This author delves into the profound political and social currents that shape human society. His work explores the nature of order, disorder, and human existence within the political realm, emphasizing timeless questions about the spiritual condition of humanity. Moving between the academic worlds of Europe and America, his thought reflects a rich tapestry of intellectual traditions. His analysis is incisive, aiming to uncover fundamental truths about the political experience.
In Part II Voegelin deals with race ideas, which he distinguishes from race theories. Race ideas, like other political ideas, form a part of political reality itself, contributing to the formation of social groups and societies. Voegelin shows that the modern race idea is just one "body idea" among others, such as the tribal state and the Kingdom of Christ, each offering a different symbolic image of community.
The Middle Ages to Aquinas
The series will publish all of philosopher Voegelin's (1901-1985) works, including the previously unpublished, multi-volume History of Political Ideas, of which this is the second volume. Completed in 1944, it is not a conventional chronological account but an original comprehensive account of the political thought and experiential underpinnings that typified the medieval period. A survey of the structure of the period is followed by analysis of the Germanic invasions, the fall of Rome, and the rise of empire and monastic Christianity, climaxing in a study of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Volume 6 of the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin presents the first complete translation of the full German text of Anamnesis, originally published in 1966. The prior English edition, translated by Gerhart Niemeyer, primarily focused on sections related to Voegelin's philosophy of consciousness, omitting significant historical studies essential for a comprehensive understanding of his work. This complete version maintains the integrity of Voegelin's vision, balancing empirical and philosophical elements, and adhering to the standards of historiographic scholarship while exploring the texts' significance for human existence in society and history. Anamnesis is a crucial work in Voegelin's intellectual journey, as it reflects on his growth rather than advancing into new territories. It serves as both a personal recollection, reaching back to his early memories, and a demonstration of the anamnetic method applied to various historically remembered materials. More than a mere collection of essays, it represents Voegelin's reconceptualization of Order and History, marking a departure from his usual scholarly approach. Parts I and III include biographical and meditative reflections from 1943 and 1965, respectively. The first part chronicles his breakthrough in recovering consciousness from contemporary theories, while Part III reexamines Aristotelian interpretations and expands into previously unexplored areas of awareness. Betwe
Published in Vienna in 1936, Voegelin's work offers a critical examination of the most prominent European theories of state and constitutional law of the period, and provides a political and historical analysis of the Austrian situation. A critique of Kelsen's pure theory of law lies at its heart.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the effort of philosophy was to place man, with his variety of physical manifestations throughout the world, within a systemic order of nature. Voegelin perceives the problem of race as the epitome of the difficulties presented by this new theoretical approach.
Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man confronts the disintegration of traditional sources of meaning and the correlative attempts to generate new sources of order from within the self. Voegelin allows us to contemplate the crisis in its starkest terms as the apocalypse of man that now seeks to replace the apocalypse of God. The totalitarian upheaval that convulsed Voegelin's world, and whose aftermath still defines ours, is only the external manifestation of an inner spiritual turmoil. Its roots have been probed throughout the eight volumes of History of Political Ideas, but its emergence is marked by the age of Enlightenment.
"This volume of The Collected Works contains essays published by Eric Voegelin between 1929 and 1933, the period between the publication of his first book, On the Form of the American Mind, and Hitler's rise to power, as well as Voegelin's two books analyzing the explosive race issues posed by National Socialism. The essays herein reflect the intellectual and political tumult of the period and their author's maturing grasp of political reality as he moved away from positivism and Kelsen's "Pure Theory of Law" toward a more refined and open philosophical stance. The heart of this shift is signaled by his emphasis on philosophical anthropology and on the decisive importance of the moral substance basic to political communities." The topics of the essays are grouped around major themes in sociological theory, political science, and the theory of law. They illuminate the theoretical and practical impact of Voegelin's experiences in America as he increasingly engages European theories of state, especially the social theories of leading French and German scholars. In content, these essays include such pragmatic concerns as American theories of property, economic transactions, due process of law, and Austrian constitutional reforms.
In 1924, not quite two years after receiving his doctorate from the University of Vienna, Eric Voegelin was named a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellow and thus given the opportunity to pursue postdoctoral studies in the United States. For the next twenty-four months, Voegelin worked with some of the most creative scholars in America and at several of the country's great universities, an experience that undoubtedly influenced his scholarly and personal perspectives throughout his life. A more immediate result was the publication in 1928 of On the Form of the American Mind, the young philosopher's first major work, in which his acute perceptions and analyses combine with a conceptual vocabulary struggling to find its own coherence and form. Voegelin begins his inquiry into the form of the American mind with a complex discussion of the concepts of time and existence in European and American philosophy and continues with an extended interpretation of George Santayana, a study of the Puritan mystic Jonathan Edwards, a presentation on Anglo-American jurisprudence, and a consideration of the historian, economist, and political scientist John R. Commons (Voegelin was particularly interested in Commons' views on the mental, political, social, and economic aspects of democracy in modern urban and industrial America). Although admitting that this diversity of themes seems only loosely connected," Voegelin demonstrates the actual overall unity of these various subjects: each concerns linguistic expressions of a theoretical nature. Analysis of On the Form of the American Mind indicates that Voegelin integrated the approaches of Lebensphilosophie into what Georg Misch called the "philosophical combination of anthropology and history," which characterized contemporary trends within the discourse of the Geisteswissenschaften and finally resulted in a theoretical paradigm of philosophical anthropology. Jürgen Gebhardt and Barry Cooper provide access to this brilliant study with their two-part introduction. The first part considers On the Form of the American Mind in the context of methodological debates ongoing in Germany at the time Voegelin was writing the book; the second describes Voegelin's American experience and compares his work with similar studies written during the post-World War I period.
This third volume of Order and History together with its companion volume, The World of the Polis, completes the study of Greek culture from its earliest pre-Hellenic origins to its full maturity with the dominance of Athens. As its title indicates, it is principally devoted to the work of the two great thinkers who represent the high point of philosophic inquiry among the Greeks.
