Understanding the Language of Politics
Political science is suffering from a difficulty that originates in its very nature as a science of man in historical existence. For man does not wait for…
The Break with the Myth
Our picture of Greek intellectual history is still substantially influenced by historiographic conventions of the Hellenistic period. The development of philosophical schools in the fourth century b.c.…
The Catholic Moment in the Political Philosophy of Leo Strauss
When I first mentioned my plan to speak on the topic of this essay a few years back, I was greeted with guffaws, or at least the…
Recovery of the Life of Reason and Its Modern Deformations
The unfolding of noetic consciousness in the psyche of the classic philosophers is not an "idea," or a "tradition," but an event in the history of mankind.…
What is “The Good Society?” Voegelin at Rheinfelden
ERIC VOEGELIN: I would like to raise one problem as briefly as possible, the one I consider most essential, namely, the organization of a "good society" for…
The Beyond and Its Parousia
As the title for today's lecture in the context of “The Meaning of History," I have chosen “The Beyond and Its Parousia." You know, of course, where…
What is Justice?
"War and battle" are the opening words of Plato's Gorgias, and the declaration of war against the corrupt society is its content. Gorgias, the famous teacher of…
The Pathos of Science and the Spiritual Eunuchs
We have spoken metaphorically of the cancerous growth of the rational-utilitarian segment in modern civilization. We now must go beyond the metaphor and indicate the concrete sentiments…
Eric Voegelin: Political Theology in a New Key
I My initial inspiration to read Eric Voegelin came after I finished my PhD candidacy exam in political theory in the fall of 2013. It was born…
Democracy: A Society of Patricians
One can do nothing at all with a textbook definition of democracy, which again is only a cliche. It is no use to you to know that…
The Parsons–Voegelin Correspondence: Notes on an Unexpected and Instructive Intellectual Encounter
On January 20, 1940, Eric Voegelin wrote a letter to Talcott Parsons, thus opening an unexpected but highly instructive dialogue between two of the twentieth century’s most…
Politics as Melodrama
Politics is indeed melodrama, if politics is understood as a relation between friend and foe; as a compulsion to take sides in a struggle for power. Insofar…
The Coherence of Biography and Philosophy: Hans Jonas’s Philosophical Biology in the Light of his Personal Memoirs
Hans Jonas (1903-1993) was one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. In three major books: The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology; The Imperative…
Democracy and Industrial Society
It surprises me as a newcomer to this circle that entrepreneurs have been apparently forced onto the defensive by an image of the entrepreneur whose characteristics come…
The Nature of 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…