Eric Voegelin and Alfred Schutz on the Atomic Bomb,
One of the numerous elements that make up the polycrisis in our times definitely is the threat of nuclear holocaust. As an American expert succinctly summarizes the problem: “Deterrence works. Until it doesn’t.” And in the latter case, subsequently, human civilization would be condemned to extinction. Consequently, the development of the atomic bomb was considered to mark the beginning of a new era of humanity’s possible self-destruction, in which man can wipe himself out from the surface of the planet. This doubtlessly is a new dimension of threat to human life, and one that calls for analysis, reflection and critical thinking. Eric Voegelin and Alfred Schutz have taken a position on this issue, as documented in their correspondence.
Voegelin and Schutz on the Atomic Bomb
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the generally known catastrophic consequences. Shortly afterwards, this was discussed in letters dated 12 August and 9 September by Eric Voegelin and Alfred Schutz. Their correspondence reveals that both immediately recognized the epochal significance of the bombings—their role in ushering in a new age defined by the potential for humanity’s self-destruction.
First we must consider Voegelin’s letter, to which Schutz responds. Voegelin writes to Schutz on 12 August, three days after the atomic bomb on Nagasaki:
“In the meantime a few things have taken place, but I feel too bad to even write about it. [The editors of the correspondence, Gerhard Wagner and Gilbert Weiss, add at this point: ‘Voegelin is apparently referring to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later.’] What I think about it you will easily understand from my chapter on ‘Phenomenalism,’ which you have. It was written six weeks before the atom bomb was dropped.” (Voegelin to Schutz, letter, 12 August 1945, in Schütz and Voegelin 2011: 89-90)
Schutz replies to Voegelin on 9 September 1945:
“I was profoundly impressed by the chapter on Phenomenalism, which, unfortunately, all too soon turned out to be truly prophetic. Wouldn’t it be possible to publish this essay, at least part of it, in Farber’s journal? If the suggestion interests you, I will gladly write to him about it. It deals with a philosophical problem of the greatest importance, and the section is so complete in itself that it would hardly require more work in order for it to be published separately.—Concerning the matter itself I have only one question: How is it possible that the basic assumptions of phenomenalism can be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Naturally, that is not an objection to the thesis of your chapter, and there is hardly space there to discuss my question. However, up to now, phenomenalism, the principal problem of natural philosophy, was so to speak the theodicy of the machine, namely, the explanation of the miracle of how it has come to pass that machines do in fact work; now we come to the astonishing dialectical turn that, indeed, Mars men can become reality and that life itself can be brought to an end.” (Schutz to Voegelin, letter, 9 September 1945, in Schütz and Voegelin 2011: 90-91)
Knowledge of Voegelin’s chapter on Phenomenalism is required in order to understand Schutz’ comments. The Mars men (or Martians) Schutz refers to take up Orson Welles’s broadcast of the invasion from Mars, where a panic broke out among the listeners because they believed the fictional invasion to be real, treated by Voegelin in his article on Phenomenalism, and considered as a fusion of fictional imagination with phenomenal obsession (Voegelin 1999: 191). The same holds for the link between phenomenalism and the atomic bomb, as Voegelin ends his article with the frase “Phenomenalism has gone further toward transforming our society into the combination of a slaughterhouse with a booby hatch than many contemporaries are still sane enough to realize,” later added by the phrase nearly identical with the one in his letter to Schutz: “This chapter was finished six weeks before the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima” (Voegelin 1999: 192). These are the two points Schutz refers to at the end of his letter, and the atomic bomb is placed by both authors in the context of phenomenalism.
Phenomenalism and Scientism
Voegelin, finally, again responds to Schutz on 17 September 1945, and credits Schutz’ question “How is it possible that a hundred thousand people can be killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to the fundamental assumption of phenomenalism?” to be one “of principal importance.” He considers his entire History of Political Ideas as based on this problem, and ideas, especially political ideas, not as theoretical propositions concerning reality, but part of reality itself. He also claims to have discussed the reality-character of ideas under the term evocation, when, together with some examples that have gained mass relevancy, he finally gives an explanation of phenomenalism:
“[…] phenomenalism: If one insists long enough that the only reality we have is that which can be gained through the categories of natural science, the reality of moral substance does indeed disappear and the bombs are the result.” (Voegelin to Schutz, letter, 17 September 1945, in Schütz and Voegelin 2011: 93-96)
Two points should be highlighted here. First, Schutz immediately recognizes the scale of the problem posed by the atomic bomb when he states that “life itself can be brought to an end.” This refers to what was later termed nuclear holocaust, apocalypse, or Armageddon—the possibility of humanity’s extinction or the termination of most biological life on Earth. Günther Anders, an early philosophical authority on the subject, writes: “Humanity as a whole is killable” (2010: 242). Similarly, a recent publication on the matter of nuclear war calls this “a global conflict ending human civilization” (Jacobsen 2024: 24), and “the eventual collapse of civilization” (Jacobsen 2014: 289-290). This situation has not substantially changed from Voegelin´s and Schutz’ days to our’s. Although this realization was widespread among contemporary scientists involved like in the Manhattan Project (“Oppenheimer,” 2023) and later among politicians, scientists, and peace movements, this insight is not universally shared. It was certainly not shared by the American president Donald Trump, when he, with regard to nuclear weapons, famously and reportedly asked the question, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” (3/8/2016, MSNBC, Joe Scarborough, “Morning Joe”). Nor was it grasped by Fidel Castro, who during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis wanted to attack the United States with Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba. He was prevented from doing so by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who considered the idea insane and refused to hand over control of the weapons. In fact, we know very little, if anything, about the decision-makers involved in nuclear war affairs (like Indian or Paquistan generals, whose names may not even be familiar to us), with the consequence, that we have to trust in people we don’t even know who they are, and what ideological, political, cultural etc. background possibly exists and could become effective.
Second, both Voegelin and Schutz agree on the existence and efficacy of an underlying logic that brought humanity to this point. According to this logic, reducing reality to what the categories of natural science can apprehend causes the reality of moral substance to disappear. Voegelin identifies this reduction as ‘phenomenalism,’ which is also the title of the chapter sent to Schutz previously. Schutz not only explicitly agrees to its ratio when he notes that Voegelin’s chapter “unfortunately, all too soon turned out to be truly prophetic,” but also recommends its publication in the journal edited by Marvin Farber (“Farber’s journal”), i.e. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (what did not happen). However, both Schutz and Voegelin immediately grasp the gravity of what had happened and agree on the logic which is considered the basis for it.
This logic, phenomenalism, is understood essentially as scientism, defined as “the belief in mathematical science as the model science to the methods of which all other sciences should conform” (Voegelin 1999: 178). Hereby, the introduction of the overall term phenomenalism is made because the logic in question is not limited to science (and scientism), but also operates in other areas like biology, psychology, and economics, which makes necessary a more general term.
The term itself, phenomenalism, was not coined by Voegelin, but developed in the scientific and intellectual discourse of the late 19th and early 20th century, and “is rooted in the fact of the indisputable advance of the mathematical exact sciences and their undeniable impact on the formation of modern societies” (Gebhart 2017). In Voegelin, the term phenomenalism is integrated in his critics of modernity, and indicates “the preoccupation of man with the phenomenal aspects of the world, as they appear in science, and the atrophy of awareness of the substantiality of man and the universe.” (1999: 178)
Whereas Voegelin’s article Phenomenalism was not published in Farber’s journal, as proposed by Schutz, Social Research, the journal of the New School for Social Research, in 1948 published Voegelin’s article The Origins of Scientism (Voegelin 1948), a related version. Here, Voegelin also traces the beginnings of scientism back to the second half of the sixteenth century, and an intellectual movement which accompanied the rise of modern mathematics and physics (1948: 462). Both articles, Phenomenalism and The Origins of Scientism, begin the historical course with Giordano Bruno, who, according to Voegelin, first formulated “the issue to the antithesis of sciences of phenomena and sciences of substance” (1948: 463). It came along with a fascination for the “new science”, one that would create a new world view “that would substitute for the religious order of the soul,” culminating, in the nineteenth century, “in the dictatorial prohibition, on part of the scientistic thinkers, against asking questions of a metaphysical nature.” (1948: 462) So scientism implied the prohibition of metaphysical questions–as pronounced by Comte (1830) and Marx (1844), where the socialistic man is defined as the one that does not ask metaphysical questions. (Voegelin 1948: 462)
Scientism is such characterized as “the assumption that the mathematized science of natural phenomena is a model science to which all other sciences ought to conform”; “that all realms of being are acessible to the methods of the sciences of phenomena”; and “that reality which is not accessible to sciences of phenomena is either irrelevant or, in the more radical form of the dogma, illusionary.” (Voegelin 1948: 462) The creed implies two great denials: firstly, of the dignity of science to the non-mathematizable part of human existence, “the quest for substance in nature, in man and society,” and also in transcendental reality; and in its more radical form, it denies the reality of substance itself (Voegelin 1948: 462-463). Its motivational core is to insist in phenomenal reality and oppose all metaphysical types of Weltanschauung. Scientism for Voegelin is a concept for the critique of modernity and industrialized society, its achievements being based on the advance of science (1948: 485).
After having sent the manuscript of “The Origins of Scientism” with a request for publication to Leo Strauss, the editor of Social Research, at the time part of the teaching staff of the New School for Social Research, Voegelin comments to Schutz that he is pretty sure Strauss won’t want to publish it (or if he was willing, the others won’t be), because: “To the semi-socialist liberalism of the Berlin and Frankfurt Enlightenment, these things are far too remote.” (Voegelin to Schutz, undated. Written between February 25 and May 5, 1948, 2011: 114) Voegelin asks Schutz for critical comments, obviously, because he considers him not “too remote;” however, the logic detected by Voegelin in scientism and that of Frankfurt Enlightenment obviously are different from the start, although both offer a fundamental critique of modernity.
In this context it may deserve mentioning that Max Horkheimer, who was, next to Theodor Adorno, the leading figure of the Frankfurt School, invited Voegelin in the winter term 1956/57 to lecture at the institution, and Voegelin travelled from Louisiana to Frankfurt in order to do so. Specifically, the lectures dealt on themes from the first volume of Voegelin’s Order and History, namely, Israel and Revelation (Henningsen 2018). Apparently, there was interest in the Jewish background of the Frankfurt institution (Voegelin himself, by the way, was neither Jewish nor Catholic, but Protestant). Considering the Marxist image of the Frankfurt School, then and now, and Voegelin’s status as an anti-communist intellectual (from 1952 on, based on a publication in Merkur), “this invitation by Horkheimer underlined both men’s disregard for public reputation.” (Henningsen 2018) Academic culture was at the time maybe more tolerant in regard to philosophical and political differences; additionally, Horkheimer’s Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung had reviewed Voegelin’s books on race and come to a positive evaluation (like, and shared by Hannah Arendt in Origins of Totalitarism, as “best historical account of race thinking”). However, Voegelin, later in Munique, and the Frankfurt School kept their distance from each other, apart from being aware of the other’s activities (Henningsen 2018). Surely, marxistic logic and the logic of phenomenalism (to which Schutz explicitly agrees in his letter) and scientism are different approaches. Nevertheless, both the reduction of logic to an instrumental form that neglects its moral component and the involved dialectical dynamics show a similarity to the argument in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947); as Schutz speaks of a dialectical turn in which humans produce machines that then turn against them, Horkheimer and Adorno state: “The global domination over nature turns against the thinking subject itself.”– “Die Weltherrschaft über die Natur wendet sich gegen das denkende Subjekt selbst” (1969: 32) – So what is the relation between Voegelin’s logic of phenomenalism and Horkheimer’s critical theory? Fortunately, Jürgen Habermas, who mentions Voegelin in his seminal Theory of Communicative Action, at this opportunity raises exactly this question, namely in the chapter on “The Critique of Instrumental Reason” (1984: 366ff.), to which we can therefore turn.
According to Habermas, Horkheimer, in the Eclipse of Reason, from 1967, develops a position with two fronts, one against approaches in contemporary philosophy that are oriented to the tradition and the other against scientism; fronts, that have remained decisive for the intraphilosophical arguments of critical theory until the positivism debate (Habermas 1984: 374). In detail, the actual situation to which Horkheimer refers is a controversy between representatives of logical positivism and certain currents of neo-Thomism:
“Neo-Thomism stands here for any attempt to link up with Plato or Aristotle so as to renew the ontological claim of philosophy to comprehend the world as a whole, whether precritically or under the banner of objective idealism, and to put back together again metaphysically the moments of reason that separated out in the modern development of the spirit—the different aspects of validity: the true, the good, and the beautiful.” (Habermas 1984: 374)
Following that, Habermas quotes Horkheimer with the words “Today [this refers to 1967, the author] there is a general tendency to revive past theories of objective reason in order to give some philosophical foundation to the rapidly disintegrating hierarchy of generally accepted values.” (Habermas 1984: 374) And Habermas adds at this point that ”this tendency actually continues into the present” [i.e. 1981, the year in which Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action was published], for which Robert Spaemann and his Critique of Political Utopia (1977) is referred to, who stands out from “the ranks of the neoconservatives, recruited in great numbers from the schools of J. Ritter and E. Voegelin” (Habermas 1984: 452). This shows in desirable clearness that Voegelin belongs to tradition, rejected by critical theory; whereby both, Voegelin and critical theory, stand against scientism; and Voegelin, neoconservative, rejects critical theory because of its marxist stance, which again critical theory refers to. A supplement to Habermas would be that other than in the case of Ritter, who indeed launched a larger school, Voegelin had only few followers. However, Habermas’ characterization of Voegelin is highly accurate; also Schutz does not distance himself from Voegelin, but agrees with his conclusions.
At this point, however, any such logic, which goes beyond the principle of scientific progress, remains hypothetical. Note that Günther Anders, in his fundamental work on the subject, insists that the atomic bomb is so unique that it is incomparable. This would imply it cannot be subsumed under any pre-existing logic, as such classification demands a degree of similarity between objects (see Anders 2010: 233-263). After nuclear holocaust, any logic ceases to exist.
Final Remarks
Recurring to Schutzian terms, the social distribution of knowledge comes into focus: who knows what on which effects of nuclear war? What do we know about the decision makers? The absence of knowledge also is telling: who might be the Paquistani or Indian general in charge of the countries’ nuclear arsenal, what is his name and what are his beliefs? How many people are involved in a final decision on using nuclear weapons, only one or more? We do not know, and we would not even know whom to ask. Such, we are remembered of Schutz’ description of knowledge, reaching from “centers of explicit knowledge” to “zones of complete ignorance” (Collected Papers 2, 1964a: 93). We know very little about the topic of nuclear war, in light of the fact that everybody would be affected by the consequences, as Schutz already observes in 1944 in The Well-Informed Citizen: “very soon every place in this world will be the potential target of destructive weapons released at any other place,” and thereby, “an anonymous Other, whose goals are unknown to us because of his anonymity, may bring us together with our system of interests and relevances within his control.” (Collected Papers 2, 1964b: 129)
With nuclear war, finally, the life-world itself, the constancy of the world structure (Schütz/Luckmann 1979: 29), would be brought to an end, including its logic of reproduction and stabilization. The idealizations in respect to the stability of the life-world, “the idealization of ‘and so forth and so on’ (und so weiter) and – its subjective correlate – the idealization of ‘I-can-do-it-again’ (ich kann immer wieder)” (Schutz 1964c: 285) would be abolished. Apart from the physical, also the social infrastructure of the world would be annihilated. The only way to prevent this outcome appears to be cooperation on a global and international level, difficult to achieve in an unstable world and a contemporary phase of polycrisis (see also the New York Times, 2026, At the Brink). Meanwhile, in 2026, the hand of the Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2026) informs. Also according to this institution, founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, only international cooperation, not in sight at present, is the one and only way out. Are there any choices? If we assume, with Habermas, “that the human species maintains itself through the socially coordinated activities of its members and that this coordination has to be established through communication–and in certain central spheres through communication aimed at reaching agreement–then the reproduction of the species also requires satisfying the conditions of a rationality that is inherent in communicative action.” (Habermas 1984: 397) Armageddon would end the reproduction of the species, and as such, represents the ultimate test for human rationality. Voegelin and Schutz where aware of this.
References
Anders, Günther. 1956 [3rd ed. 2010]. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Band I. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution. München: C.H. Beck.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. January 27, 2026. 2026 Doomsday Clock Statement. [https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2026-statement/, acess 12 March 2026]
Gebhardt, Jürgen. 2017. Spiritual Realism, Phenomenalism, and the Current Crisis Discourse. Voegelin View, May 3, 2017.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1981. Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Vol. 1. Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1. Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon.
Henningsen, Manfred. 2018. Eric Voegelin and the German Left. Voegelin View, February 13, 2018.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1944 [1969]. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
Jacobsen, Annie. 2024. Nuclear War: A Scenario. Boston: Dutton.
New York Times. 2026. At the Brink. A Series About the Threat of Nuclear Weapons in an Unstable World. The New York Times Company.
Schütz, Alfred. 1964a [1944]. The Stranger. In Studies in Social Theory, Collected Papers, Vol. 2, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 91‐105. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Schütz, Alfred. 1964b [1946]. The Well-Informed Citizen: An Essay on the Social Distribution of Knowledge. In Studies in Social Theory, Collected Papers, Vol. 2, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 120‐134. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Schütz, Alfred. 1964c [1942; 1943; 1958; 1959]. Tiresias, or Our Knowledge of Future Events. In Studies in Social Theory, Collected Papers, Vol. 2, ed. Arvid Brodersen, 277‐293. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Schütz, Alfred & Thomas Luckmann. 1979. Strukturen der Lebenswelt. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Schütz, Alfred, and Eric Voegelin. 2011. A Friendship That Lasted a Lifetime. The Correspondence between Alfred Schütz and Eric Voegelin. Translated by William Petropulos. Edited by Gerhard Wagner and Gilbert Weiss. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press.
Voegelin, Eric. 1948. The Origins of Scientism. Social Research 15, 462-494.
Voegelin, Eric. 1999. Phenomenalism. The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. Vol. 25. History of Political Ideas. Vol. VII. The New Order and Last Orientation. Ed. Jürgen Gebhardt and Thomas A. Hollweck. Introduction Jürgen Gebhardt. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 178-192.
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