I specialized in the philosophical foundations of all the special sciences, the natural sciences and the humanities. A selection of my publicatuons is available at:daniestrauss com
Culture should be seen as the first nature of human beings. However, the rich diversity of cultur... more Culture should be seen as the first nature of human beings. However, the rich diversity of cultural objects present within the life world of humans presupposes the all-embracing role of tools and technology. What appears to be unique and distinctive in human tool-making is the innovation to use tools in the production of other tools. Simpson even discerns in this ability a defining trait: humans are “the only living animal that uses tools to make tools.” Against this background, attention is given to prominent scholars and their views on technology and its development. It starts with the philosophy of Descartes and Hobbes and proceeds by considering the views of Dijksterhuis, Von Bertalanffy, Heidegger, Weber, Habermas and Ellul – with special attention given to the rise of machine technology. The Enlightenment ideal of progress is related to an over-estimation of technology present in what Schuurman calls technicism, which ought to be understood in terms of the dialectic between na...
Introductory remark This is the first of a number of brief articles reflecting on some of the com... more Introductory remark This is the first of a number of brief articles reflecting on some of the complexities involved in scientific attempts to understand and explain living entities, their genesis and how they are related. The first one will ask what happened to the meaning of the term evolution within (neo-)Darwinism. It will argue that evolution in the biotic sense of development has been reduced to physical change, to the idea of continuous flux (gradualism) – and that this view even overrules Darwin’s idea of natural selection. In order to show that the problems involved are super-imposed by a preconceived conception of continuous change, a number of key quotations will be extracted from the works of acknowledged biologists.
Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Natuurwetenskap en Tegnologie, 2007
Philosophy and all the academic disciplines are sensitive to the aim of sound reasoning – except ... more Philosophy and all the academic disciplines are sensitive to the aim of sound reasoning – except for the dialectical tradition which sanctions contradictions and antinomies (Heraclitus, Nicolas of Cusa, Hegel, Marx, Vaihinger, Simmel, Rex, and Dahrendorf). A brief overview is presented of conflicting theoretical stances within the various academic disciplines before an assessment is given of the positive and negative meaning of ‘reductionism.’ Against the background of historical lines of development the multiple terms employed in this context are mentioned and eventually positioned within the context of the normativity holding for logical thinking. It is argued that the logical contrary between logical and illogical serves as the foundation of other normative contraries, such as legal and illegal and moral and immoral. Through the discovery of irrational numbers the initial Pythagorean conviction that everything is number reverted to a geometrical perspective that generated a stati...
In an article on Afrikaner nationalism, apartheid and the perversion of critique, Rene Eloff argu... more In an article on Afrikaner nationalism, apartheid and the perversion of critique, Rene Eloff argues that E.A. Venter and H.J. Strauss drew upon the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd to justify separate development and that the foundational moment of Dooyeweerd's philosophy involves an interpretive violence that accommodates this interpretation, accompanied by a political violence which is accommodated by the mystical foundation of its authority. This article is a response to what Eloff attempts to argue. Unfortunately Eloff's article is burdened by ambiguities, lack of factual data, non sequitur arguments and in particular, regarding the transcendental critique, not realizing the difference between the structural intention of the transcendental critique and its misunderstanding by him in terms of a genetic perspective. In addition he does not realize that Derrida's ideas of the "institutional presupposition" and the mystical foundation of its authority are confus...
Danie Strauss School of Philosophy North-West University Potchefstroom Campus dfms@cnet.co.za ABS... more Danie Strauss School of Philosophy North-West University Potchefstroom Campus dfms@cnet.co.za ABSTRACT In this article we highlight some of the main contours of the urge towards the infinite in order to focus on the twofold role of infinity in mathematics. Our brief discussion of the discovery of the wholeparts relation explains the switch from infinity as endlessness to infinity turned ‘inwards’, evinced in the infinite divisibility of (spatial) continuity. The traditional Aristotelian distinction between the potential infinite and the actual infinite constitutes the background of our subsequent analysis which touches upon Zeno's paradoxes and Aristotle's objections to the actual infinite. Since Descartes mathematicians increasingly reverted the relation between the potential infinite and the actual infinite by considering the latter as the basis of the former. The historical dominance of the potential infinite was eventually challenged by Cantor in his transfinite arithmet...
Reflections on "human nature" are found throughout the Western intellectual legacy. Fro... more Reflections on "human nature" are found throughout the Western intellectual legacy. From Greek antiquity onwards human nature has been related to an understanding of human society. The effect was that human nature acquired a mediating or co-conditioning role in respect of the way in which society is shaped or structured. The implication is that the type laws for human society became dependent upon human nature instead of norming it. From a systematic perspective this amounts to a misunderstanding of the relationship between modal universality and the typicality of type laws. Concrete societal entities function in a typonomic way within the various modal aspects, thus reflecting their "typonomicity". However, the scope of the modal aspects of reality displays an unspecified universality. The link between human nature and human society recently surfaced in a work of Jonathan Chaplin. He argues that normative societal structures are "variable, historical channe...
Before criticism is justified, an account of the applicable criteria should be given. This task c... more Before criticism is justified, an account of the applicable criteria should be given. This task concerns first of all the well-known logical principles of identity, contradiction and the excluded middle. They connect critical thinking to the conceptual element of rationality and to the normed nature of logical thinking, manifest in logically sound (norm-conformative) thinking and antinormative thinking—briefly also accounting for the dialectical tradition. An analysis of these principles requires an understanding of the uniqueness of, and coherence between, the logical and non-logical aspects in the light of contraries like logical-illogical, polite-impolite and frugal-wasteful. It also questions the idea of autonomy and examines the switch from principles to values. When a school of thought does not accept all the logical principles, the criteria for scientific thinking are challenged, for example in intuitionistic logic which rejects the universal validity of the principle of the ...
Dooyeweerd commenced as a law-student but soon expanded his intellectual pursuits beyond the boun... more Dooyeweerd commenced as a law-student but soon expanded his intellectual pursuits beyond the boundaries of the science of law. The prevailing schools of thought within the discipline of law helped him to be sceptical about the allegedly purely logical or purely jural nature of the basic concepts of the discipline of law. His novel approach accepted both the uniqueness of the various aspects of reality and their mutual coherence. In articulating his new general theory of modal law-spheres he advanced systematic distinctions which facilitated an understanding of universal modal aspects which are not only modes of being but also modes of explanation. The dominant theories of state and society mainly fluctuated between atomistic (individualistic) and holistic (universalistic) approaches – one-sided views accentuating either a quantitative multiplicity (number) or one or another societal whole of which all the other societal entities are mere parts. Traditional societies need to differen...
Our awareness of a diversity of things as well as a multiplicity of relationships took shape in t... more Our awareness of a diversity of things as well as a multiplicity of relationships took shape in the history of philosophy and the various academic disciplines, embodied in a constant struggle between allegedly independent substances or encompassing relations. Viewing entities as independent (self-sufficient) substances dominated Greek and Medieval philosophy. Since the Renaissance, a definite shift towards the primacy of relations has taken place. Kant claims that our knowledge about matter is limited to knowledge about relationships. Entities are not independent substances, because through the universal modal aspects in which they function they are related, as embodied in the wave-particle duality. Reifikasie van dinge of relasies : substansialisme versus funksionalisme Ons besef van 'n ryke verskeidenheid dinge asook 'n menigvuldigheid relasies het vorm aangeneem in verskeie akademiese dissiplines en dit is beliggaam in die stryd tussen vermeende onafhanklike substansies o...
Schumpeter, a student of Max Weber, introduced the phrase methodological individualism in 1908. F... more Schumpeter, a student of Max Weber, introduced the phrase methodological individualism in 1908. For Weber concepts such as 'state', 'club' and 'feudalism' are reducible to 'understandable' actions of individual human beings. Individualism and holism touch deep-seated beliefs, prompting Jellinek to describe them as two opposing world views, an individualistic-atomistic one and a collectivistic-universalistic world view. The modern mechanistic world view has been atomistic by understanding the world in terms of particles in motion. The 'strong' sense of the phrase methodological individualism soon has exceeded the original quantitative meaning of the one and the many. Just compare expressions such as institutional individualism, structural individualism, and supervenience individualism. Ultimately the key terms employed in individualist and holist theories respectively derive from the numerical and spatial aspects of reality. What is required is...
Dilthey's emphasis on the relativity of world and life views inspired Spengler to speak of di... more Dilthey's emphasis on the relativity of world and life views inspired Spengler to speak of different worlds of number. Yet, within Greek culture, Greek mathematics switched from arithmeticism to a geometrisation of mathematics. Since the Renaissance the ideal of sovereign human reason, which viewed human understanding as the (a priori formal) law-giver of nature, gave rise to the notion of construction. Avoiding the stance of both Platonism and constructivism, an acknowledgement of the ontic status of numbers (in their distinctness and succession), accounted for in terms of the distinction between law and subject, illustrates the influence of an underlying world view. Wereldbeskouing, filosofie en die onderrig van rekenkunde Dilthey se klem op die relatiwiteit van wereldbeskouings het Spengler geinspireer om van verskillende getalle-werelde te praat. Nogtans het daar binne die Griekse kultuur 'n verskuiwing van aritmetisisme na 'n geometrisering by die wiskunde ingetree....
Establishing a new philosophical school of thought in the course of its development naturally gen... more Establishing a new philosophical school of thought in the course of its development naturally generates the need for understandable introductions. The new philosophical movement, initially known as "De Wijsbegeerte der Wetdsidee" (the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea), is no exception. After its main contours took shape during the twenties and thirties of the previous century, its innovating and penetrating systematic analyses inspired first of all J.M. Spier to write such an Introduction. The fourth edition of a largely expanded version appeared in 1950 and the second edition of its English translation in 1976. After establishing special chairs in Reformational Philosophy at various state universities, the respective professors each wrote their own orientations in this philosophy (Popma, Mekkes, and Van Riessen). This process was continued in the appearance of a new generation of Introductions (Kalsbeek, Strauss and Hommes). Soon introductory texts, providing an opportun...
Assessing similarities and differences between animals and human beings is fairly difficult in an... more Assessing similarities and differences between animals and human beings is fairly difficult in an academic culture dominated by neo-Darwinism for quite some time. First of all, modal laws, holding for whatever is functioning within the various aspects of reality, ought to be distinguished from type laws holding for a limited class of entities only. Whereas animals, in spite of possessing sensory capacities absent in humans, are restricted to their basic physical, biotic and sensory concerns in life, ethology does acknowledge that currently a human person is seen as a "cultural being" with a "life history" and reduced instincts. The restricted sensitive intelligence of animals is surpassed by human rational intelligence. Rensch discerns a deep gap between animals and humans, which is given in logical thinking. In the absence of any conceptual understanding animals are instinctively secured, manifest in inherited behavioural action patterns ["angeborene Auslos...
Culture should be seen as the first nature of human beings. However, the rich diversity of cultur... more Culture should be seen as the first nature of human beings. However, the rich diversity of cultural objects present within the life world of humans presupposes the all-embracing role of tools and technology. What appears to be unique and distinctive in human tool-making is the innovation to use tools in the production of other tools. Simpson even discerns in this ability a defining trait: humans are “the only living animal that uses tools to make tools.” Against this background, attention is given to prominent scholars and their views on technology and its development. It starts with the philosophy of Descartes and Hobbes and proceeds by considering the views of Dijksterhuis, Von Bertalanffy, Heidegger, Weber, Habermas and Ellul – with special attention given to the rise of machine technology. The Enlightenment ideal of progress is related to an over-estimation of technology present in what Schuurman calls technicism, which ought to be understood in terms of the dialectic between na...
Introductory remark This is the first of a number of brief articles reflecting on some of the com... more Introductory remark This is the first of a number of brief articles reflecting on some of the complexities involved in scientific attempts to understand and explain living entities, their genesis and how they are related. The first one will ask what happened to the meaning of the term evolution within (neo-)Darwinism. It will argue that evolution in the biotic sense of development has been reduced to physical change, to the idea of continuous flux (gradualism) – and that this view even overrules Darwin’s idea of natural selection. In order to show that the problems involved are super-imposed by a preconceived conception of continuous change, a number of key quotations will be extracted from the works of acknowledged biologists.
Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Natuurwetenskap en Tegnologie, 2007
Philosophy and all the academic disciplines are sensitive to the aim of sound reasoning – except ... more Philosophy and all the academic disciplines are sensitive to the aim of sound reasoning – except for the dialectical tradition which sanctions contradictions and antinomies (Heraclitus, Nicolas of Cusa, Hegel, Marx, Vaihinger, Simmel, Rex, and Dahrendorf). A brief overview is presented of conflicting theoretical stances within the various academic disciplines before an assessment is given of the positive and negative meaning of ‘reductionism.’ Against the background of historical lines of development the multiple terms employed in this context are mentioned and eventually positioned within the context of the normativity holding for logical thinking. It is argued that the logical contrary between logical and illogical serves as the foundation of other normative contraries, such as legal and illegal and moral and immoral. Through the discovery of irrational numbers the initial Pythagorean conviction that everything is number reverted to a geometrical perspective that generated a stati...
In an article on Afrikaner nationalism, apartheid and the perversion of critique, Rene Eloff argu... more In an article on Afrikaner nationalism, apartheid and the perversion of critique, Rene Eloff argues that E.A. Venter and H.J. Strauss drew upon the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd to justify separate development and that the foundational moment of Dooyeweerd's philosophy involves an interpretive violence that accommodates this interpretation, accompanied by a political violence which is accommodated by the mystical foundation of its authority. This article is a response to what Eloff attempts to argue. Unfortunately Eloff's article is burdened by ambiguities, lack of factual data, non sequitur arguments and in particular, regarding the transcendental critique, not realizing the difference between the structural intention of the transcendental critique and its misunderstanding by him in terms of a genetic perspective. In addition he does not realize that Derrida's ideas of the "institutional presupposition" and the mystical foundation of its authority are confus...
Danie Strauss School of Philosophy North-West University Potchefstroom Campus dfms@cnet.co.za ABS... more Danie Strauss School of Philosophy North-West University Potchefstroom Campus dfms@cnet.co.za ABSTRACT In this article we highlight some of the main contours of the urge towards the infinite in order to focus on the twofold role of infinity in mathematics. Our brief discussion of the discovery of the wholeparts relation explains the switch from infinity as endlessness to infinity turned ‘inwards’, evinced in the infinite divisibility of (spatial) continuity. The traditional Aristotelian distinction between the potential infinite and the actual infinite constitutes the background of our subsequent analysis which touches upon Zeno's paradoxes and Aristotle's objections to the actual infinite. Since Descartes mathematicians increasingly reverted the relation between the potential infinite and the actual infinite by considering the latter as the basis of the former. The historical dominance of the potential infinite was eventually challenged by Cantor in his transfinite arithmet...
Reflections on "human nature" are found throughout the Western intellectual legacy. Fro... more Reflections on "human nature" are found throughout the Western intellectual legacy. From Greek antiquity onwards human nature has been related to an understanding of human society. The effect was that human nature acquired a mediating or co-conditioning role in respect of the way in which society is shaped or structured. The implication is that the type laws for human society became dependent upon human nature instead of norming it. From a systematic perspective this amounts to a misunderstanding of the relationship between modal universality and the typicality of type laws. Concrete societal entities function in a typonomic way within the various modal aspects, thus reflecting their "typonomicity". However, the scope of the modal aspects of reality displays an unspecified universality. The link between human nature and human society recently surfaced in a work of Jonathan Chaplin. He argues that normative societal structures are "variable, historical channe...
Before criticism is justified, an account of the applicable criteria should be given. This task c... more Before criticism is justified, an account of the applicable criteria should be given. This task concerns first of all the well-known logical principles of identity, contradiction and the excluded middle. They connect critical thinking to the conceptual element of rationality and to the normed nature of logical thinking, manifest in logically sound (norm-conformative) thinking and antinormative thinking—briefly also accounting for the dialectical tradition. An analysis of these principles requires an understanding of the uniqueness of, and coherence between, the logical and non-logical aspects in the light of contraries like logical-illogical, polite-impolite and frugal-wasteful. It also questions the idea of autonomy and examines the switch from principles to values. When a school of thought does not accept all the logical principles, the criteria for scientific thinking are challenged, for example in intuitionistic logic which rejects the universal validity of the principle of the ...
Dooyeweerd commenced as a law-student but soon expanded his intellectual pursuits beyond the boun... more Dooyeweerd commenced as a law-student but soon expanded his intellectual pursuits beyond the boundaries of the science of law. The prevailing schools of thought within the discipline of law helped him to be sceptical about the allegedly purely logical or purely jural nature of the basic concepts of the discipline of law. His novel approach accepted both the uniqueness of the various aspects of reality and their mutual coherence. In articulating his new general theory of modal law-spheres he advanced systematic distinctions which facilitated an understanding of universal modal aspects which are not only modes of being but also modes of explanation. The dominant theories of state and society mainly fluctuated between atomistic (individualistic) and holistic (universalistic) approaches – one-sided views accentuating either a quantitative multiplicity (number) or one or another societal whole of which all the other societal entities are mere parts. Traditional societies need to differen...
Our awareness of a diversity of things as well as a multiplicity of relationships took shape in t... more Our awareness of a diversity of things as well as a multiplicity of relationships took shape in the history of philosophy and the various academic disciplines, embodied in a constant struggle between allegedly independent substances or encompassing relations. Viewing entities as independent (self-sufficient) substances dominated Greek and Medieval philosophy. Since the Renaissance, a definite shift towards the primacy of relations has taken place. Kant claims that our knowledge about matter is limited to knowledge about relationships. Entities are not independent substances, because through the universal modal aspects in which they function they are related, as embodied in the wave-particle duality. Reifikasie van dinge of relasies : substansialisme versus funksionalisme Ons besef van 'n ryke verskeidenheid dinge asook 'n menigvuldigheid relasies het vorm aangeneem in verskeie akademiese dissiplines en dit is beliggaam in die stryd tussen vermeende onafhanklike substansies o...
Schumpeter, a student of Max Weber, introduced the phrase methodological individualism in 1908. F... more Schumpeter, a student of Max Weber, introduced the phrase methodological individualism in 1908. For Weber concepts such as 'state', 'club' and 'feudalism' are reducible to 'understandable' actions of individual human beings. Individualism and holism touch deep-seated beliefs, prompting Jellinek to describe them as two opposing world views, an individualistic-atomistic one and a collectivistic-universalistic world view. The modern mechanistic world view has been atomistic by understanding the world in terms of particles in motion. The 'strong' sense of the phrase methodological individualism soon has exceeded the original quantitative meaning of the one and the many. Just compare expressions such as institutional individualism, structural individualism, and supervenience individualism. Ultimately the key terms employed in individualist and holist theories respectively derive from the numerical and spatial aspects of reality. What is required is...
Dilthey's emphasis on the relativity of world and life views inspired Spengler to speak of di... more Dilthey's emphasis on the relativity of world and life views inspired Spengler to speak of different worlds of number. Yet, within Greek culture, Greek mathematics switched from arithmeticism to a geometrisation of mathematics. Since the Renaissance the ideal of sovereign human reason, which viewed human understanding as the (a priori formal) law-giver of nature, gave rise to the notion of construction. Avoiding the stance of both Platonism and constructivism, an acknowledgement of the ontic status of numbers (in their distinctness and succession), accounted for in terms of the distinction between law and subject, illustrates the influence of an underlying world view. Wereldbeskouing, filosofie en die onderrig van rekenkunde Dilthey se klem op die relatiwiteit van wereldbeskouings het Spengler geinspireer om van verskillende getalle-werelde te praat. Nogtans het daar binne die Griekse kultuur 'n verskuiwing van aritmetisisme na 'n geometrisering by die wiskunde ingetree....
Establishing a new philosophical school of thought in the course of its development naturally gen... more Establishing a new philosophical school of thought in the course of its development naturally generates the need for understandable introductions. The new philosophical movement, initially known as "De Wijsbegeerte der Wetdsidee" (the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea), is no exception. After its main contours took shape during the twenties and thirties of the previous century, its innovating and penetrating systematic analyses inspired first of all J.M. Spier to write such an Introduction. The fourth edition of a largely expanded version appeared in 1950 and the second edition of its English translation in 1976. After establishing special chairs in Reformational Philosophy at various state universities, the respective professors each wrote their own orientations in this philosophy (Popma, Mekkes, and Van Riessen). This process was continued in the appearance of a new generation of Introductions (Kalsbeek, Strauss and Hommes). Soon introductory texts, providing an opportun...
Assessing similarities and differences between animals and human beings is fairly difficult in an... more Assessing similarities and differences between animals and human beings is fairly difficult in an academic culture dominated by neo-Darwinism for quite some time. First of all, modal laws, holding for whatever is functioning within the various aspects of reality, ought to be distinguished from type laws holding for a limited class of entities only. Whereas animals, in spite of possessing sensory capacities absent in humans, are restricted to their basic physical, biotic and sensory concerns in life, ethology does acknowledge that currently a human person is seen as a "cultural being" with a "life history" and reduced instincts. The restricted sensitive intelligence of animals is surpassed by human rational intelligence. Rensch discerns a deep gap between animals and humans, which is given in logical thinking. In the absence of any conceptual understanding animals are instinctively secured, manifest in inherited behavioural action patterns ["angeborene Auslos...
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