reality in a transcendental-
logical sense! “Nur das Denken kann erzeugen, was als Sein gelten darf” (Cohen).
[“Only thinking can produce that which can count as Being”].

[4] Transcendental philosophy, which seeks its Archimedean point in a transcendentally

conceived “cogito,” shall certainly hesitate to speak of the apriori transcendental unity
of thinking or of a function of consciousness. In transcendental philosophy, the
immanent transcendental pole of thought is always elevated above all functions of
consciousness, since these receive all their theoretical determinedness from
transcendental thought.
Seen from the Christian transcendent standpoint, the immanent apriori structure of
thought remains functional, and transcendental thought remains a function of
consciousness of our transcendent selfhood.

[5] See his work Het Calvinisme en de Reformatie van de Wijsbegeerte (Paris:
Amsterdam, 1933).

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