ABOUT THIS BOOK

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) is widely regarded as one of the greatest political philosophers of the 20th century, yet adequate understanding of his writings stands as a challenge for current and future generations. Voegelin’s thought continued to develop at a rapid pace during the last two decades of his life, and as Ellis Sandoz has written, his work found “not only its final but its most profound expression” during this period. Voegelin’s fame stemmed mostly from his many books and the laudatory review articles published in response to them, but he was “preeminently an essayist,” as Sandoz observes. The meditative analyses and essays written in the culminating phase of Voegelin’s career not only expand and deepen his work as a whole, but also revise central components of it in ways that compel reconsideration of even his most widely read texts.

Voegelin’s books gave rise to a vast secondary literature that continues to grow, yet the exceptionally impactful late essays and meditative works have never received the scholarly commentaries they deserve because they were published originally as journal articles or chapters in edited collections. This volume remedies that shortcoming with 14 critical analyses that elucidate the late essays while also addressing their implications for the entirety of Voegelin’s thought. The commentaries will prove invaluable to students and scholars in political science, philosophy, history, theology, and other disciplines, serving as a companion piece to the singularly important Vol. 12 of Voegelin’s Collected Works, Published Essays 1966–1985.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael Franz is Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland. He is the author of Eric Voegelin and the Politics of Spiritual Revolt: The Roots of Modern Ideology, and editor of The Ecumenic Age, Vol. IV of Voegelin’s Order and History, Vol. 17 in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. His research and teaching focus on political theory and the philosophy of history, with special emphasis on political violence and terrorism engendered by disordered spirituality and ideological consciousness.

REVIEWS

Eric Voegelin’s life work is best understood as a “zetema,” a philosopher’s life-long quest for truth, one that underwent substantial changes during the final phase of his quest. As Michael Franz explains in his Introduction, Voegelin’s last essays have not received the critical attention they deserve, yet they contain the most refined formulations of his thought. Franz has succeeded in enlisting scholars thoroughly aquatinted with Voegelin’s voluminous publications who are well qualified to analyze the theoretical advances in these last essays and relate them to the better-known, previous stages of his exploration of orders and disorders of the soul and of society.
—Stephen A. McKnight, Professor Emeritus of European Intellectual and Cultural History, University of Florida

Eric Voegelin was the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century. He not only stood up for liberal democracy and common sense against both Hitler and Stalin, working to understand the experiences that gave rise to their followings. Although his fully mature writings moved on from an early tendency to attribute many modern political and spiritual ills to a pattern of thinking he called “gnosticism,” many readers still tend to interpret his thought as centered on this outdated concept, which Voegelin himself later left behind. The analyses in this volume focus on essays representing his most developed and profound thought, offering us a more rounded understanding and enabling us to see how Voegelin can help us address the political and spiritual challenges of our present time.
—Eugene Webb, Professor Emeritus, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

TABLE OF CONTENTS