A Voegelin Literary Criticism
Voegelinian literary criticism is still taking its first steps. Voegelin himself was a master critic of the philosophical text and — he wrote in a letter to…
Hannah Arendt and the Constants of Human Nature
. . . .The delimitation of subject matter through the emotions aroused by the fate of human beings is the strength of Dr. Arendt's book. The concern…
The Terror of History
History, to be precise about the term, is not everything that has ever happened, but the remembered and recorded past, the past judged worthy of reflection and…
The Idea of Progress and “The Authoritative Present”
. . . . When the intellectual and spiritual sources of order in human and social life dry up, there is not much left as a source…
History, Progress, and Time
Man is constructed as a function of history in such philosophies of history as those of Comte, Hegel, and Marx, with an apocalyptic present, that is, a…
Economic Phenomenalism (with a Note on Karl Marx)
. . . . In the case of economic theory we have again a science of phenomena operating with certain assumptions such as a rational, economic individual,…
Psychological Phenomenalism
Psychological phenomenalism has penetrated our civilization so thoroughly that the problem can be supposed to be well known. It will be sufficient to remind the reader of…
Common Sense and the Common Sense Tradition
The philosophical and political import of common sense is strikingly suggested in a passage from Eric Voegelin's Autobiographical Reflections. The passage has the additional merit of highlighting…
Biological Phenomenalism and Charles Darwin
[The success] of the theory of evolution in the nineteenth century [is a source of bewilderment to the historian of ideas]. The evolution of the forms of…
Orwell, Dostoevsky, Flaubert: Obsession and Cruelty
You speak in your letter of a change in dramatic style from expressionist morality to a new realism represented by Dürrenmatt and Frisch. As I am not…
In the Search for Order: The Spirit of Voegelin’s Late Work
The principal work by Voegelin written in the final years of his life and published posthumously includes the final volume of Order and History, entitled In Search…
The Constant Nature of Man, Changing Self-Understanding, and Autobiography
The title of these lectures is "The Drama Of Humanity." They are not about man but about our humanity. Now why? We are accustomed, for instance, to…
Language Symbols
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…
Taking a Chance on Love
In the Church calender, this past Monday was celebrated as the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. In his homily at that Mass, the celebrant mentioned…
Reflections on the Strauss-Voegelin Correspondence
The fascinating correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin raises more questions than it answers, if merely taken by itself.l To be sure, a number of extremely…