The University and the Order of Society
Mr. Chairman, let me thank you for your kind words of introduction. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to make a preliminary remark. I have acquired a grippe…
The Historical Horizon: Classical and Christian Experiences
In speaking . . . about the experiences of the mystic philosophers and their fulfillment through Christianity, an assumption concerning history is implied that must be explicated…
Testing the Truth of Man’s Experiences in the In-Between
Man's existence in the In-Between of imperfection and perfection, time and timelessness, mortality and immortality is indeed not an object of sense perception; and the propositions or…
The Divine Sonship: Not a Piece of Information
At a time when the reality of the gospel threatens to fall apart into the constructions of an historical Jesus and a doctrinal Christ, one cannot stress…
Henry VIII and First Totalitarian State
While continental thinkers groped their way through the troubles of the Reformation toward the idea of an autonomous, secularized polity, England entered the age of Reformation with…
Max Weber and Positivism
The movement of methodology, as far as political science is concerned, ran to the end of its immanent logic in the person and work of Max Weber…
Literary Criticism: Its Proper Method
And now let me take up some of the principles I have discerned, or believe to have discerned [in Heilman's then new book on Othello, entitled Magic…
Theology and Fools
As you know, the term theology was invented by Plato. There was no theology before him; it's a new term. (Every term was new at some time.)…
Myth and Misunderstandings
I especially want to draw your attention to the problem that the gods are intracosmic. There is no such thing as a world-transcendent God in any cosmological…
The Invention of “Humanity”
Turgot [1727-1781] transposes the Christian dichotomy of [sacred history, which does have meaning] and profane history [which can have no meaning because its whole is not yet…
The Judgment of the Dead
The transfer of authority from Athens to Plato is the climax of the Gorgias. The meaning of the transfer and the source of the new authority, however,…
Political Corruption
In the present context we have to concentrate on the existential enmity between Callicles and Socrates-Plato and on the critical analysis of political corruption. Above all, Socrates…
Socrates Confronts the Smug Insider
[There is more] to the resistance of Callicles than the fear of a Socratic popular success. The situation of the dialogue is not that of an assembly…
Nature of Pathos
The violent reaction comes from the activist, from Callicles, the enlightened politician. He has followed the course of the debate with increasing astonishment and wrath and now…
Bound by the Errors of Our Time?
This excerpt is from a conversation between Eric Voegelin and graduate students following a lecture at St. Thomas More Institute in Montreal. The participants are Richard Jacobsen,…