Eric Voegelin - From Enlightenment to Revolution (1975), Communism - Books
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Eric Toegelin
FROM
ENLIGHTtr}TMtrNT
TO RtrVOLTJTION
Editedby JohnH.
Hallowell
Duke University Press Durham, North
Carolina Lg7s
O 1975,DukeUniversityPress
L.C.C.cardno.74-81864
ISBN 0-8223-0326-4
ISBN 0-8223-0487
-3
(pbk)
Third printing, 1982
PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
CONITENTS
Editor's Pref ace
vii
I. The Emergenceof SecularizedHistory: Bossuetand
Voltaire 3
II. Helv6tiusand
the Genealogyof Passions 35
ilI. Helvdtius and the Heritage of Pascal 53
IV. Positivism and Its Antecedents
7
4
V. The Conflict Between Progress and Political Existence After
Turgot 110
VI. The Apocalypseof Man: Comte f 36
VII.
The
Religion of Humanity and the FrenchRevolution
r60
VI[. RevolutionaryExistence: Bakunin 195
IX. Bakunin: The Anarchist 2L7
X. Marx: Inverted Dialectics 24O
XI. Marx: The Genesisof Gnostic Socialism 273
Index 305
EDITOR'SPREFACE
The presentvolume
consistsof a portion
of an unpublished history of
politiial ideas which
Eric Voegelin wrote
in
the
nineteen forties and
iarly fifties. His
reluctance to publish the history at
the time it was
wriiten stemmedin part from
a growing conviction that such a
history,
however
well-conceivedand executed,could
not penetratethe depths of
consciousness
from
which
such a history emerges.Too often
the history
of political ideasis presented
as an on-going argument about commonly
peiceived
problems of social order; it thus
assumesa continuity of
argument and a universal
community of discoursewhich in fact does
not
exist.
The sentiments,passionsand experiences
of
which
ideas are the
crystallization
tend to be ignored and arguments are
generatedabout
the validity of ideasas
though the ideashad a life and a reality of their
own. It is the experienceswhich
give rise
to
ideaswhich should engage
our attention if we want to understandboth the human
promise and the
human
predicament.
Accordingly
Professor
Voegelin
put asidethe history of political ideas
and embarked upon a
much more ambitious undertaking. He became
more
and more convincedthat it was societiesand
not
ideas that were
the real entitiesand
that societiesexpressthennselves
in history through
a variety of complex symbols.More and
more he has turned his atten-
tion
to the role of myth in history and to the relationshipsbetween
myth,
philosophy and revelation. He was invited to give the Walgreen Lec-
tures at the
University of Chicago in 1951 and these lechrres were
publishedthe following yearunderthe
title
The
New Scienceof Politics.
He examined in these lectures the Christian symbolism by means of
which the
Western world sought to understand itself and focused at-
tention upon the distortion of this symbolism in various forms of
Gnosticism-religious,
intellechral and political. He showed.how the
Christian
promise of salvation beyond history becamein its Gnostic
derailment
the promise of perfection
both of man and of society in
history.t
1. He elaborated upon the phenomenon of Gnosticism in
Wissenschaft, Politik
und Gnosis
(Munich,
1959). This work has been published
in English under
the title
Science, Politics and Gnosticism
(Chicagon
Henry
Regnery Co., 1968).
The
temptation to transmute the Christian promise
of salvation beyond history
into the promise
of perfection upon
earth in time is not, he shows here, peculiar
to the Christian experience and
faith
but the same phenomenon can be found in
Jewish, Islamic and
Hellenic cultures.
"The
temptation to fall from a spiritual
height that brings
the
element of uncertainty into final clarrty down into the
more solid certainty of world-immanent, sensible fulfillment . . . $eems to be
a
general human problem'
(Op.
cit., p. ll4).
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zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl upanicza.keep.pl
Eric Toegelin
FROM
ENLIGHTtr}TMtrNT
TO RtrVOLTJTION
Editedby JohnH.
Hallowell
Duke University Press Durham, North
Carolina Lg7s
O 1975,DukeUniversityPress
L.C.C.cardno.74-81864
ISBN 0-8223-0326-4
ISBN 0-8223-0487
-3
(pbk)
Third printing, 1982
PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
CONITENTS
Editor's Pref ace
vii
I. The Emergenceof SecularizedHistory: Bossuetand
Voltaire 3
II. Helv6tiusand
the Genealogyof Passions 35
ilI. Helvdtius and the Heritage of Pascal 53
IV. Positivism and Its Antecedents
7
4
V. The Conflict Between Progress and Political Existence After
Turgot 110
VI. The Apocalypseof Man: Comte f 36
VII.
The
Religion of Humanity and the FrenchRevolution
r60
VI[. RevolutionaryExistence: Bakunin 195
IX. Bakunin: The Anarchist 2L7
X. Marx: Inverted Dialectics 24O
XI. Marx: The Genesisof Gnostic Socialism 273
Index 305
EDITOR'SPREFACE
The presentvolume
consistsof a portion
of an unpublished history of
politiial ideas which
Eric Voegelin wrote
in
the
nineteen forties and
iarly fifties. His
reluctance to publish the history at
the time it was
wriiten stemmedin part from
a growing conviction that such a
history,
however
well-conceivedand executed,could
not penetratethe depths of
consciousness
from
which
such a history emerges.Too often
the history
of political ideasis presented
as an on-going argument about commonly
peiceived
problems of social order; it thus
assumesa continuity of
argument and a universal
community of discoursewhich in fact does
not
exist.
The sentiments,passionsand experiences
of
which
ideas are the
crystallization
tend to be ignored and arguments are
generatedabout
the validity of ideasas
though the ideashad a life and a reality of their
own. It is the experienceswhich
give rise
to
ideaswhich should engage
our attention if we want to understandboth the human
promise and the
human
predicament.
Accordingly
Professor
Voegelin
put asidethe history of political ideas
and embarked upon a
much more ambitious undertaking. He became
more
and more convincedthat it was societiesand
not
ideas that were
the real entitiesand
that societiesexpressthennselves
in history through
a variety of complex symbols.More and
more he has turned his atten-
tion
to the role of myth in history and to the relationshipsbetween
myth,
philosophy and revelation. He was invited to give the Walgreen Lec-
tures at the
University of Chicago in 1951 and these lechrres were
publishedthe following yearunderthe
title
The
New Scienceof Politics.
He examined in these lectures the Christian symbolism by means of
which the
Western world sought to understand itself and focused at-
tention upon the distortion of this symbolism in various forms of
Gnosticism-religious,
intellechral and political. He showed.how the
Christian
promise of salvation beyond history becamein its Gnostic
derailment
the promise of perfection
both of man and of society in
history.t
1. He elaborated upon the phenomenon of Gnosticism in
Wissenschaft, Politik
und Gnosis
(Munich,
1959). This work has been published
in English under
the title
Science, Politics and Gnosticism
(Chicagon
Henry
Regnery Co., 1968).
The
temptation to transmute the Christian promise
of salvation beyond history
into the promise
of perfection upon
earth in time is not, he shows here, peculiar
to the Christian experience and
faith
but the same phenomenon can be found in
Jewish, Islamic and
Hellenic cultures.
"The
temptation to fall from a spiritual
height that brings
the
element of uncertainty into final clarrty down into the
more solid certainty of world-immanent, sensible fulfillment . . . $eems to be
a
general human problem'
(Op.
cit., p. ll4).
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