ABSTRACT
If the role of research is to contribute theoretical understanding to humanity’s bodies of knowledge, then we need to know what “theoretical” and “understanding” and “knowledge” are, especially when these are supposed to be generic and reliance-worthy. This chapter elaborates these issues, in the light of our situating research as a whole in the context of pre-theoretical everyday experience, of diversity and coherence, of the prior nature of meaningfulness and of the inescapability of philosophical presuppositions. It looks briefly at various positions on truth, to prepare us for understanding Herman Dooyeweerd's own position. It contains an exposition of Dooyeweerd's exploration of the nature of theoretical thought. Dooyeweerd’s immanent critique, supported by those of Habermas, Foucault, etc., revealed that it never has been. Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique wages a merciless war against the masking of supra-theoretical prejudices as theoretical axioms which are forced upon the opponent on penalty of his being viewed as an outsider in philosophical matters.
