John Kok

Dr. John Kok (1948- ) studied as an undergraduate at Trinity Christian College near Chicago, Illinois, USA, under Drs. Maartin Vrieze and Calvin Seerveld. In 1971 he went to the Free University in Amsterdam for graduate studies under professor of philosophy Henk Van Riessen and Jacob Klapwijk, the successor to Dr. D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, co-founder of Reformational philosophy. During those years Kok was reacquainted with Vollenhoven's Consequent Problem-Historical Method for the analysis of the philosophy of history in the Western intellectual tradition. Kok began to teach philosophy at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, USA, in 1983. In 1992 he completed his dissertation on Vollenhoven's Early Development, which focused on Vollenhoven's approach to the philosophical foundations of mathematics in 1918. Today, he still teaches a few courses, but now serves as Dean for the Humanities, Program Director for the Programs in Christian Vocation project, and Managing Editor of Dordt College Press. For thirteen years (until the fall of 2006), he was the host of the daily radio show, "Talking Our Walk" (KDCR 88.5 FM).

Major ideas and developments in thought

John Kok's dissertation appeared in 1992, entitled "Vollenhoven: His Early Development". One of the areas of concentration in this phase of the author's study of the founder's emergence was that of V's pursuit of mathematics as a foundational discipline pointing to the most basic mode of creaturely existence. In Kok's major work to date, "Patterns of the Western Mind" (1998), which began as a text for his Philosophy 201 students at Dordt, he lays the foundation for his own original contribution in the use of Vollenhoven's thetical-critical method as well as his Consequent Problem-Historical Method. At present, Dr. Kok is on sabbatical during the spring semester 2008 and will complete the process of selecting, and translating a number of Vollenhoven's essays, articles, and excerpts that will compose the soon-to-be-available volume, "A Vollenhoven Reader" (Dordt College Press, 2008 forthcoming). In the meantime, he has edited anumber of volumes and has produced thematic papers on numerous topics, including shifts in ecological thought.

Scholarly affiliations

References

Books (original studies)

*Kok, John H. "Vollenhoven: His Early Development" (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 1992) [out of print]
*Kok, John H. "Patterns of the Western Mind" (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 1998). ISBN 0932914411

Book (collection)

*Kok, John H. (ed) "A Vollenhoven Reader" (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2008 forthcoming).
*Kok, John H. (ed) "Celebrating the Vision: The Reformed Perspective of Dordt College" (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2004). ISBN 093291456X

Book (translation)

*Vollenhoven, Dirk H.T.. "Isagoge Philosophiae:Introduction to Philosophy." Translated by John H. Kok; preface by Calvin Seerveld; Foreword by Anthony Tol (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2005). A Dutch/English hardcover publication. ISBN 9780932914637.
*Vollenhoven, Dirk H.T.. "Introduction to Philosophy." Translated by John H. Kok; preface by Calvin Seerveld; Foreword by Anthony Tol (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2005). An English only paperback publication. ISBN 9780932914651.

Articles

*Kok, John H. 1988. "Vollenhoven and 'scriptural philosophy,'" "Philosophia Reformata" 53(2): 101-142.
*Kok, John H. "Learning to Teach from within a Christian Perspective," in "Celebrating the Vision: The Reformed Perspective of Dordt College" (Sioux Center, Iowa, USA: Dordt College Press, 2004). ISBN 093291456X

External links

* [http://www.dordt.edu/ Dordt College]