Order and History, Volume 2University of Missouri Press, 2000 - 448 pages In Search of Order brings to a conclusion Eric Voegelin's masterwork, Order and History. Voegelin conceived Order and History as "a philosophical inquiry concerning the principal types of order of human existence in society and history as well as the corresponding symbolic forms." In previous volumes, Voegelin discussed the imperial organizations of the ancient Near East and their existence in the form of the cosmological myth; the revelatory form of existence in history, developed by Moses and the prophets of the Chosen People; the polis, the Hellenic myth, and the development of philosophy as the symbolism of order; and the evolution of the great religions, especially Christianity. This final volume of Order and History is devoted to the elucidation of the experience of transcendence that Voegelin discussed in earlier volumes. He aspires to show in a theoretically acute manner the exact nature of transcendental experiences. Voegelin's philosophical inquiry unfolds in the historical context of the great symbolic enterprise of restating man's humanity under the horizon of the modern sciences and in resistance to the manifold forces of our age that deform human existence. His stature as one of the major philosophical forces of the twentieth century clearly emerges from these concluding pages. In Search of Order deepens and clarifies the meditative movement that Voegelin, now in reflective distance to his own work, sees as having been operative throughout his search. Because of Voegelin's death, on January 19, 1985, In Search of Order is briefer than it otherwise might have been; however, the theoretical presentation that he had set for himself is essentially completed here. Just as this volume serves Voegelin well in his striking analyses of Hegel, Hesiod, and Plato, it will serve as a model for the reader's own efforts in search of order. |
Contents
1 | |
Preface | 53 |
Mankind and History | 67 |
Part One Cretans Achaeans and Hellenes | 91 |
Hellas and History | 93 |
2 The Hellenic Consciousness of History | 99 |
The Cretan and Achaean Societies | 120 |
Homer and Mycenae | 135 |
The Eunomia of Solon | 264 |
But I say unto you | 270 |
Parmenides | 274 |
Doxa | 285 |
Heraclitus | 292 |
The Philosophy of Order | 301 |
Conclusions | 311 |
Part Three The Athenian Century | 315 |
2 Order and Disorder | 144 |
The Wrath of Achilles | 151 |
The Eros of Paris and Helen | 161 |
The Odyssey on Disorder | 167 |
Part Two From Myth to Philosophy | 179 |
The Hellenic Polis | 181 |
Sympoliteia | 189 |
Hesiod | 195 |
The Works and Days Invocation and Exhortation | 206 |
The Ages of the World | 213 |
The Apocalypse | 223 |
The Break with the Myth | 234 |
2 Xenophanes Attack on the Myth | 240 |
The Universality of the Divine | 247 |
The Aretai and the Polis | 254 |
Common terms and phrases
Achaean Achilles action Aegean Aeschylus Anaximander Antiphon appears Arete argument aristocratic Aristotle articulation Athenian Athens become century civilization civilizational common conception concerned consciousness constitutional cosmological created Cretan Critias critical culture Democritus developed Diels-Kranz differentiated Dike disorder divine Doxa empire epics evil existence experience expressed fate fragments gods Greek Hellas Hellenic Hellenic civilization Hence Heraclitean Heraclitus Herodotus Hesiod Hesiodian Hippias Homer human hybris idea Iliad important insofar intellectual Ionian Israel king Knossos knowledge literary Logos mankind meaning Minoan Moreover mortals Mycenaean Mycenaean civilization myth nature Nevertheless Nomos Odyssey Order and History origin parallel Parmenidean Parmenides Persian philosophers Physis Plato poem poet poleis polis political principle problem Prometheus Protagoras question reality reflections revelation sense social society Socrates Solon sophistic soul speculation speech symbolic form term Theogony theology things thinker Thucydides tion tragedy transcendence Trojans Troy truth Tyrtaeus virtue Voegelin wisdom Xenophanes Zeus
Popular passages
Page 453 - Of the gods we believe and of men we know that, by a law of their nature, wherever they can rule they will. This law was not made by us, and we are not the first...
Page 19 - My thesis is that if we start with the supposition that there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure experience,' then knowing can easily be explained as a particular sort of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience may enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience; one of its 'terms' becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge, the knower,* the other becomes the object known.