René Girard’s Challenge to Fusionism
Modern American conservatism rose in the 1950s under the leadership of William F. Buckley Jr. and Frank S. Meyer at the old National Review magazine, culminated in 1980 with…
The Rudderless Mind
The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction. Mark Lilla. NY: New York Review Books, 2016. Mark Lilla's goal in this book is to warn the reader about…
A Revisit to the Voegelin Essay: “Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History”
Part I: A Short Summary Voegelin’s essay on equivalences was written 50 years ago in 1970; it has been an essay with continued popular interest to Voegelin…
O’Connor and the History of Political Philosophy
In her prefatory note to the second edition of Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor claims that she is “congenitally innocent of theory” and that her preoccupation as a…
The Catcher in the Rye and the Problem of Alienation
Political Philosopher Eric Voegelin refers occasionally to the ancient Egyptian poem, “Dispute of a Man Who Contemplates Suicide With His Soul.” The “Dispute” is about a “man…
At the Root of Evil? Eric Voegelin and India
Eric Voegelin, whose works have begun to be translated into French, is a German-born American political philosopher best known for his study of political Gnosticism. According to…
Apparitions of the Gods: A Voegelinian Meditation
“The dove – the rood – the loaf – the wine.” Men know the gods because they have seen or intuited them, but not all men have…
Obedience and the Philosopher’s Questions
Man is a composite being comprising two bodies: the physical body and the spiritual body. The spiritual body comprises the tripartite soul: intellect, will and passions. The…
Eric Voegelin: Economics with a Moral Grounding
Methodology is not a value-free tool in economic analysis, leading some to conclude economics itself cannot be a value free science. The presumption of every economic methodology…
Eric Voegelin and the Divine in World History
Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was one of the greatest political theorists of the twentieth century. Along with Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Leo Strauss (1899-1973), he is usu-ally named…
Preface for Chinese Translation of New Science of Politics
The original publication of The New Science of Politics in 1952 was a major event and established Eric Voegelin’s academic reputation in the United States. Time, a…
Preface to The New Science of Politics (Chinese Edition)
Eric Voegelin’s The New Science of Politics, is probably his best-known book, at least in the sense that it has been in print in English since 1952.…
Neo-Totalitarianism, The Beginning of Anarchic Civilization? A Voegelin Reading of Our Time
“No one is obliged to take part in the spiritual crisis of a society; on the contrary, everyone is obliged to avoid this folly and live his…
Commentaries on the Work of Eric Voegelin
The Voegelinian Revolution: A Biographical Introduction. Ellis Sandoz. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981; Second Edition, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000. Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of…
The Concept of Gnosticism and the Analysis of Spiritual Disorder
This article attempts to establish a rather simple point: Although Eric Voegelin’s analysis of spiritual disorder or “Gnosticism” stands as one of the greatest accomplishments of 20th…
