Eric Voegelin's Contribution to Contemporary Political Theory

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Eric Voegelin's Contribution to Contemporary Political TheoryAuthor(s): Dante GerminoSource: The Review of Politics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Jul., 1964), pp. 378-402Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of PoliticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405233 .

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Eric Voegelin'sContributionto Contempo-rary Political Theory

Dante Germino

OME fifty years ago, Douglas Ainslie wrote of Benedetto

Croce*: "I can lay no claimto havingdiscoveredan America,but I do claim to have discovered a Columbus."l Eric

Voegelin, today at the height of his career as a political philosopher,

scarcely needs to be discovered; he is regarded as a Columbus in

the realms of the spirit by many concerned with the theoretical

analysis of politics.2 But in the political science profession he hasbeen more often ignored or systematically misunderstood than

read for what he has to teach. Among those according an in-

different or hostile reception to Voegelin are many who, bewailingthe recent "decline" of political theory, might have been expectedto welcome the appearance of a thinker meticulously pointing the

way to the recovery of political theory as a tradition of inquiry.The basic reasons for this curious reception will be alluded to in

the course of this essay. The major objective, however, is to isolate

the key elements in Voegelin's political theory and to give some

indication of his general position in contemporary political science.

Hopefully, the result will be to further the understanding of his

work and the appreciation of his achievement.3

* The greater part of this research was completed during a leave ofabsence made possible by grants from the Rockefeller Foundationand Wellesley College.

1Introduction to Croce's Aesthetic (London, 1909), p. xv.2 Indeed, at the 1960 convention of the AmericanPolitical Science Associa-

tion, a panel was set aside for the discussion of his magnum opus, Order andHistory. This is a rare distinction for a living political philosopher.

3The present time is a propitious one to evaluate Voegelin's contributionto contemporary political theory because, although the fourth and fifthvolumes of Order and History are as yet unpublished,the main themes of hisanalysis have been expounded and the Voegelinian corpus has now attainedconsiderable proportions. His published writings include ten books and at

least fifty-five articles and essays. A complete bibliographyof his works is inthe Voegelin Festschrift (March, 1962).

The writer has also been able to consult two hitherto unpublishedwritings of Professor Voegelin, available at the Institut fuer PolitischenWissenschaftenat the University of Munich. One is a mimeographed copyof a lecture which he delivered at Munich and Notre Dame in 1961 en-titled "Debate and Existence." The other is the typescript-of a small treatiseentitled The Nature of Law. In addition, during the 1961 summer term at

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ERIC VOEGELIN'SCONTRIBUTION

To Voegelin, political "science" and political "theory" are

inseparablybound together. The object of the critical reflectioninduced by the

activityof theoria is

epistemepolitike,or

politicalscience. Without an ontologicallygrounded theory of politics, a

fully developed political science is impossible. When politicalscience is fully developed, t will containa comprehensive nventoryof all the relevant problems.Such an inventorycan be organizedunder three headings: ethics, "politics"proper, and history.To-

day, for the first time in centuries,the materialsare available andthe intellectualclimate is suitable for great advancesin the theo-

retical analysis of politics. These advances presupposea recoveryof the achievementsof the Platonic-Aristotelian pisteme,nearlylost during the period since 1500, a period which has witnessedthe triumph of fallaciousgnostic symbolizations.

It is essential to recognizethat Voegelin conceivesof politicaltheorynot as an ideology,utopia, or scientific"methodology,"butas an experientialscience of right order in the soul and in so-

ciety. Since human experienceis the control for the propositionselucidated in the course of his theoreticalanalyses,it would bewell to preface an expositionof those propositionswith a discus-sion of Voegelin's highly creative analysisof the structure of ex-

perience itself. This "experience"is multi-dimensional n natureand incapable of being contracted, in the Comtean or logicalpositivist fashion, to the single plane of physical sensation.

The"Experienceof Existence"The starting-pointof Voegelin's explorationsis the empirical

fact of the human person in his awarenessof the finitenessofhis existence.Man

discovershis existenceas illuminated romwithin by Intellect orNous. Intellect is the instrumentof self-interpretations muchas it is a part of the structurenterpreted... By virtue of thenoetic structureof his existence . . . man discovershimself asbeingnot a world unto himself,but an existentamongothers;heexperiences world of existentsof whichhe is a part. Moreover,in discoveringhimself in his limitation as part in a field ofexistents,he discovershimself as not being the maker of thisfield of existents or of any part of it. Existenceacquiresits

Munich I had the opportunity to hold a number of valuable conversationswith Professor Voegelin and to hear his lectures and seminar presentations.I am most indebted to him for these courtesies.

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THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

poignant meaning through the experienceof not being self-generatedbut havingits originoutside tself.4

In discoursingupon the structureof existence, Voegelin dis-tinguishesbetween four functionsof the nous: (1) the "illumina-tion" of the transitorynature of human existence; (2) the appre-hension of "transcendence" of an ultimateground of all exist-ing things; (3) the formation of an "idea" of the structureofexistence ("ideation"); and (4) the rational elaborationof the

experienceand its components.5It is of

particular importancethat

Voegelin's descriptionofthe second phase of the cognitiveactivity of the nous be properlyunderstood.In reflecting upon his finitenessand mortality,manis led to an awarenessof the transcendentalgroundof all existingthings, including himself. The cognitive illumination of the struc-ture of existencemakes it transparent o him that existingthingscould not be the origin and end of themselves.That origin andend will not be found by ranging over the field of existingthings

but must be traced to a "something"beyond that field.Voegelin has gone to considerablelengths to emphasize that

valid philosophizingabout politics must rest upon an adequatesymbolization respecting the "something" that constitutes theground of being. Above all, to discourseupon the transcendentalground as if it were an object located in the streamof immanentexperience must be recognized as a fundamental impropriety.All "knowledge"of the ground of being is analogical in char-

acter, for man in the limitations of his existentialsituation canonly reason from that which is known by immediateexperienceto that which lies beyond, but is the necessarypresuppositionof, such experience and is in its essence "unknowable."Suchknowledge is inevitably fragmentary,uncertain, and intangible,for at the centerof his existenceman is a mysteryto himself.

The knowledge of transcendenceis, in Augustinian terms,a

cognitio fidei,a

knowledgeof

faith. Voegelin employsthe term"faith" precisely in the New Testament sense as expounded inHebrews 11: "Faith gives substance to our hopes, and makesus certain of realities we do not see.. By faith we perceivethat the universewas fashionedby the word of God, so that the

4Voegelin, unpublished lecture on "Debate and Existence," p. 13.

5Ibid., p. 17.

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visible came forth from the invisible."6 Let it be rememberedat once that for Voegelin faith is a propertyof the nous, or in-

tellect, and that faith and reason, far from being antithetical,are the necessarycomplementsof each other.7 It is by the "tenu-ous bond of faith" that we apprehend the "world-transcendentGod" that is the origin and end of all existing things.8 To ex-

perience through faith the transcendentalground is the conditiosine qua non for the valid operation of human reason in itsarticulationof the structureof existence.Experienceof the groundof being through faith is what Voegelin calls the premierErfah-

rung:it is the

experiencewhich must

precedeall

theorizingaboutthe human condition. Reason must build on faith if its symbolicconstructions are adequately to represent the real structure ofexistence. Without the prior experience of faith, the vital com-

ponent of transcendencewill be left out of the calculations ofreason in its attempt to illuminate the structure of existence tothe fullest extent possible within the limited capabilities of thenous. This will result in a falsification of the symbolicpicture-

the theory - which reasonproduces.As Voegelin has expressedthe matter in his importantpaper

"Debate and Existence": "The logical operationsof Intellect quaReason will arrive at widely different results if Reason has cutloose from the condicio humana." Faith is the fragilebond which

keeps reasontied to this condition,which is to say, to reality.Therejectionof the fragile bond and the pursuit of massivelyposses-sive "knowledge"based on an illusionarysimplificationof human

existence through the incorporationof the transcendentalgroundwithin the stream of immanent existencehave producedthe im-

aginative gnostic ideological speculationsof the modem era.These speculations,although sometimespossessingan internal

"rational" coherence are actually the repudiation of a rational

6 Hebrews 11:1-3 (New English Bible).7 In a profound sense, Voegelin transcends both the "fideist" and "rational-

ist" positions in contemporary Protestant and Catholic political thought.Cf. my article, "Two Types of Recent Christian Political Thought," Journalof Politics, XXI, August, 1959, for a discussion of the two approaches. In nosense can Voegelin properly be termed a Barthian fideist; the experience offaith is to prepare the way for the work of reason, and faith that does notissue in rational knowledge (that is, in philosophy) is inadequate. In thisconnection, the assertion of Jean Meynaud that Voegelin writes from a"purely doctrinal" and "confessional" viewpoint is an absurdity. Introductiona la science politique (Paris, 1959), p. 11.

8 The New Science of Politics (Chicago, 1952), p. 122.

381




science of politics because they are grounded on an imagined"second reality." They proclaim an illusory self-salvation and

self-perfection for man within history. The thinkers of the second

reality reject the

experience of finiteness and creatureliness in our existence, of

being creatures of a day as the poets call man, of being bornand bound to die, of dissatisfactionwith the state experienced asimperfect, of apprehension of a perfection that is not of thisworld but is a privilege of the gods, of possible fulfillment in astate beyond this world.9

They renounce existence in uncertain truth for existence in cer-

tain untruth. With such men it is impossible to have rational

philosophic communication, for "edifices of reason enacted onthe experiential basis of existence in truth" are "useless in a meet-

ing with edifices of reason erected on a different experiential basis."

In metaphysics, Voegelin is to be counted among that groupof contemporary philosophers (including thinkers like Alois Dempf

and Hans Urs von Balthasar) who seek to expose the defects ofsystem-building in modem philosophy. The term "system" is oftenused today to refer to any orderly body of philosophical specula-tion and one hears of Thomistic and Aristotelian "systems."Actually, writes Voegelin, systems "are a modem invention, andI doubt that one can properly speak of a 'system' before Des-cartes." Whereas a work like the Thomistic Summa Theologicaemploys analogical reasoning in discoursing upon the transcen-

dental ground and remains open and necessarily incomplete, mov-

ing in the "tension between reason and faith," a systematicconstruction of a Spinoza or a Hegel derives its propositions fromaxioms.10 In its enclosed conversation with itself, it becomesfurther and further removed from the reality which it is supposedto be explicating. The "system" is founded on the illusion thatall realms of being are susceptible to being compressed to the pointwhere

theycan be

fully graspedand

conceptualized by the finitehuman mind. System-constructors are ignorant, or pretend to be

ignorant, of the basic experience of existence, which teaches that

9"Debate and Existence," p. 7.10Voegelin's attack on "systems"and system-buildingin philosophy runs

through all his writings,but note especially the interestingarticles "Philosophieder Politik in Oxford," Philosophische Rundschau, I(1953/54), 23, ff., and"Religions-ersatz,"Wort und Wahrheit, XV(1960), 55, ff.

382




there are ultimate realms of being which escape our systemsalto-

gether and that at the center of being the source of all that isremains unknowable in its essence.

One of the few modem thinkers to whom Voegelin alwaysrefers with admiration is Bergson, and it may be said that theMunich philosopherhas sought to follow Bergson in fashioninga metaphysics which passes "from reality to concepts and no

longer from concepts to reality."'l Voegelin is a philosophicalrealist rather than a nominalist, idealist, or conceptualistin thathe holds that existentialreality possessesa structure,or constitu-

tion, independentof human

thinkingand willing. The philosophermust aspire to attune his thinking to that reality (or, more pre-cisely,to recognizehis thought as participating n the noetic struc-ture of existence) ratherthan attempt to force realityto conformto his concepts or "ideas." In this sense, Voegelin is the supreme"empiricist,"although it is the entiretyof human experienceandnot some arbitrarilyabstractedsegmentof it that he takes for hisfield of "observation."

Episteme PolitikeGiven Voegelin's emphasis upon the inevitable limitations

of human knowledge, his scorn for system-building,and his

Xenophanesianconcern about the improprietyof unseemly sym-bolization in the realms of metaphysics,one might be led tothink that he would attempt no scientificpolitical theory at all,but content himself with admonitionsto opinionated ideologistsand Wittgenstein-like ntimations of inexpressiblemysteries.He

could possiblyhave retreatedinto Pyrrhonic (and Oakeshottian)skepticism.Another measureof Voegelin'sachievementis that hehas pushed far beyond this tenable but ultimately inadequateposition and has driven himself to explicate the vital distinctionbetween illegitimate (because illusionary) gnosis and valid epis-teme regardingthe conditio humana.

For there can be no doubt that to Voegelin an episteme

politikeis

possible,and that its

objective is to articulateproposi-tions that tell us as much as can be known about the right order

1Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics (New York, 1912), p. 40.Bergson explained that such a metaphysics is difficult to achieve because the"normal" tendency of human thought is to be guided by a practical ratherthan a theoretical orientation; therefore, thought naturally seeks to come toreality via preconceived concepts rather than to derive its concepts fromreality.

383




of the psyche and of society. Part of that knowledge,indeed themost significantpart, will be a knowledgeof the limits of knowl-

edge, or, better, a knowledge of the distinction between the

knowable and the unknowable. Included in this category is theunderstanding invaluablefor a scienceof right orderin politicalsociety - of the phantasypermeatingall speculationson politicswhich assume that existence is something other than it is andthat a realm of perfect equality, freedom, and human fulfillmentis obtainable within time by virtue of the proper manipulationof the institutionalenvironment.

Theconstructiveaspect of Voegelin's work consists of an at-tempt to elaborate, after the manner of the classical political

theorists,the principlesof order in human social existence.Whatfollows will be only an inadequate summary of his positive po-litical theory. As with all thinkers of the first rank, there is nosubstitutefor reading him in extenso.

(1) PhilosophicalAnthropology

As was previouslystated, Voegelin's political theory may bemost suitably discussed under three headings: ethics, politics,and history,which constitutethe topoi of the Platonic-Aristotelian

episteme politike. We begin with ethics, because any genuinelytheoreticalanalysisof politicsmustrestupon a carefullyenunciateddoctrine of human nature. Voegelin calls this teaching abouthuman nature by the name of "philosophicalanthropology."

Much ofVoegelin's work in the area of philosophical an-

thropology has been devoted to the recovery of the classical

theorizingrespectingthe interpenetrationof societyand psyche. InIis unrivalledcriticalexegesisof Plato in the thirdvolumeof Orderand History, Voegelin gives an account of Plato's discovery (in-timated but not fully articulatedin Heraclitus) of the "macro-

anthropological"principle.In contrastto the "micro-cosmological"principle enunciated in the Egyptian and Babyloniansymboliza-

tions, which held society to be a miniature analogue of cosmicrhythms, the macro-anthropologicalprinciple describessociety asthe reflection of the order of the psyche in the ruling charactertype. Knowledge respecting the different types of societies andtheir relative worth can be attained only through a knowledgeof the different human types and their ranking on a scale ofexcellence.

384




A sound philosophicalanthropologywill teach us that (1) thecharacter of a given society is the reflection of the psychesof its

ruling elite; (2) the best society (ariste politeia) will reflect in

its institutionalorder the pattern of order in the psyche of thebest man; (3) the best man (the spoudaios) is the man whomeasureshimselfby the highest that is within him; and (4) onlybecause he measures himself by the measure of all being doesthe best man have authorityto claim himself as the measureofthe best society.

Voegelin's philosophicalanthropology,derived from the Pla-tonic-Aristotelian

teaching,is an

expressionof

what Maritainhas termedtheocentric,as opposedto anthropocentric,humanism.The Protagoreanmaxim that "man is the measureof all things"is subjected to the crucial qualification"providedthat he takes

God, or the ground of being, as his measure." Man is seen to be

essentiallya "theomorph"(to employ a term also used by Alois

Dempf and Romano Guardini, two contemporary colaborerswith Voegelin in the vineyards of philosophicalanthropology);

if he achieves his maximaldevelopmentas a human being, he willlive the life of reason in attunement with the divine measure.

Philosophicalanthropologyenables us to arrive at a scale of

character, beginning with the "representativeexemplar" of thehuman species- the type of man who has come closest to actual-

izing his distinctively human potentialities - and proceedingdownward to the most degenerate and antihuman types suchas the gangsterswho made up the rulingelite of the Nazi regime.The representativeexemplar is given the name "philosopher"byPlato; Aristotle calls him the spoudaios,which can be most ac-

curately translatedas the "ripe"or "mature"(that is, most fullydeveloped) man.12

Voegelin accepts in its essentialsthe portraitof the spoudaios12The term "philosopher" has been and continues to be so ridiculously

misused that the Aristotelian word may be preferable. As Voegelin pointsout, Plato formulated the symbol "philosopher" (or lover of wisdom) in

contradistinction to "philodoxer" (or lover of opinion): "We have philos-ophers in English but no philodoxers. The loss is . . . embarrassing, becausewe have an abundance of philodoxers in reality, but all of them are referredto as philosophers. . . . [Thus] we call philosophers precisely those persons towhom Plato as a philosopher was in opposition." Order and History (BatonRouge, 1957), III, 65. Readers of James Reston's column in the New YorkTimes will notice the frequent abuse of the terms philosopher and philosophical(thus we have a "philosophical" question at a Presidential news conference,Nixon's "philosophy" of labor-management relations, etc., etc.).

385




sketchedby Aristotle (principallyin Books I, IV, and X of theNichomachean Ethics). The spoudaios is the man who has hisprioritiesright, who pursues as the highest good that which is

really the highestgood and not a good which is only instrumentalfor the attainment of some further good (and is therefore in-

herently insufficient). True eudaimonia can come only from thebios theoretikos,the life of reason devoted to the contemplationof the order of being. Not the life spent in the pursuitof wealth,or power, or honor, but the life of reason is the highest life forman. The bios theoretikos s the highest life for man because itis the most

self-sufficient and (therefore) godlike activity forhuman beings to pursue. Such a life is the fulfillment of the

capacities and powers which are most distinctivelyhuman andwhich mark man off from the rest of creation. Such a life isorientedtowardsfollowing "the highestthing within us"; in lead-

ing the life of reason, man discoversthe theomorphicelement inhis constitution,for the bios theoretikos"will not be lived in our

merely human capacity but in virtue of something divine with-

in us, and so far as this divine particleis superiorto man's com-posite nature, to that extent will its activity be superiorto thatof the other forms of excellence. . . . We . . . conclude that thelife of the intellect is the best and pleasantestfor man, becausethe intellect [nous] more than anything else is the man."l3

The theocentrichumanism of both Plato and Aristotle,whichcan be summarizedin Plato's dictum in the Laws, "God is themeasure of all things," has been rediscoveredby

Voegelinin

resistance to basic misinterpretations y certain classicalscholars.Particularlyhas the theocentric element in the Aristotelianan-thropologybeen ignored by certain writers,as if it were possibleto turn Aristotle into some kind of contemporarysecular intel-lectual who separatesreasonfrom the experienceof transcendence.The significanceof such misinterpretationsor present-daypoliticaltheory can be graspedwhen one examinesLeo Strauss'swritings.In some

respects,Strausshas made a brilliantand effective con-tributionto the recoveryof the insightsof the Platonic-Aristotelianphilosophicalanthropology n our time. Yet, his inabilityto trans-cend anthropocentrichumanismeven after exposing its disastrousresultsat the hands of key modern thinkersmars his splendidin-terpretationsof Plato and Aristotleand undermines,as it inevitably

13Ethics (J. A. K. Thomas trans.), Bk. X, 7.

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ERIC VOEGELIN'S CONTRIBUTION

must, the basis of his claim to speak with philosophical authority.As another political scientist has appropriately pointed out,

through his particular brand of anthropocentric humanism, which

ignores the decisive Platonic qualification to the teaching that

man is the measure, Strauss skirts "dangerously close to a moral-

ism which depends simply on approval or disapproval, with

authoritative approval resting with the men whose character has

been formed by a classical education."14 Strauss demonstrates

that he knows what the spoudaios is and that he seeks to emulate

it, but his anthropocentrism prevents him from adequately ex-

plaining the grounds of the claim by the spoudaios to be the"measure of everything."

Voegelin's philosophical anthropology has been attacked on

the grounds of its supposedly antidemocratic and "elitist" nature,and we may expect the attacks from certain quarters to continue,even to the point of labelling him as a type of "Fascist" ideo-

logue.15 But such criticisms totally miss the point of both the

Voegelinian and the Platonic-Aristotelian teaching. In the first

place, the claim to authority by the philosophos-spoudaios is aspiritual claim and has nothing to do with the direction of a massmovement for the forcible seizure of power in society. The phi-losopher performs the function of representing the transcendent

truth to society; to the degree that the existential power repre-sentatives heed him, then to that degree will his teaching have

pragmatic effect on the operation of the society's public institu-

14WilliamC. Harvard,"The Methodand Results of PoliticalAnthro-pology n America,"Archiv uerRechts-und ozialphilosophie,LVII (1961),

395-415, at 413. Some of Strauss's ollowerscontinueto make the sameerror. Cf. especiallyWalterBerns, Freedom,Justice,and the First Amend-ment (BatonRouge,1958).

15Note the review of Order and History by Moses Hadas in the Journalof the History of Ideas, XIX(1958), 444. The review contains the followingcharming sentence: "One wonders whether the 'institution that wishes toremain unnamed' which Professor Voegelin thanks for material aid in eachof his Prefaces was aware of the nature of his work, and one remembers aremark attributed to a notable

patronof the institution which Professor

Voegelin serves [at the time, he was on the faculty of Louisiana State Uni-versity]: 'Sure, we'll have fascism in this country, but of course we'll callit something else.' Leap in being?" Karl Jaspers also turns into a fascist inthe course of the Hadas review. One of the enormous difficulties besettingrational communication among scholars at the present time is that manypeople cannot recognize a philosopher when they see one. As one who hasspent several years studying Fascism, let me assure Professor Hadas thatVoegelin's philosophy and Fascist ideology have nothing whatsoever incommon.

387




tions. They are perfectly free not to heed him, in which event

he will continue his work of critically elaborating the truth about

theright

order insociety

until or unless forced to ceasedoing

so.The philosopher is no dux arousing the forces of civilizational

pride for an immanent perfection of society. His task is not to

take existential power in society but to labor for the "spiritual

ordering of a disordered world." Philosophy, in its discovery of

participation in the nous as the criterion of man's essential hu-

manity, can do nothing directly to change society to conform to

the new truth. But indirectly "the differentiation of the life of

the soul in a great number of men in a community may have theeffect of changing the mores, and ultimately the institutions of a

society, because the hierarchy of purposes for individual action

has changed."16Another point which needs to be made against those who cry

"elitism"17 is that the ranks of the spoudaioi are open to any man

who will form his life in accordance with reason, who will openhis soul towards the transcendental ground. No man is excluded

on the basis of physical characteristics, wealth, social status, andthe like. No man is excluded, but any man may exclude himselffrom the character elite. And, as an empirical fact, the majorityof men do so excommunicate themselves.

As with Plato, Voegelin recognizes the existence of a widesecond stratum in the character elite, composed of men who,while they do not consciously and primarily pursue the life of

reason, nonetheless

possessorthe doxa, or true

opinion,and sound

"common sense." These individuals, of sound habits and a prac-tical turn of mind, who know the good but imperfectly and couldnot give an adequate rational defense of it if pressed to do so byideological adversaries (these men are customarily philosophicallyinarticulate) make up the majority of the governing class of anywell-ordered society. They are aware of the limitations of politicalaction and act in their decisions on the basis of what Weber

called the "ethics of responsibility" (Verantwortungsethik). Theyhave absorbed the Machiavellian wisdom that it is the highestirrationality in politics to act out of the supposedly pure motives

16 Order and History, II, 283.17 As if there can be any science of politics without a theory of elites!

It is not that we shall have either an elite theory or no elite theory; the ques-tion is whether we shall have a philosophically sound or an ideologically de-based elite theory.

388




of conscience without giving proper regard to the foreseeable

pragmatic consequencesof one's actions.18 The psyches of thesemen are capable of

beingintimatelytouched

bythe

philosopher'steaching, and insofar as he devoteshimself to political education,he labors to reach these men and hopes for the increaseof theirnumbers and influence in society.19

As one moves down the characterscale, one moves away fromthe freely formed psyche open to communion with the trans-cendental ground to the psyche which relies predominantlyonhabitualobedience and external formulae. Here we encounterthe

rank and file in a societywho lack leadershipqualitiesthemselvesbut whose instinct for order leads them to reject demagogic ap-peals by counter-elitesbent upon wreaking disorder in the so-

ciety. The "ordering spirit" must work through a "variety ofcharactertypes," and only exceptionalpersonscan "translatetheorder of the spirit into the practice of conduct without institu-tional support and pressure."20This means that, for survival inthe world, "the order of the spirit has to rely on a blind belief

in the symbols of a creed more often than on the fides caritateformata - though such reliance, if it becomes socially predomi-nant, is apt to kill the order it is supposed to preserve."21

Finally, Voegelin's typology of the representativeexemplarof the human species provides him with standardsfor the meas-urement of the existencesof those massesof men in contemporarysocietywho being without any firm hierarchyof purposes lit aim-

18Cf. Voegelin's article "Machiavelli's Prince: Background and Forma-tion," in the Review of Politics, XIII (May, 1951), for some keen insightsinto the thought of the much-maligned Florentine. In his unpublishedtreatise on The Nature of Law, Voegelin has written of conscience: "Con-science . . . can be defined as the act, or acts, by which we judge, approvinglyor disapprovingly,our conduct in the light of our rational moral knowledge.Conscience in this sense is not infallible." It can err either because the factsof the matter requiring our action are not sufficiently known, or becauseconflict of obligations is difficult to resolve, or because "moral obtuseness

and spiritual perversion"will produce false judgments.19The philosopher also labors to increase the ranks of those who devotethemselves fully to the life of noetic reason - of those who will becomephilosophers. However, he recognizes the unlikelihood that the bios theoretikoswill be followed by more than a small minority in a technologicallyorientedcivilization. Hopefully, their impact as members of the cultural elite whocontribute to the intellectual formation of those who hold the reins of ex-istential power will be greater than their numbers.

20Order and History, I, 440.2 Ibid., I, 337.

389




lessly from one object of trivial satisfaction to another in searchof the Benthamite god, pleasure.22These people, together withthe sophists, opinionated ideologists, and unprincipled power-seekers who pander to their impulses,deserveto be describedas

"nihilists," because they demonstrate in their lives their per-sonal nothingness.They constitutethe stratum from which haveissued the enormous, unparalleleddisorders and world crises ofthe twentieth century. Above all, political theory, by virtue ofa sound philosophical anthropology,must resist the ideological

pressurethat in the name of "democracy"seeks to replace the

spoudaios with the personal nothingness of the nihilistic massman as a measure.

(2) The Good SocietyThe second key element in Voegelin's political theory is the

conceptual representationof the paradigmaticsociety. Under theterms of the macro-anthropological rincipleenunciatedby Platoin the Republic, society is the "soul writ large"; from a knowl-

edge of the nature of the good man one can arrive at a knowl-

edge of the good society. "In Heraclitus the idea of an orderof the soul begins to form which in Plato unfolds into the peren-nial principleof political science: that the right order of the soul

through philosophyfurnishes the standard for the right order of

society."23An essentialpart of the work of the political philoso-pher is, in fact, the elaboration of "model projects"which serveas the basis for the evaluation of existing regimes. The model

projectof the

paradigmaticregime providesin broad

outline anindication of how a society organized around the spoudaios asits representative,dominant type would appear. Such a sketchis an illustration of scientific principles and is derived from asound philosophical anthropology. It has nothing whatever todo with the so-called "ideal state" (a fundamentalmistranslationof ariste politeia) or "utopia." The sketch of the paradigmaticsociety is not an indulgence in axiological phantasy; it is not a

projection of an individual's "value preferences."The paradig-matic society is anchored in ontological reality: it is a picture

22 In "Nietzsche, the Crisis and the War," Journal of Politics, VI (May,1944), Voegelin credits Nietzsche with having made a proper empirical as-sessment of the nihilistic character of "massy"existence (while rejecting, itneed scarcely be added, Nietzsche's solution for "overcoming"the nihilism).

2s Order and History, II, 227.

390




of how society would look if it were guided by the standardsof the human type that is attuned to the order of being.

One of Voegelin's most valuable contributionshas been to

demonstratethat the constructionof utopias has nothing to dowith scientific political theory. Utopia is to be defined as "thedream of achieving the perfect society through organizingmen

accordingto a blueprint nsteadof formingthem in an educational

process ..."24 Utopia is the "black magic of politics" and

Plato, himself so frequentlymislabelled a "utopian"thinker,spe-cifically contrastsutopia-construction nd the philosophicelabora-tion of the

good societywhen, in the Critias,he sets up a utopiain bad faith. The Republic is to be understoodas an "intensecallfor spiritual reform," rather than as a "rationalblueprint"foran "ideal state."25

In his discussionabout the problem of providing a "model

project" of the paradigmaticsociety valid for contemporarycon-

ditions, Voegelin is careful to warn political theorists againstattempts to elaborate its structuralfeatures in too minute and

detailed a manner. The "weight" of the philosopher'swork lies"in the inquiry into the nature of true order" in the soul andin society; "the model projects, while more than a literary de-

vice, have the character of secondaryelaborationsand must notbe taken as rules with autonomousvalidity."26Thus, it may beobservedthat in Plato's Laws the preamblestake up much more

space than the actual laws, while the Republic omits whole areasof law from considerationon groundsthat "anybodycan elaborate

the legal projects if he has understoodthe essence of order andrealized the order within his own life." Aristotle provides onlythe thinnest sketch of his model in Book VIII of the Politics.

Voegelin is careful to indicate that the actual model does haveits validity, however: it providesmen with a definitestandardinterms of which they may judge the relative deficiency of theactual society in which they live.

Given his stricturesagainst excessive detailing of the goodsociety'scharacteristics,we need not expect to find in the Voege-

linian corpus an institutional representationalong the lines ofMaritain'sMan and the State, to cite an exampleof anothercon-

24Ibid., III, 209.25Ibid., II, 187.6 The Nature of Law, p. 82.

391




temporarytheorist of the good society. Nevertheless,in a highlysignificant but regrettably little-known paper delivered several

years ago to a gathering of Europeanintellectuals,Voegelin did

offer in brief form certain specificnorms for the good society inour time. Such a society rests on two postulates: (1) it is to beas large and prosperousas is necessaryto make possiblethe lifeof reason for the minority capable of leading it; and (2) it is

organizedin such a manner that the "life of reason becomes asoul force in the culture and political affairsof the society."

To these postulates Voegelin adds two corollaries: (1) the

good societyis not a

rigid,a

priori conception:"Its

constructionis extremelyelastic and ought to vary with our empiricalknowl-

edge of the nature of man and society."That the life of reasonbe "socially efficacious" is its only firm point. (Significantly,Voegelin nowhere insists on a specific scheme of propertyrela-tions as mandatory for the good society. ContemporaryAmeri-can "right-wing" ntellectuals who attempt to use Voegelin as a

cudgel with which to whip the welfare state would receive short

shrift from him. He actually takes for granted that under condi-tions of industrializationa good deal of public ownership andextensive social services will exist and are necessary. Voegelinis neither left-wing nor right-wing because he is neither a pub-licist nor an ideologist.) (2) The good society is not to be con-fused with eternal paradise on earth; in the language of the

cyclical theory of history, even if it were realized historically, ndue time it would run its course, decay and disintegrate.27

Voegelin recognizes with Plato and Aristotle that there exist

many degrees of embodiment of the paradigmaticsociety, andthat in addition to fabricatingmodels of the best regime, he must

preoccupyhimself with the problemof the "dilutionof the para-digm." Historical circumstanceswill most likely make it necessaryto compromisecertainprinciplesso that at least some measure oforder may be injected into a particularexisting society.Thus, wehave modelsof what Aristotlecalled

the "bestpracticableregime."For instance, at this stage in the industrializationprocess, somekind of participationin politics by the many who are not quali-fied to lead either in terms of their rationalityor their energyor their capabilitiesin marshallingthe allegiancesof others will

27Voegelin, "La societC industrielle a la recherche de la raison," in R.Aron, ed., Colloques de Rheinfelden (Paris, 1960), pp. 44 ff., pp. 53-54.

392




be necessary.Similarly,the ownersof resourcesand the managersof aggregateson both the labor and the managementside of the

economy must have an important role in the political process,

irrespectiveof their capacities for the life of reason, because ofthe vast extent of their power. Thus, the paradigm would haveto be diluted to the point where it was transformednto a "mixed

constitution,"in which the many on grounds of their numberand the economic managerson the groundof theirpositionwouldhave a - hopefullynot decisive- share,alongwith the spoudaioion the grounds of their virtue, in the selection and compositionof the

ruling governmentalelite.28

(3) Order and HistoryEven had Voegelin done no more than recapturethe meaning

and contemporaryrelevance of the classical episteme politike inthe areas of ethics and politics,his achievementwould have beenmonumental. As it is, however, he has gone decisively beyondthe classical epistemein the field of historyin the third field of

investigationproper to a theory of politics conceivedas a scienceof right order in human society. Voegelin has shown that onlyin our time, with the unparalleledarchaeologicaldiscoveriesand

improvements n the techniquesof historicalresearchresultinginthe enormouswidening of the historicalhorizon, has it become

possible to develop adequately the historicalside of the scienceof politics.

Our philosopher calls for nothing less than a joining of a

"theory of politics" with a "theory of history." "The existenceof man in political society is historicalexistence; and a theoryof politics, if it penetratesto principles,must at the same timebe a theory of history. . . . Theory is bound by history ....[The theorist is not permittedto] take his position at an Archi-medean point outside history."29 Although at the center of

Voegelin'sanalysisof politics is a philosophyof history,it shouldbe understood that

this philosophyof history, in contrastto the

28 As with individual character types, it is possible to arrange societieson a scale of excellence and one of the functions of political science is tosurvey the various types of existing societies and categorize them accordingto their relative worth vis-a-vis the paradigmatic model. For Voegelin, it issocieties, not forms of government, that are primary. A well-ordered societywill produce a satisfactory form of government, but the reverse cannot happen.

29 The New Science of Politics, pp. 1, 78.

393




gnostic historical constructions of a Hegel or a Marx, will notoffer a rounded picture of the final "meaning" of the historical

pattern.For

Voegelin's philosophyof

historyis

groundedon the

experience of existence, which informs us that at

the center of his existence man is unknown to himself and mustremain so, for the part of being that calls itself man could beknown fully only if the community of being and its drama intime were known as a whole. Man's participation in being isthe essence of his existence, and this essence depends on the

whole, of which existence is a part. Knowledge of the

whole, however,is

precluded by the identity of the knower withthe partner, and ignorance of the whole precludes essentialknowledge of the part. The situation with regard to the decisivecore of human existence is . . . profoundly disturbing, for fromthe depths of this ultimate ignorance wells up the anxiety ofexistence.30

A philosophy of history will not yield us special gnosis regardingthe ultimate "meaning in history."

It rather reveals a mankind striving for its order of existencewithin the world while attuning itself with the truth of beingbeyond the world, and gaining in the process not a substantiallybetter order within the world but an increased understandingof the gulf that lies between immanent existence and thetranscendent truth of being.

The contemporary historian is able to cast a ray of light from

the present into the past, but "the light that falls over the past"only "deepens the darkness that surrounds the future. He willshudder before the abysmal mystery of history as the instrumentof divine revelation for ultimate purposes that are unknown equal-ly to the men of all ages."31 Gnostic thinkers from Joachim ofFlora to Hegel and Marx who pretend to have captured for usthe eidos of history have only succeeded in perpetrating a"swindle."32 "There is no eidos of

history," because thecourse of history as a whole is no object of experience; historyhas no eidos, because the course of history extends into the un-

30 Order and History, I, 2.31Ibid., I, 129.32 See Voegelin's inaugural lecture at Munich, Wissenschaft, Politik, und

Gnosis(Munich,KoeselVerlag, 1959), for enlargement pon the themeofgnosticpoliticalthinkersas "swindlers."

394



ERIC VOEGELIN'S CONTRIBUTION

known future. The meaning of history, thus, is an illusion; andthis illusionary eidos is created by treating a symbol of faith

[the eschaton of Christianity which points towards eventual

transcendental fulfillment beyond time] as if it were a propositionconcerning an object of immanent experience.33

Although an adequately articulated theory, or philosophy, of

history will yield man no secrets which his existential situation

by its very nature bars him from attaining, it will teach him what

man is engaged in doing when he participates in the historical

process. It will teach the observer to go beyond the understanding

of the "phenomenal regularities,"34 or the dimension of "objectivetime in which civilizations run their course," to penetrate to the

comprehension of history as the "inner form which constitutes

a society."35At its deeper level, then, history appears as a succession of

"symbolic forms" which various societies have elaborated in their

attempts at self-interpretation. The form of a given society "re-

sults from the interpenetration of institutions and experiencesof order,"36 for societal institutions reflect the experiences oforder which imbue them with a particular form. Voegelin de-

cisively rejects the portrayal in Spengler and the early Toynbeeof history as an infinite - and ultimately senseless - series of

"civilizations." He does, however, accept Toynbee's insistence that

civilizations, rather than nation-states, are the only "intelligibleunits of study." Rather, in the unfolding of the various symbolicforms of historical order - from

the Babylonian and Egyptiancosmological to the Israelite historical, Greek philosophical, and

33The New Science of Politics, p. 120.

34Voegelin does not disparage knowledge of the phenomenal regularitiesin the sequence of historical events (indeed, he has a knowledge at thislevel of historical fact equalled only by Toynbee), but rather seeks to putthem in their proper light as constituting only one level of the politicalprocess: "The ultimate constants of history cannot be determined by forming

type conceptsof

phenomenal regularities,for historical

regularities are nomore than manifestations of the constants of human nature in their rangeof compactness and differentiation." This position is in one way opposedto the "search for the phenomenally typical in the course of civilizations.For inevitably we must start with phenomenal regularities in order to arriveat the constants of human nature, as well as at the structural differentiationof the constant range of experiences; that is at the dynamics of human naturethat we call history." Order and History, I, 63.

35 Order and History, I, 127.38 Ibid., I, 60.

395




Christianforms - we discernthat "the great societies . . . havecreated a sequence of orders, intelligibly connected with oneanother as advances toward, or recessionsfrom, an adequatesymbolizationof truth concerning the order of being of whichthe order of societyis a part."37

The decisive advance in man's strugglefor an adequate sym-bolizationregarding right order in society occursin the transitionfrom the "truth of cosmic-divine order to the differentiatedex-

perience of transcendent-divineorder." Voegelin's term for de-

noting this qualitativeadvance in the historyof the spirit is "leap

in being"; the leap in being "occurs in a plurality of parallelinstances,in Israel and Hellas, in China and in India," but the

parallel occurrencesare "not of equal rank."38When the leap in

being, involving what Bergsondescribedas the "opening"of thesoul to the transcendentruth, occurs,humanpersonalityn its free-dom of the spirit in existence under God appears.Human exist-

ence, having emerged from the sheol of cosmologicalservitude,becomes for the first time "consciouslyhistorical." We move

from the mythological "compactness"of cosmological truth tothe more "differentiated" ymbolismof philosophy and religion.With Greek philosophy and the Christian religion, the various

components of human existence are differentiated and givenappropriatesymbolicreferents.

The movement from the early empires to Hellas and Israeland finallyto Christianitys in theoreticalterms an advance fromcosmologicalto anthropologicaland finally to

soteriologicalruth

about the order of being. In the more differentiatedsymbolicforms the visible world, the ordered cosmion, is replaced as the

analogue of social order by the unseen measure "that can be

experiencedonly by a movement of the soul." Thus, the internalorder of the psyche rather than the external order of nature be-comes the model "that will furnish symbols for orderingsocietyanalogically n its image."39

Although the anthropologicaltruth of Greek philosophyandthe soteriologicaltruth of Christianityare alike in their opposi-tion to cosmologicalcompactness,"the Platonic-Aristotelianom-plex of experiences was enlarged by Christianityin a decisive

37 Ibid., I, ix.38Ibid., II, 4.

39Ibid., I, 5.

396




point." Philosophy emphasizesthe "human side of the orienta-tion of the soul toward divinity." The soul reaches out to an

"inviolably transcendent" God but is met by no "answeringmovement." "The experience of mutuality in the relation with

God, of the amicitia in the Thomistic sense, of the grace which

imposesa supernatural orm on the nature of man, is the specificdifference of Christiantruth. The revelation of this grace in his-

tory, through the incarnationof the Logos in Christ, intelligiblyfulfilled the adventitious movement of the spirit in the mysticphilosophers.The critical authorityover the older truth of society

which the soul had gained throughits opening and its orientationtowardthe unseen measurewas now confirmedthroughthe revela-tion of the measure itself."40

One of the most important - and controversial - aspectsof Voegelin's philosophy of history is his descriptionof moderWestern civilization as the expressionof the "gnostic"symbolicform. Gnosticism s a stream of thoughtwith pre-Christian oots,41which becomes progressively mmanentizeduntil it erupts in the

totalitarian mass movements of our time. Enormous and im-portant differencesexist between the various gnostic symbolismsthat coexist in modernity,42but they all have in common thefallacious attempt to transformthe uncertaintiesand ambiguitiesof the experience of existence into the certaintiesof one-dimen-sional intramundaneexperience. Out of their anxiety regardingthe structureof existence, they create a "second reality" which

gives more assurance o them than the apprehensionof thegroundof being by faith and analogical reasoning affords. In its most

radical forms, gnosticismis a messianic,chiliastic creed bent on

destroyingthe soul's opennesstowardstranscendental ruth in thename of the unrestrained ibido dominandi of the gnostic elite.The gnostic elite claims to have the recipe for overcomingthe

40 New Science of Politics, p. 78.41 Cf. the relevant works of Hans

Leisegangand Hans

Jonas on theearly history of this much-neglected intellectual phenomenon.42

Voegelin has been vigorously attacked by various writers for characteriz-ing liberalism as a manifestation of gnosticism. Actually, he displays a livelyappreciation for the institutional achievements of moder liberalism (rule oflaw, elimination of the police state, etc.) and writes optimistically of theappearance of a revised liberalism, reinfused with the Christian substance,on the continent of Europe today. See his excellent discussion of the problemsof defining liberalism in "Der Liberalismus und seine Geschichte," in KarlForster, ed., Christentum und Liberalismus (Munich, 1960), pp. 13-42.

397




gulf betweenessenceand existence,immanenceand transcendence,

by creating a "new man" and a new order of being which willbe a marvelousimprovementover the old order. The increaseof

phenomenal power over the external world rather than the in-teral orderingof the soul by the divine measure is regardedasthe summum bonum by the gnostic creed-movements.

The growth of gnosticismto the point where it became thedominant symbolic form of the moder age marked a decisivetheoreticalregressionfrom the high-point reached by Greek phi-losophy and Christianity.This regressioncannot be interpreted

simplyas

a return to the earlier compactnessof the cosmologicalexperience of order.43 The gnostic symbolic form is sui generis.In the myth of the cosmologicalsocieties reason and revelationhad not differentiatedthemselves as sources of authority inde-

pendent of the existential power structure. But gnostic creed-movements such as Communism and National Socialism "at-

tempt the ordering of society by fusing the normative authorityinto the authorityof power." This "fusion of authorities"makes

gnostic society a separate historical type because "deliberatefusion of differentiatedcomponentsis not the same as primordialcompactness."44

For Voegelin as for Plato, philosophyhas a "diagnosticand

therapeutic"function. Philosophy,as the "love of being throughthe love of divine Being as the source of its order," illuminatesfor us the "modes of existence in untruth." And the substanceof historywill be discovered o consist "in the experiences n which

man gains the understandingof his humanity and together withit the understandingof its limits."45These "experiences"cannotbe ignored by the political theorist,but must be empiricallyex-amined and criticallyevaluated for the light which they shed uponhis own search for the truth about order in human society.Theory must be correlatedto the "maximalexperientialdifferen-tiation" and this maximal differentiationwas achieved by Greek

philosophyand

Christianity."This

means concretely that theoryis bound to move within the historical horizon of classic and

43 Voegelin states in Wissenschaft, Politik und Gnosis that he now holdshis earlier analysis of totalitarian movements as political religions - in DiePolitischen Religionen (Stockholm, 1930) - to be inadequate because hefailed to take this fact sufficientlyinto account.

44 The Nature of Law, p. 108.45 New Science of Politics, p. 78.

398




Greek experiences.To recede from the maximum of differentia-tion is theoretical retrogression."46

Voegelin and the Recovery of Political TheoryEric Voegelin's contributionto contemporarypolitical theory

is to have made a philosophicallyprofoundand superblycreativeeffort to restorethe tradition of political theory as an experientialscience of right order in our time. He should be interpretedas

having led, along with such scholars as Maritain, de Jouvenel,Strauss,Arendt, and others,a resistancemovementof major pro-

portions against the positivist dominationthat has held sway inpolitical science circles at least since the end of the nineteenth

century.Here, of course, is the sourceof the difficultieswhich hehas encountered n obtaininga hearingfrom present-daypoliticalscientists.To the degreethat the resistancemovement is successful,there will occur a major upheaval in the researchprioritiesandmethods now pursued in the profession.

Within the positivisticuniverse of discourse,all propositionsmust be verifiedby "experience."But the only experienceacceptedas "objective" - and therefore in the realm of science - is that

observableby the physicalsenses. Other dimensionsof experience,apprehendedthrough the nous or eye of the mind instead of the

eye of the physicalbody, are treated as "subjective"becausetheyare not as universallyshared and readily communicableas ex-

perienceson the level of physical sensation. It requireslaboriousformation of characterto

become a spoudaiosand so be able toverify in one's own experience the metaphysicalpropositionsofthe classical and Christianscience, but the vast majorityof menare able without comparableeffort to verify the propositionsof

positivist political science, such as they are and for what theyare worth. Thus, the "people of the meanest capacities"ratherthan the spoudaioi are, in the positivistscheme of things, madethe judges of what constitutes the field of experience to which

propositionsn politicalsciencemustrefer.47

46Ibid., p. 79.47 Cf. Leo Strauss, in H. J. Storing, ed., Essays on the Scientific Study

of Politics (New York, 1962), p. 326: "The new political science puts apremium on observations which can be made with the utmost frequency, andtherefore by people of the meanest capacities. Thus it frequently culminates inobservations made by people who are not intelligent about people who are notintelligent."

399




The basic positivist dichotomy (running back to Comte but

reiterated,only in more refined form, by the neopositivistavant-

garde of the Vienna Circle) between objective "fact" ap-prehended by sense-experienceand epiphenomenal, subjective"value"48means that political theory tends to be viewed in oneof two ways. Either, political theory is a body of sociologicallyconditioned, nonobjective "value-judgments" (which politicalscience can study for causative effect on human behavior), orit is essentiallymethodology,in which event its task is to serve asthe handmaiden of research into behavioral regularitieson the

phenomenallevel

by producing"ideal

types,"models

and thelike. Now, if all politicaltheoryis judgedin termsof this fact-value

dichotomy,now accepted as dogma by probablythe majority ofWesternpolitical scientists, hen anyone who conceivesof politicaltheoryas an experientialscience of right order,based on the total

experience of the existing human person, will be labelled an

"ideologist."His claims to scientificstatus will be dismissedwith

contempt, and he will scarcely be noticed at all unless his in-

fluence becomes a causative ideational factor in the struggle ofthe political marketplace.In sum, his work will be incapable ofbeing understoodon its own terms.

"Theory,"Voegelin has written,

is not just any opining about human existence in society; itrather is an attemptat formulatinghe meaningof existencebyexplicatingthe content of a definite class of experiences. Its

argumentis not

arbitrarybut derivesits

validityfrom the ag-gregate of experiences o which it must permanently efer forempiricalcontrol.49

In a genuinely theoreticalanalysisof ethics and politics, we are

dealingwith the realities of human existencein the variousrealmsof being, not with "value judgments" which correspondwith

nothing else than the writer'sphantasiesrespectinghow he would

prefer the world to be disorganized.Political theory elaborates

"empiricallyand critically, the problems of order which derivefrom philosophicalanthropologyas part of a general ontology."

48 The term "value-judgment" did not come into the philosophicalvocabulary until the late nineteenth century (with the neo-Kantians). Clas-sical ethics always spoke of "the good" which is, if you please, a very im-portant "facet" or datum confronting the consciousness.

49 New Science of Politics, p. 64.

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ERIC VOEGELIN'SCONTRIBUTION 401

As an "explicationof certain experiences,"theory is "intelligibleonly to those in whom the explicationwill stir up parallel experi-ences as the empirical basis for testing the truth of theory."Theory has no argumentagainstthose who feel, or pretendto feel,

incapable of meditativelyre-enacting the experience itself.50

Thus, while Voegelin is to be counted in the ranks of thosewho combat the restriction of political theory to the role of

methodologicalauxiliaryto the "behavioral" ocial sciences,underno circumstances s he to be viewed as advocating opening thedoor of political science to wild and uncontrolledutopian specu-lation.

Utopiais not

yetdead in

political theory, and effortsarebeing made to revive it as a legitimateenterprisen our discipline.To take only one possible example, comparison of Voegelin'sepisteme with the utopian pseudo-scienceof a writer like ErichFromm would reveal quite vividly the contrastbetween the twomodes of thinkingabout politicalproblems.51 ndeed, the analysisof fallacioussymbolizationshat have nothing to do with politicalreality but reflect only the author's dreamworldis one of the

perenniallyimportanttasks of political theory.It is too early to evaluate the success of the restorativemove-

ment which Voegelin has helped to initiate. The strengthof the

opposition currents remains massive, but there are encouraging50 Ibid., pp. 64-65.51Where Voegelin offers the life of reason in attunement with transcendent

being as the paradigmatic existence, Fromm posits the "spontaneous," "free

activity of the self" as the highest aim of life (spontaneity for what?).Where

Voegelinrefers to the

experienceof a

possible perfection beyond timeby grace, Fromm describes as a sign of "mental health" the "experience ofthe self as the subject and agent of one's powers" - that is, he embraces the

possibility of man's self-redemption (p. 69). Where Voegelin speaks oftranscendence as the symbol which indicates reality qualitatively distinctfrom intramundane being, Fromm makes transcendence into a power forman "to transcend the role of the creature . . . by becoming a 'creator' "

(p. 36). The "role of the creature," moreover, cannot be "transcended"; it isan inescapable aspect of the conditio humana. Where Voegelin portrays manas homo viator, inevitably separated in the existential situation from theperfect fulfillment of his essence, Fromm holds out the promise of an illusionaryend to "alienation" and the attainment of the "experience of union withanother person, with all men, and with nature under the condition of retain-ing one's sense of integrity and independence" (p. 32). Where Voegelinrecognizes the limits of politics, and the impossibility of creating an eternityin time, Fromm argues in the manner of Fourier that by right social organiza-tion (the grouping of men into intimate "communities of work") we canend the disparities between rulers and ruled, make man fully autonomous,and so on. All page references in this note are to Fromm's The Sane Society(New York, 1955).



402 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

signs that a new generation of political scientistswill be more

receptiveto the new teaching than the one which presentlymans

the positions of institutionalpower. Regardlessof the social ef-

ficacy of his work, Voegelin will be entitled to say with RichardHooker: "Posteritymay know we have not looselythroughsilence

permitted things to pass away as in a dream."

Eric Voegelin's Contribution to Contemporary Political Theory

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