Chapter I.

Background of Study

Chapter I

Background of Study

To deny the succession of time, deny the Ego, deny the astronomical universe, these are hopeless appearances
and sacred consolations....Time is the material of which I am made. Time is a river which drags me along, but I
am the river; it is the fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately,
am Borges.

Borges, Other Inquiries

1. Introduction

The conjoining of the terms time and sustainable development in the title of this research is
not casual. It is a widely shared opinion that time and sustainable development are
inextricably entwined. Assumptions about how long a development is expected to be
sustainable for, or over what period an issue is to be considered, are at the heart of
sustainability. Scientists, governing bodies, and planners make decisions within the context of
an assumed time period. How long this time period should be is a question of great
importance.
The term sustainable development was used for the first time in 1987 by the Brundtland
Commission which coined the most often-quoted definition as “ development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. In essence sustainable development is a process of change in which exploitation of
resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological developments, and
institutional charge are all in harmony and enhance current and future potential to meet
human needs and aspirations” (WCED 1987). This definition suggests sustainable
development to be a dynamic multiaspectual process of change evolving through time.
There are a variety of views of the time horizons and time dimensions related to sustainable
development. This is due to the multifaceted character of reality, which is defined by a set of
different but interrelated aspects. Sustainable development deals with environment, economy,
social integration, equality, politics, personal and collective well-being, safety, cultural
identity, and background. All these aspects are fields for scientific investigation defined by
proper rules, norms, issues, and dimensions. Each of them has proper time horizons and
dimensions, which appear to be independent from any other. For these reasons, an integrated
approach to sustainable development is needed. There is a wide literature on time and
sustainability or sustainable development, but it is quite impossible to find papers, books, or

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

reviews dealing with time in sustainable development or defining what sustainable time
means. To bring these two concepts together, time and sustainable development, implies an
underpinning into complex and partly undiscovered fields.
This research is aimed at defining an integrated approach to the question of time, related to
sustainable development. In particular it is aimed at defining the important role played by
time in sustainable development in order to apply it to planning procedures. Sustainable
development is a process of change, and the term sustainability indicates, in this research, a
harmonic relation of all the aspects defining urban systems in space and time. Similarly
sustainable time can be defined as the combination of cause and effects, measured along the
historical temporal line, that preserves or encourages the harmonic functioning of the urban
system. Over what time and over what space is sustainable development to be achieved? This
thesis is an attempt to provide an answer to the previous question by building a strategic
framework, which can assist decision makers in the planning process of urban development,
to improve the approach to sustainable planning. The cosmonomic philosophy, developed by
the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd at the beginning of the twentieth century, is of a
grounding importance in building the framework, as it is justified in the following chapters.
Through the analysis of philosophical concepts, a possible direction for achieving an
integrated approach to time and sustainability in urban planning processes is provided.

2. Why Time?

Time has been the subject of a great number of studies in science, mathematics, philosophy,
anthropology, sociology, literature, poetry, and fine arts. Its application to urban planning
discipline is still at its infancy (Brandon P. and Lombardi P., 2005). Defining the term “time”
is not an easy exercise. Saint Augustin in his Confessions stated, “What is then Time? If
someone asks to me I cannot explain” (1991:230). The Collins Dictionary (2000) defines time
as “The continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of potentiality in
the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past.” Since the ancient Greece,
time has been considered as a fundamental characteristic of everyday life, defined by Aion,
the eternal and sacred time, and Chronos, the ordinary time. These two different aspects of
time have influenced many further theories giving time different meanings. In the sixth
century BC, the Athenian statesman Solon considered time as a judge—able to discover and
avenge any act of injustice. In the same period, Hesiod saw time as the moral order of the
universe, giving an account of man’s decline from a primeval golden age. Anaximander and
Heraclitus extended the concept of justice to the whole universe by asserting that “to him
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 Chapter I. Background of Study

(time) everything that happens in the natural world is rational through and through and subject
to a rigid norm” (Whithrow 1989: 39). Later, the Pythagoreans considered time as the soul of
the universe—its procreative element. The meaning of time has been quite always connected
with the meaning of human life and soul. Time has been considered as a fundamental
characteristic of human experience despite the lack of evidence that we have a special sense
of time as we have of sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. Why then concern oneself with
time? It is because time is part of our life and of our identity. Durkheim asserted that time is
embedded in social life, and that it is a social category of thought (Lucas, 2005). In 1909 the
social anthropologist A. Van Gennep introduced the term les vites des passages based on the
idea that human life is not a continuous development, but instead it is punctuated by a number
of sudden changes from one age to the next. On this idea of the development of human life
through a succession of ages, many theories were developed by philosophers and poets. In
particular, the theory of the four ages of man was based on the Pythagoreans’ cosmological
speculations around the “tetractys,” a symbol of the four elements earth, air, fire, and water:

Figure 1: The tetractys (Source: Cornford, F. M. 1957, 205)

The tetractys represented the organization of space:

• The first row represented the zero dimension (one point);

• The second row represented one dimension (a line of two points);
• The third row represented two dimensions (a plane defined by a triangle of three
points);
• The fourth row represented three dimensions (a tetrahedron defined by four points).
The number 4 came to be associated with many natural phenomena—for example the four
seasons and the four cardinal directions. The symbol of the tetractys represented the existing
connection between numbers, space, and time. Human life was then considered as developed
within an organized space and following defined cyclical rhythms. The Pythagorean symbol
3
 Chapter I. Background of Study

provides a description of the existing connection between space and time by the use of a
geometrical form, the pyramid. In the following chapters, the figure of the pyramid is used to
represent the order of reality as described by the set of aspects defined by the Dutch
philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd.

Time is a fundamental characteristic of human experience. The personal experience of time is

always of the present, and the subjective idea of time comes from reflecting on this
experience. Through the flowing of time, experience of everyday life turns into memory,
which is part of personal background and identity. Past, present, and future are three temporal
horizons characterizing man’s experience of everyday life.

Memory, identity, and background are grounding concepts in urban planning. All human
settlements (cities, villages, etc.) are rooted in time. The Latin phrase Ab Urbe Condita
represented a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify
particular Roman periods. The English translation is “from the founding of the City
(Rome),”and it expresses the deep connection existing between the founding of the city and
the counting of time. In Varro’s point of view, time started with the foundation of Rome on 21
April 753 BC. This indicates that in ancient civilizations, time started with a city foundation.
From that date, past, present, and future existed as interconnected horizons. The evolution of
the spatial urban structure has always reflected the passing of time. Time is perceived through
change occurring within the spatial urban character which, through centuries, becomes a
palimpsest. The sense of personal and collective identity is rooted in this palimpsest as the
historical evolution of urban structures. The spatial one is not the only aspect defining an
urban structure. Since the dawning of human civilization, the evolution of human settlements
is due to the interlacement of economic, social, political, and environmental elements. Space
becomes place through an increasing anthropical process through time.

Space and time are related through change. Plato asserted that time and the universe are
inseparable, as time does not exist in its own right, but it is a characteristic of the universe.
The connection existing between space and time is deeply analyzed in chapter three.

The founding of a city was a sacred ritual grounded in time. In ancient civilizations, the city
was founded around a sacred place called the centre whose archetypal image was the cosmic
mountain, the eternal tree, or the central pillar sustaining the planes of the cosmos. Mircea
Eliade asserted that “in cultures that have the conception of three cosmic regions—those of
Heaven, Earth and Hell—the centre constituted the point of intersection of those regions. It is
4
 Chapter I. Background of Study

here that the break-through on to another plane is possible and, at the same time,
communication between the three regions . . . Hell, the centre of the Earth and the door of
heaven are all to be found, then, upon the same axis, and it is along this axis that the passage
from one cosmic region to another is effected” (Eliade 1991: 40). The centre was the zone of
intersection between the higher (divine) world, the terrestrial world, and the subterranean
(infernal) world. In the oriental religious tradition, many cities were conceived as being in the
centre of the world. Babylon, for example, was considered a gate of the gods, for it was there
that the gods came down to earth. The summit of the cosmic mountain was considered as the
navel of the earth, the point at which creation began. An ancient rabbinical text affirms, “The
Holy one created the world like an embryo. As an embryo proceeds from the navel onward, so
God began the creation of the world from its navel onward, and from thence it spread in
different directions” (Ibid., 43). The creation of man took place similarly from a central point,
“Adam was created at the centre of the earth, on the very same spot where later on, the Cross
of Jesus were to be erected” (Ibid.). The existence of a sacred place, the so-called centre, was
a grounding in building the system of orientation that was proper to each inhabitant. The
personal and collective image of the city was built around the centre, which was a symbol of
the community identity. Personal and collective identity and sense of orientation are grounded
in spatial and temporal dimensions. As Kevin Lynch asserted, “The need to recognize and
pattern our surroundings is so crucial, and has such long roots in the past, that this image has
wide practical and emotional importance to the individual” (1960: 4). The city is a continuous
evolving city rooted in time and changing within space. Like that of Irene, “it is a city in the
distance and if you approach, it changes. For those who pass it without entering, the city is
one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where
you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each
deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps
I have spoken only of Irene” (Calvino 1997: 112–113). The symbol of the centre is rooted in
time, and it is part of the personal identity and sense of orientation. The analysis of the
Dooyeweerdan philosophy that is provided in chapter 4 and chapter 5, indicates that the
human being is located at the centre of a wider system defining his surrounding reality. Man
is the connection between the natural environment and the social anthropical space. The
definition of the existing relation between man-environment is crucial in solving the question
related to time and sustainable development. Sustainable development is a question of time, in
particular it is a question of the increasing distance between biological and anthropical time.

5
 Chapter I. Background of Study

3. Herman Dooyeweerd

The philosophy developed by the Dutch Herman Dooyeweerd is the bedrock of this thesis. In
the last chapter of her PhD thesis (1999) Prof. Lombardi suggested the investigation of the
Dooyeweerdian concept of time as further work, in order to apply it to urban planning. This
study follows her suggestion. Some of the concepts and principles investigated and developed
in his masterwork A New Critique of Theoretical Thought have been decisive in building the
strategic framework for sustainable planning, which is proposed in this research. A New
Critique of Theoretical Thought was written in four volumes and first published in 1969 by
the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company1.

Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is not easy to approach. The following paragraphs are going to
introduce it in order to clarify the significance of his thought and to justify why it is the
subject of this thesis. A more exhaustive investigation of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is
provided in chapter four, chapter five, and chapter six.

3.1 Dooyeweerd’s Life and Work

Herman Dooyeweerd was born on 7th October 1894 in Amsterdam to Herman Dooijeweerd,
an accountant, and Maria Christina Spaling. Maria was Hermen’s second wife. His first one
had died leaving him three daughters, so Herman was the only boy in a family of five
children.
Hermen Doijeweerd was a fervent believer. He was greatly influenced by Abraham Kuyper,
an active Dutch politician, statesman, and theologian who, from 1901 to 1905, was Prime
Minister of Netherlands. Kuyper was an important and very influential person, and he played
an active role in the foundation of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands, which was
formed in 1892 as opposition to the liberal tendencies within the Dutch Reformed Church. He
also founded the Neo-Calvinism, which differs from conventional Calvinism over issues such
as divine grace, common grace, and the role of the state. In this Christian-reforming
atmosphere, the young Herman Dooyeweerd developed his background.

Dooyeweerd became a Christian at a young age, and he was immersed in Kuyperian thought
and Neo-Calvinism. He attended a Christian school whose headmaster was Dr. J. Woltjer, an

1
Dooyeweerd completed his De wijsbegeerte der wetsidee in 1935–1936. It was translated into English in 1953
as The New Critique of Theoretical Thought.
6
 Chapter I. Background of Study

associate of Kuyper. In 1912, he attended the Free University in Amsterdam (Vrije

Univeriteit, VU) where he studied law2. In 1917, he received his doctorate for a thesis entitled
“De Ministerraad in het Netherlandsche Staaatsrecht” (Cabinet Ministers under Dutch
Constitutional Law).
After his doctorate, he was employed in Friesland as assistant tax collector. In 1918, he
moved to Leiden to work as assistant to a municipal councillor. He then was asked to become
the deputy head of the Public Health Department in The Hague. During this period, he studied
legal philosophy independently. He was convinced that there was a need for a “genuinely
Christian and biblically based insight and foundation” (Dooyeweerd 1996: 107), because of
the much conflict he found between the different approaches to legal philosophy.
In 1918, Dooyeweerd’s sister married Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven, who was a graduate of the
Free University in Amsterdam. Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven began to correspond about
philosophy, and in his letters, Dooyeweerd expressed the desire “to work out the
philosophical foundations of science and of developing a theistic position, along Calvinist
line” (Runner 1977: 27). Christianity influenced Dooyeweerd’s life and work. He could not
conceive his work as separate from his religious life3.
His thought developed in a particular historic and social context. The nineteenth century had
seen a rapid proliferation of special sciences. Because of new developments in arithmetic,
geometry, physics, chemistry, biology, history, sociology, etc., the view had prevailed that

2
The VU was founded in 1880 by Kuyper, and at the time of Dooyeweerd, there were only three faculties. The
law faculty had only three professors: Fabius, Anema, and Diepenhorst.
3
As John Kraay suggested, Dooyeweerd had three different conceptions of the relation between faith and
philosophy:
1. The first was dated around 1926. It gives primacy to the life–and–worldview of the philosopher’s
religious community. On this conception, the Idea of God’s universal law is both the core and the
organon of the Calvinist worldview, to which Dooyeweerd’s own philosophy gives expression;
2. The second conception was pre-eminent in his writings from 1930s. It gives primacy to the transcendent
Archimedean point that every philosopher must find. The Archimedean point is the concentration point
for thought, out from which the thinker must understand the modal aspects of reality in the theoretical
view of totality. This is the point of departure for philosophical thinking. The Archimedean point
chosen by the Dutch philosopher resided “in the root, reborn in Christ, of the human race, in which we
participate via our reborn selfhood” (Dooyeweerd 1983, I:99)
3. He worked out his third conception in the 1940s. He went to “ground-motives” as the dynamic spiritual
forces that drive culture as a whole. He argues that every philosophy must employ three transcendental
ideas: the idea of origin, the idea of unity, and the idea of coherence whose direction is set by the
dominant religious ground-motive in a culture or subculture.
In A New Critique of Theoretical Thought,Vol. I, Page 9, Dooyeweerd states, “We are from, through
and to God as our Origin”. From a Christian perspective, these three transcendental ideas correspond to God as
origin, to selfhood as supratemporal religious root, and to cosmos as the temporal part of creation. It is only with
this third conception that Dooyeweerd formulates a “transcendental critique that replaces the law—Idea or
Cosmonomic Idea as the key to his philosophy (Kraay 1980, 67).
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 Chapter I. Background of Study

social sciences were self-sufficient, structurally unrelated to philosophy. Gradually, many

investigators and scientists understood that special sciences were running up against
foundational problems of a philosophical sort. Science and philosophy were not to be
conceived as separated. In order to find answers to scientific questions, it was necessary to
turn to philosophy.
In this atmosphere, Dooyeweerd developed his desire to work out the philosophical
foundations of science along a Calvinist line. Early reflections upon the duality existing
between ethics and law led him to consider that each special science must continually
question its own character and its relation with the other special fields. In the New Critique of
Theoretical Thought, his masterwork, Dooyeweerd stated that “it is impossible to establish a
line of demarcation between philosophy and science in order to emancipate the latter from the
former. Science cannot be isolated in such a way as to give it a completely independent sphere
of investigation and any attempt to do so cannot withstand a serious critique. It would make
sense to speak of the autonomy of the special sciences, if, and only if, a special science could
actually investigate a specific aspect of temporal reality without theoretically considering its
coherence with the other aspects. No scientific thought, however, is possible in such isolation
with closed shutters” (1983, I:548).
In his thought, science and philosophy were connected through the interdependence of all
scientific fields. The various philosophical approaches to scientific questions that had been
developed since the Greek tradition were not able to grasp and explain the coherence among
all aspects of reality. Special sciences were interconnected, but philosophy was not able to
give coherence to them.
The need for a reformed philosophy, based on Christian principles, was at the meaning of
Dooyeweerd’s work and life. In the foreword to the first edition of his masterwork,
Dooyeweerd states, “Originally I was strongly under the influence first of the Neo-Kantian
philosophy, later on of Husserl’s phenomenology. The great turning point in my thought was
marked by the discovery of the religious root of thought itself, whereby a new light was shed
on the failure of all attempts . . . I came to understand the central significance of the heart,
repeatedly proclaimed by Holy Scripture to be the religious root of human existence” (Ibid.,
v).
From 1922 to 1926, Dooyeweerd worked at the Kuyper Foundation in The Hague. The
foundation was established after Dr. Abraham Kuyper’s death, with the primary purpose of
engaging in a deeper study of the anti-revolutionary principles in politics. It was during this
period that Dooyeweerd went into his philosophical studies.
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 Chapter I. Background of Study

In 1926 he was appointed to teach at the Free University. His teaching assignment was
“Introduction to the Science of Law, the History of Traditional Dutch Law and Jurisprudence”
(van Dunné and van Voss, 1977). This represented the starting point of his philosophical
work.
He thought philosophy for forty years till his retirement in 1965 at 70. During those years, he
held a number of conferences all over the world. He died on 12 February 1977, at the age of
82.
Dooyeweerd inspired a new school of Christian philosophical and social thought (Skillen,
1979).

3.2 Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy: The Significance of Its Contents and the Reasons for
Interest in It.

Why Dooyeweerd? It is because of his interest in concrete persons and things and the
importance he gave to everyday life. Dooyeweerd was unusual as a philosopher. At first sight,
Dooyeweerd’s philosophy appears to be complex. He did not aim to construct a philosophical
theory about reality then to “open up the structure of reality so that once we get it we can run
with it” (Basden, 2008: 33). In his last interview, he said,

The direction in which I have worked out my philosophy and my encyclopedia of

legal science has no forerunners. I can still reconstruct how I obtained its basic idea. I
lived in The Hague, and in summer, when the weather was good, I would often take a
walk in the evening among the dunes. During one such a walk in the dunes, I obtained
the inspiration that the various ways that we experience, which are related to various
aspects of reality, are modal in character and that there must exist a structure of the
modal aspects in which their mutual coherence is reflected. The discovery of what I
have called the modal aspect of our horizon of experience was my starting point also
for my view of the encyclopedia of legal science. (van Dunné & van Voss, 1977: 38).

His being a philosopher depended on his interest and awareness of his surrounding reality, not
merely as a spectator, but as someone with a more interactive role. Dooyeweerd saw the

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

temporal reality through his Christian “lens.” He considered it as an integrated system of

mutual relations, in contrast with the Greek thinking and western culture point of view4.

In his work Roots of Western Culture, Pagan, Secular and Christian Options, Dooyeweerd
asserted that “philosophy is theoretical, and in its constitution it remains bound to the
relativity of all human thought. As such, philosophy itself needs an absolute point of
departure. It derives this exclusively from religion” (1979: 8). In the introduction to the

Prolegomena, he wrote, “If I consider reality as it is given in the naïve pre-theoretical

experience, and then confront it with a theoretical analysis, through which reality appears to
split up into various modal aspects, then the first thing that strikes me is the original
indissoluble interrelation among these aspects which are for the first time explicitly
distinguished in the theoretical attitude of mind” (1983:3).
This thesis is based on Dooyeweerd’s philosophy; in particular, there are some aspects of his
thought that have been taken into account in order to find a new approach to urban planning.
What follows below are the reasons for interest in Dooyeweerd.

• Starting point: naïve experience.

One of the basic assumptions in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy is the non-autonomy of theoretical
thinking. Dooyeweerd criticizes the past philosophical attitude of considering theoretical
thinking as necessarily separated from experience. This attitude has produced an antithetical
relation in which the logical aspects of thought are opposed to the non-logical aspects of
investigated reality. In this antithetic relation, the non-logical aspects oppose every effort of
understanding, and the possibility of knowledge is lost5. In this way, theorizing became just
an abstract mental exercise, an end in itself, and theories were supported by concepts analyzed
just through the “lens” of subjective presuppositions. From Greek tradition through medieval
periods, Reformation, Renaissance, and Enlightenment—following Dooyeweerd’s thinking—
the mistake consisted in supporting, by philosophers and scientists, a separation of experience
from theory. This separation, as Dooyeweerd himself explains, was derived from
presuppositions deeply rooted in western culture6.

4
Dooyeweerd thought that Greek thinking is dualistic. The most basic assumptions Greek philosophers made led
inevitably to dualism and to driving a wedge into reality. One of these assumptions was that of existence as
primary property of anything experienced. Existence, in this vision, is self-dependent, and the gods are merely
part of it. Hebrew thinking, on the contrary, saw experienced reality as created by God. God is outside of it, but
it interacts with it. The primary property of experienced reality is meaning and not existence.
5
Dooyeweerd indicates this contraposition with the German term gegenstand.
6
In order to explain the origin of the separation between experience and theory, Dooyeweerd introduces the term
antithesis (1979, 7) meaning opposition. Ancient Greek dialectical way of thought attempted to reconcile
10
 Chapter I. Background of Study

Dooyeweerd defines these presuppositions as ground-motives,7 as “the moving power or spirit

at the very roots of man, who so captured works it out with fear and trembling, and curiosity”
(Ibid., I:58).
He proposed a new way of interpreting reality based on a set of modalities that could
represent the different aspects of experienced temporal surrounding. The modal frame he
proposed was his concrete contraposition to the abstract theoretical thinking. Naïve
experience, as related to theoretical attitude, is at the root of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. In the
New Critique, he states, “In the naïve pre-theoretical attitude of experience, we have an
immediate integral experience of cosmic time in the uninterrupted coherence of all its modal
aspects, inclusive of the normative ones, and in concentric relatedness to the selfhood” (Ibid.,
I:33).
Naïve experience exists within reality, and it represents the basic human condition leading to
the whole understanding of temporal surrounding. This concept was exposed in a lecture
delivered to French students in Amsterdam, during which Dooyeweerd explained that “in the
attitude of common experience we find ourselves completely within empirical reality with all
the functions of our consciousness. There is no distance, no opposition between the logical
aspect of our thought and the non logical aspects of reality” (1947:44). Following his
thinking, naïve experience is not a theory of reality, rather it takes reality as it is given. Naïve
experience is but something that is learned. It is not simply pre-experiential, as infantile
attitude is. It is learned socially, “first formed by social praxis . . . Experience in its proper
sense presupposes a sufficient development of the typical act structure of human existence
and a practical acquaintance with the things of common life which is not acquired by animal

opposites like motion and rest in a higher unity, that is the synthesis between a thesis and antithesis. Dooyeweerd
explains that in real everyday life, it is not possible to separate opposites (such as motion and rest) as they are
mutually related.
7
Dooyeweerd indicates four great religious motives which have dominated the evolution of western scientific
thought (1947):
1. The motive of Matter and Form was fundamental of the Greek thinking. Matter corresponds to the faith
of the ancient natural religion according to which divinity was the great vital current without stable or
personal form, out of which all beings of individual form emerge. These are subject to the great law of
birth and death by a blind necessity, Anangke. The motive of Form corresponds to the faith of the later
religion of the Olympic Gods who are only deified cultural forces who have left their mother earth with
its vital current to receive an immortal, personal, and invisible form. The Olympic Gods have no power
over against Anangke, which dominates the stream of life and death. Anangke is their great antagonist.
2. The motive of the Creation, radical Fall due to sin and Redemption in Jesus Christ was introduced into
the western thought by the Christian religion.
3. The motive of Nature and Grace was introduced by Catholicism. It originates in an attempt to reconcile
the opposed religious motives of Greek and Christian thought.
4. The motive of Nature and Liberty, introduced by modern Humanism, originates in an insoluble conflict
between the religious cult of human personality in its liberty and autonomy and the desire to dominate
reality by modern natural science, which seeks to construe it as a rational and uninterrupted chain of
causes and effects. This humanist motive has absorbed into itself the three earlier fundamental motives,
secularising the Christian motive and the Catholic motive.
11
 Chapter I. Background of Study

instinct” (1983, III:33–34). Pre-theoretical experience is a social experience that presupposes

the existence of a background. During naive experience, subjective logical functions work in
order to elaborate data and sensations coming from the surrounding environment.
The concept of naive experience, as introduced by Dooyeweerd, could give a positive
contribution to urban and environmental planning. Responsible sustainable planning is a hard
process, involving several aspects and disciplines, and it presupposes a wide knowledge.
Naive experience, as “a concrete experience of things and their relations in the fullness of
individual temporal reality” (Ibid., II:468), contains principles that have been long applied by
social sciences. Human beings, as having an active role in a more and more complex society
characterized by different temporal dimensions, have been the main subjects for sociological
and anthropological works. The concept of “I mirror” introduced by Colley (1967), as well as
the definition of society as a continuous dialectic interrelation between man and the
surrounding environment (Berger and Luckmann 1969), is an indication of the importance of
a more concrete and not just a theoretical approach to everyday-life analysis.
Sociological approaches are not so strange to urban and environmental planning. There are
several definitions of urban planning given in the last decades8, and all of them show the
complexity of this discipline. Urban planning is a multifaceted discipline, involving a wide
range of aspects of reality. Urban questions need an integrated approach to be faced, and
social and anthropological issues are no strangers to planning procedures.
Naive experience is human everyday life experience. It is a temporal experience, involving
the present, the past, and tending toward the future. In naive experience, “we grasp reality in
the typical total structures of individual things and concrete events” (1983, I:41). If applied to
urban planning as “a wide range of systematic activities” (Wheeler, 2008: 11), naïve
experience could show a direction towards sustainability through a redefinition of the relation
between man and his surrounding environment.
In naïve experience, all disciplines converge because of its multi-aspectual character. This
universal validity represents the central meaning of human life, and planning cannot ignore it.
This is the first reason for this thesis to approach Dooyeweerd’s philosophy.

8
Paul Davidoff defined planning as a process in which planners make choices at three junctures: selection of
ends and criteria, identification of alternatives, selection of desired outcomes (Davidoff and Rainer 1962). He
was the founder of the Advocacy Planning Movement, which emerged in America during the 1960s. Advocacy
Planning was a concrete attempt to reconcile political programmes, planning, and social objectives. This new
understanding of politics and social responsibility in urban planning may have brought boundary interaction
between planners and other professions, such as social work, or caused a split within the planning professions.
Andrew Abbott talks about a “social work of boundaries” (1995) with reference to sociology and its necessary
links with other technical professions.
12
 Chapter I. Background of Study

• Reality as described by a set of modal aspects.

Dooyeweerd developed the “philosophy of the cosmonomic idea” in the 1920s, during his
period as a professor at the Free University in Amsterdam. As Dooyeweerd himself asserted,
“cosmonomic idea” is the English translation of the Dutch term Wetsidee (idea legis) (1983,
I:93), and it pointed to the origin and meaning of the cosmic order of nomos9 and to its
relation to subjectivity. This philosophy “because of its critical focusing of the preliminary
questions concerning meaning (in its origin, totality and modal diversity) toward the relation
of the cosmic order (nomos) and its subject, really designates the central criterion for the
fundamental discrimination of the different starting – points and trends in philosophy” (Ibid.,
I:95). At the core of the philosophy of the cosmonomic idea is the theory of the modal
aspects, the philosophy of the law-idea. As Dooyeweerd himself asserted during a lecture at
the annual meeting of the Association for Calvinistic Philosophy held on 2 January 1964 on
the philosophy of the law-idea, four basic ideas developed by Kuyper have a fundamental
significance (1964/2007, 6/6A):

The concept of the radical antithesis between the spirit of God’s Word and the spirit of
falling away, which characterizes the material world. This antithesis was to be
revealed in each sphere of life, including science.

The idea that man is created by God with a religious centre of life, which the Bible
names “the heart”, out of which are the issues of life

The idea of “sovereignty in its own sphere”, with reference to the spheres of societal
life. This concept, that have been often misunderstood, was deeply biblically founded
in the idea of the creation of all things according to their nature.

The idea that the function of faith is created within human nature and that it plays an
essential role in human knowledge. Therefore, no science exists that can be neutral
toward the faith that one proceeds from.
By starting from these ideas, Dooyeweerd delineated a set of fifteen aspects related to human
everyday experience. An aspect is a sphere of meaning, and all the aspects together constitute
a framework, which Dooyeweerd called the law side of created reality. The concept of
meaning was defined by Dooyeweerd as “the being of all that has been created and the nature

9
The term nomos (nome) is of Greek origin. Its meaning is justice, righteousness, or morality. From the
beginning to the prehistory, the belief that a society must follow a certain path or way in order to maintain itself
and the wholeness of the world around it has been a common theme running through many societies and
cultures. This way was the nomos, and it was “the way of the world, the way things happen” (Harrison 1927,
517). The Way, according to the Greeks, was to be followed not only by all human beings, but also by the
natural world. In sociology a nomos is a socially constructed order of experience. It refers to all of the normal
rules and forms that people take in their daily activities.
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 Chapter I. Background of Study

even of our selfhood” (1983, I:4). Meaning is the bedrock on which human thinking and
acting stand. It is the ground or being of all that is created. Reality is not self-sufficient, and it
finds its coherence within the meaning of the modal aspects. By this concept, Dooyeweerd
indicates that there is a structure behind reality that gives coherence, continuity, and meaning
to it. He identifies this structure within the fifteen modal aspects within which reality is
clearly organized in a meaningful way.
In his last interview, with regard to the complexity resulting from the mutual interplacement
of each sphere of life (modality), he asserted that “it is really just like when you look at the
wrong side of a piece of embroidery; you become confused by the tangled threads that run
through each other, but when you have the embroidery properly in front of you, you see the
pattern that continues to reveal itself even in the interweaving of the various structures” (van
Dunné & van Voss, 1977: 51) . Dooyeweerd proposes a set of fifteen modalities enclosing all
aspects of reality:

Modalities Nuclei of meaning

Quantitative Awareness of “how much” of things
Spatial Continuous extension
Kinematics Movement
Physical Energy, mass.
Biological Life function
Sensitive Senses, feelings
Analytic Discerning of entities, logic
Historical Formative power
Communicative Informatory, symbolic representation
Social Social intercourse, social exchange
Economic Frugality, handling limited resources
Aesthetic Harmony, beauty
Juridical Retribution, fairness, rights
Ethical Love, moral
Credal Faith, commitment, trustworthiness
Table 1: The modal order
Source: Data from Lombardi and Basden 1997

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

The properties of the above modalities are exhibited by the objects of people’s everyday
experience10. Each modal aspect serves as a universal sphere within which every concrete
(natural and social) entity and every process have specified functions11.
Within the modal aspects, everyday life experience is disclosed in its complexity. In 1964,
Dooyeweerd asserted, “In a greatly changed world, a world in which the pace of change has
become so fast that we can hardly keep up with it . . . the philosophy of the Law-Idea was
confronted with a strongly changing world” (1964/2007:1).

The cosmonomic idea of reality is a multi-modal system of thinking. It aims to make complex
systems intelligible by means of multilevel perspectives in philosophical studies. If applied to
urban and planning, this approach could help in clearing the context by taking into
consideration all the fuzzy elements which traditional approaches were not able to do.
This is the second reason for resorting to Dooyeweerd’s approach.

• The relevant role of time.

The concept of time is fundamental in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy of reality. In the New
Critique of Theoretical Thought he wrote, “The Idea of cosmic time constitutes the basis of
the philosophical theory of reality in this book. By virtue of its integral character it may be
called new. According to this conception, time in its cosmic sense has a cosmonomic and a
factual side. Its cosmonomic side is the temporal order of succession or simultaneity. The
factual side is the factual duration, which differs with various individualities.” (1983, I:281).
In Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, time is cosmic, an integral conception enclosing the conditions
of being and becoming, but not limited by them.
Cosmic time is experienced by a human being in his everyday life. Experience of time is
possible mainly because of the feeling of time that allows human beings to become aware of a
more complete form of time, not just as it appears as measured by clocks or calendars. Within
cosmic time, Dooyeweerd makes a distinction between law side and entity side. According to
the law side, cosmic time is a structural time—an order embracing the entire temporal reality
10
In the interview on 23 September 1974, held by his son-in-law Magnus Verbrugge, Dooyeweerd asserted that
“Kuyper developed an idea that has fundamental importance for this philosophy. That was the idea of what was
called the sovereignty in its own sphere. It referred to the temporal existence of man, with a great diversity of the
spheres of life, not only within the social sphere of society, in society, but also the great diversity of what the
Philosophy of the Law Idea calls aspects, which are ways, fundamental ways in which man experiences reality . .
. Modal is derived from the Latin word modus; it means a way. Modos quo, the way in which. And the word is
used together with the word aspect, which expresses that it is not the whole of reality that is understood in that
aspect but that it is only a certain mode of experience.” (Friesen, 8,10).
11
In a work published in 1931, Dooyeweerd consistently employs the term function. He never refers to functions
as aspects (1931).
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 Chapter I. Background of Study

as defined by the fifteen modalities. It is an invariant cosmic time structure within which all
modalities and all individuality – structures (events, things, societal relationships, etc.) are
defined. According to the entity side, cosmic time is duration, a continuous mutual fusion of
moments, events, etc. (Ibid., 1940).
In Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, time is a very deep concept. It plays an important role in giving
coherence to the modal aspects of reality, and it is fundamental in everyday human
experience. Dooyeweerd asserted that “Cosmic Time is the medium through which the
meaning totality is broken up into a modal diversity of aspects” (1983, I:16). He used the
simile of the prism that splits light into distinct colours; time is the prism that splits light up
into distinct aspects. Time, as disclosed by Dooyeweerd in his philosophy, can give meaning
to the whole reality, embracing all aspects.
According to Dooyeweerd, time is horizon and duration at the same time. Such a conception
is of great importance, and it opens to an undiscovered, uncertain, wide, and fascinating field.
How is it possible to convert Dooyeweerd’s philosophy of time into a practical, strategic
framework that could support sustainable urban planning procedures? Time is a fundamental
characteristic of human experience. It is the bedrock of the social and cultural evolution of
human civilizations since their dawning until today. Dooyeweerd has provided useful
indications on the role of time within reality, by structuring an ordered and integrated model.
Following these indications, it is possible to come up with interesting and fruitful results in
the practical application of Dooyeweerd’s theory on urban planning procedures. This is the
third reason to approach Dooyeweerd.

4. Research Objectives

Given the important role played by time in the evolution of human civilizations, this research
is aimed at providing indications of a possible practical application of Dooyeweerd’s
philosophy to urban planning procedures. As suggested in section 1, there are a variety of
views on time dimensions and horizons related to sustainable urban planning. The question of
time is at the core of sustainable development. It is a complex subject, and it requires an
integrated, multifaceted approach.
This study proposes a framework that is grounded in the Dooyeweerdian cosmonomic
philosophy, which is suggested as being the most appropriate in dealing with the concept of
time as applied to urban contexts. The proposed framework is structured on the fifteen aspects
(modalities) that have been provided by the Philosophy of the Law-Idea, succeeding in a not
16
 Chapter I. Background of Study

casual, immutable order. The mutual connection between the aspects and the relations
defining them leads to important considerations on the existing relation of man-environment.
In the building of the framework, great importance has been given to the historical time,
intended as the formative evolution of urban contexts. Sense of identity and background is
necessary in building future sustainable cities, the temporal roots of which provide an
evolving spatial system of orientation. The framework is mainly a temporal analysis, which
can be disclosed in two different directions—backwards and forwards.
The overall objective of this study, the proposed temporal framework, includes the following
sub-objectives:
• To demonstrate that each aspect of reality defining an urban context can be
characterized by proper temporal issues. They provide a definition of the context as a
result of the temporal evolution of the urban system.
• To provide a definition of the urban system as composed by interconnected sub-
systems. Each sub-system is a group of aspects.
• To demonstrate the importance of the temporal analysis as necessary in clarifying the
evolution processes of the urban system. The temporal analysis provides a good
understanding of the urban context, and it builds the ground for future planning.
• To provide a definition of the formative evolution of urban contexts as a succession of
nows along the historical-temporal line. This succession can be seen as a temporal
melody beating a rhythm which differs following the context.
In undertaking the above-listed objectives, the study includes:

a) An outline analysis of the current proposed theories and applications in temporal

planning and their relation to sustainable development.
b) An underpinning in the existing theories concerning the concept of time, in order to
build a wider understanding of the role it has played in many disciplines and sciences.
A former general approach to the concept of time is aimed at a clearer understanding
of Dooyeweerd’s cosmic time.
c) An underpinning in Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy. This can be done through
the study of his masterwork A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (four volumes),
his last interviews, articles, and a number of works on his philosophy by other authors.
d) The development of a conceptual system to understand the relation of man-
environment in temporal terms. This system is grounded in Dooyeweerd’s
philosophical concepts.

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

e) The definition of a glossary of terms. This is for the purpose of comparing

Dooyeweerd’s philosophical concepts with the concepts related to urban planning.
f) The definition of a set of temporal issues defining an urban context. These temporal
issues are related to the issues of the built environment which have been defined by
Prof. Lombardi Patrizia in her PhD thesis.
g) The development of a temporal table and a temporal diagram as part of the historical-
temporal analysis of urban contexts, through their application to hypothetical
examples. This theoretical approach is aimed at disclosing the formative identity of a
given urban context as a succession of temporal moments (nows), which are phases of
the urban evolution.
h) The application of the historical-temporal analysis to a case study. This is aimed at
testing its validity.

5. Research Method

In his book Il conoscitore d’arte, M. Friedlander asserted that the method to be used to
analyze a work of art is suggested by the work itself (1946/1995). During a lesson delivered to
Italian students at IAUV in Venice in 1992, André Corboz suggested that the method is
characterized by all those means, which the subject of research needs to analyze. The method
of research is not a generalized process of investigation, rather it differs following the subject
of research. The method followed in this study is a gradual approach to the complex subjects
such as time, sustainable development, and Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. The latter has required
particular attention and a very deep underpinning in philosophical concepts, which are not
usual for architects and urban planners. As suggested at the beginning of this chapter,
sustainable development applied to urban contexts involves a wide range of disciplines, each
of them is a field for scientific investigation. It has not been possible to provide a detailed
analysis of all the aspects defining an urban context; therefore, this research is an attempt to
provide a definition of the urban context as a system whose functioning is grounded in
temporal relations.

The main hypotheses to be tested are the following:

1. An urban context can be defined as an evolving system of temporal relations. The

evolution of the system can be analyzed through time, and it is described as a
succession of stages (nows) defined by change.

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

2. Dooyeweerd’s philosophy provides a useful ground for the building of a strategic

framework to be applied to the temporal analysis of urban contexts.
3. The analysis of the temporal, formative evolution of the urban structures helps in
defining their temporal identity, which provides the ground for future planning.
4. Sustainable development is a formative, temporal process being grounded in the past
and tending toward the future. Temporal dimensions and horizons are not a-priori–
established entities, rather they vary depending on the analyzed urban context.

This study provides an approach to the multifaceted question of time related to sustainable
development within urban contexts by testing these hypotheses. This research is not
exhaustive, as this complex subject requires many other years of study and practical
applications to be deeply disclosed. The aim of this thesis is to provide indications on how the
concept of time can be applied to urban planning procedures in a practical way. It is an
attempt to build a practical framework by starting from philosophical concepts.

This study involves the following steps:

• An outline analysis of the concept of sustainable development as it is provided by the

available literature. It is aimed at demonstrating that the application of an analysis of
the temporal relations existing in urban contexts is not a usual process.
• An analysis of the concept of time, whose meaning is related to different disciplines as
mathematic, philosophy, sociology, planning, etc. The relation between time and space
is investigated in order to introduce the grounding concepts defining the structure of
the modal order, provided by the Dooyeweerdian philosophy of the law-idea. This
analysis provides an approach to the existing relation between man and surrounding
environment by the definition of the observer.
• An underpinning in the cosmonomic philosophy. Dooyeweerd’s thought has been
investigated through the study of his masterwork, A New Critique of Theoretical
Thought, his last interviews, his articles, works, and lectures many of which are
available in the web pages of Prof. Andrew Basden and Prof. Glenn Friesen.
• The development of a temporal analysis which is based on:
a) The definition of a strategic framework, the temporal table based on the fifteen
Dooyeweerdian modalities

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 Chapter I. Background of Study

b) The definition of the existing temporal issues within each aspect. The temporal
issues are related to the issues of the built environment provided by Prof.
Lombardi in her PhD study.
c) The definition of a temporal diagram as a graphical description of the urban
evolution through the succession of temporal phases (nows)

The temporal analysis is defined by three sub-analyses, the historical, the sensitive,
and the logical ones.

• The application of the historical analysis to a practical case study in order to define the
possible directions for future sustainable planning

The result of this study is a clearer understanding of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy and of its
possible application to sustainable urban planning. The development of the temporal analysis
is aimed at demonstrating that philosophical concepts can find a concrete application in a
multifaceted discipline as urban planning. The temporal table and the temporal diagrams are
the results of a scientific philosophical investigation. They are not exhaustive, and the
temporal analysis needs to be further tested. The main effort of this research is overcoming
the existing distance between pure theory and practice by demonstrating that time, in its wide
meaning, can be involved in the complex and fascinating urban planning procedures.

6. Outline of the Thesis

In order to satisfy the research goals and to provide a gradual introduction into the complex
research subject, the thesis has been structured as follows.

Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development.

This chapter provides an introduction to sustainable development and the wide range of
definitions of this term. Since the question of sustainability raised a global problem, a number
of sectorial studies in different fields of research have suggested possible “solutions.” The
result is a fragmented vision that does not help in finding a common and shared strategy. As a
multifaceted discipline, urban planning plays an important role in achieving sustainability. An
outline analysis of the meaning and role of planning is provided in order to define its limits
and trends with respect to the long-term perspectives required by sustainable development.
The chapter provides a description of the current planning theories and approaches in relation
to the temporal aspect.

20
 Chapter I. Background of Study

Chapter III. Time Disclosed: An Investigation on Time, Space, and Being

Chapter 3 introduces the reader into the concept of time. In particular, it provides the
investigation of the existing relation between time and space as interconnected aspects of
reality, perceived by human beings. The analysis is based on a philosophical and scientific
underpinning. The aim is to disclose these concepts to the reader in order to build the ground
for the further understanding of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. The structure of the observer that
has been developed in mathematical theories describes the relation of man-environment. This
relation is deeply investigated in chapter four through the analysis of Dooyeweerdian
philosophical concepts. The relation of time and space and time and being is disclosed
through original diagrams, each of them is the result of the increased acquisition of
knowledge. Chapter 3 ends with a description of time as a social experience.

Chapter IV. Introducing the Concept of Time in Dooyeweerdian Cosmonomic

Philosophy: Time as a Structured and Structuring Element of the Whole of Reality

Chapter 4 provides an underpinning in Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy. Cosmic time,

defined by the Dutch philosopher as formed by two different and interconnected sides (the
law side and the entity side), is investigated in its relation to space. The structure of the modal
order suggests the pyramid of reality, a geometrical figure which recalls the tetractys
Pythagorean symbol. The relation between modalities (the intermodal relation) is disclosed
through the investigation of the analogical concept, introduced by Dooyeweerd as a
functional relation of anticipation and posticipation (postponing) of meanings within
succeeding modalities. The structure of the observer, developed in chapter three, is analyzed
by the introduction of naive experience and theoretical experience as descriptive of everyday-
life human experience. The observer is compared to the soul-body act structure, defined by
Dooyeweerd as descriptive of the human sphere of action. Through graphs and diagrams, this
chapter provides an introductive analysis of the Doyeweerdian concept of time as grounding
for his cosmonomic philosophy.

Chapter V. The Temporal Modal Structure: Defining Time the Existing Temporal
Relations within the Fifteen Dooyeweerdian Modalities

This chapter represents a further investigation of the concept of time as it was developed by
Dooyeweerd. The philosophy of time is related to the philosophy of the modal order,
therefore, this chapter provides a description of the existing temporal relations within

21
 Chapter I. Background of Study

modalities. Many philosophical Dooyeweerdian concepts are suggested as grounding for the
further development of the temporal framework. Each modal aspect is analyzed in its
characterizing temporal meaning in order to provide an understanding of the role it plays
within the entire modal order. The historical modality is described as a leading aspect as it
represents the formative character of the modal system. At the end of the chapter, a definition
of the modal order in subsystems is provided.

Chapter VI. Building the Dooyeweerdian Framework: Principles and Phases for
Sustainable Urban Planning

Chapter 6 is an attempt to introduce a concrete application of Dooyeweerd’s theories into a

practical framework that could support planners and decision makers. The chapter provides a
description of the grounding concepts which define the relation between space, time, change,
and motion. A set of temporal issues is provided; they are integrative of the issues related to
the built environment that has been proposed by Prof. Lombardi’s PhD study. This set of
issues structures the temporal table that is defined in the following chapter.

Chapter VII. A Practical Dooyeweerdian Framework

Chapter 7 is aimed at the definition of a practical framework which supports urban planning
procedures. The proposed temporal analysis is introduced by the definition of steps and
phases. The historical-formative analysis is described as grounding in delineating the
temporal identity of urban contexts. It provides useful indications on the succession of
temporal moments (called nows) through which urban structures evolve. The temporal table
and the temporal diagram are developed and structured through their application to the
hypothetical example of the building of a new road.

Chapter VIII. A Selected Case Study: The Village of Santo Stefano al Mare, Italy

This chapter provides a practical application of the proposed temporal analysis to a case
study. Four green areas, located in Santo Stefano al Mare, Italy, are analyzed in order to
define their temporal structures and meaning with reference to the formative evolution of the
village. These areas represent four different realities. They were built in different periods and
in different locations within the urban structure. They were also built for different reasons.
The analysis of these areas is provided by the definition of their temporal evolution along the
historical line called T6 temporal line. The historical-temporal analysis provides indications
on the weak aspects (spaces, fields) within the modal urban structure. It also indicates what
22
 Chapter I. Background of Study

temporal dimensions have been mainly involved in its formative evolution. Through the
temporal analysis, the urban context is “read” like a melody on a pentagram. Indications for
future sustainable planning is to be found in the temporal rhythm defining the evolution of the
urban melody. Chapter 8 provides the analysis of the green area in front of the primary
school. The temporal table, that is developed in chapter 7, is applied in its two defined
temporal directions-backward and forward- in order to suggest possible future planning
directions.

Chapter IX. The Historical Temporal Analysis as a Method of Survey

This chapter provides the analysis of the three green areas in the village, which have not been
analyzed in chapter 8. The chapter suggests the application of the historical temporal analysis
as a method of survey. By the application of the temporal table-backward direction, and of the
temporal diagram, the temporal analysis provides information on the identity of the green
areas with respect to the urban evolution of the village of Santo Stefano al Mare. The analysis
focuses on the driving modalities for change in each analyzed area, and on the immediate and
after-effects derived by actions taken. The analysis is aimed at providing indications on how
to read the urban context as a temporal palimpsest.

Chapter X. Conclusions and Further Work

Chapter 9 contains the conclusions of the thesis and suggestions for further applications and
research. It provides also an overview of the available applications of Dooyeweerd’s
philosophy to the different scientific disciplines. The Dooyeweerdian philosophical concepts
have been investigated through their continuous comparison with others having similar
meanings but being applied to different disciplines.

23