A Conversation Between C S Lewis and Herman Dooyeweerd
Imagined by Paulo Ribeiro
CSL - Good evening Herman. Welcome to Magdalene College. Feel yourself comfortable. By the way, I just completed reading the first volume of your splendid and prolific NCoTT and I very much liked your concept of “meaning as the mode of being of all that is created.” It reminded me of a discussion I had with Prof. Tillyard in which I said to him: "Either there is significance in the whole process of things as well as in human activity, or there is no significance in human activity itself.... If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone."
HD – Oh, yes Jack, that is great and reminds of a point you made in The Abolition of Man – that “If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved – that there are some premises that can't be reached as conclusions.” - - - I made that very clear in all my writings. But we need to go further and affirm that “the direction of philosophical thought to the totality of meaning implies critical self-evaluation.”CSL – Indeed, Herman - - - - Would you like some tea or a stronger drink?
HD – I would love some whisky, if I could.
CSL – Oh, yes - that will gives us the tonic we need for continuing our conversation. [going to get the whisky] - - By the way, when I gave the Riddell Memorial Lectures at Durham University in 1943 I got a certificate for an honorary doctor – I wish they had presented me with a box of whisky.
To be continued
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