David Whitney

Written by David Whitney

David Whitney is Assistant Professor of Government at Nicholls State University in Louisiana and Associate Editor of VoegelinView. He is author of Maladies of Modernity Scientism and the Deformation of Political Order (St. Augustine's Press, 2016).

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The Politics of Perfection: Technology and Creation in Literature and Film. Kimberly Hurd Hale. Lexington Books, 2016.
 
In The Politics of Perfection:  Technology and Creation in Literature and Film, Kimberly Hurd Hale confronts one of the most serious political issues facing humanity in the 21st century.  Technology, increasing at an exponential rate, offers unique challenges and opportunities.  While most people have…

Nearly sixty-five years ago, Eric Voegelin delivered a series of lectures at the University of Chicago under the sponsorship of the Walgreen Foundation.  These lectures were subsequently published the following year and The New Science of Politics quickly became a best seller in political theory.[1] Many viewed the book as an apology for political theory and while this is partially…
Auguste Comte

Religion of Humanity
What ultimately separates Comte from his predecessors is not his call for a positive science or his articulation of the law of three states; the likes of Saint-Simon, D’Alembert, Diderot, and Turgot had all expressed similar ideas. Comte’s founding of the Religion of Humanity and his own “religiousness” is what truly sets him apart:
Pseudo-prophetic charisma is the strength…
Auguste Comte

“In the name of the past and the future, the theoretical servants and the practical servants of Humanity assume befittingly the general leadership of the affairs of the earth in order to construct, at last, the true providence, moral, intellectual and material; they irrevocably exclude from political supremacy all the various slaves of God, Catholics, Protestants, or Deists, since they…
Revolution

Revolutions: Finished and Unfinished, from Primal to Final. Paul Caringella, Wayne Critaudo, Glenn Hughes, eds. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012.
 
Revolution is a term that has found an enduring place within the lexicon of Western civilization over the past century. It would not be much of a stretch to characterize the 20th century as one of revolutionary fervor; and nearly a…
Francis Bacon

The Religious Foundation of Francis Bacon's Thought. Stephen A. McKnight. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006.

 
As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, questions about the relationship between science and politics are perhaps more important than ever. We enjoy unprecedented power over nature. We are confronted with issues such as stem cell research, weaponized science,and climate…