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Abstract
In this presentation I will defend the idea that Plato is the main model that allows us to understand Voegelin’s The New Science of Politics (1952). As Voegelin says to Engel-Janosi, this book is “a systematic study of the foundation of a political science in the Platonic sense (that implies a philosophy of history)”. Throughout the presentation I will examine the presence of Plato in the New Science through four aspects, trying to relate each specific aspect with its relevance in the constitution of the book. Firstly, the relevance of understanding political science in the context of the Hellenic crisis; secondly, Voegelin understanding of the movement from doxa to episteme (as it is found in Plato) as a model for “critical clarification”; thirdly, the importance of myth and religious experiences to generate relevant political principles, specially concerning the anthropological truth. Finally, we will deal with Voegelin’s conception of a civil theology as Plato has envisaged.
Abstract
The confrontation between Hobbes and Voegelin provides a great opportunity to observe the challenges of modernity in terms of the political foundation of civil order. In this paper we present a critical approach to Voegelin’s reading of Hobbes, concerning specifically the possibility in Hobbes’s philosophy of achieving an everlasting constitution. For Voegelin, the achievement of such a constitution, reached at the price of total indoctrination of the people, is a clear sign of Hobbes’s Gnosticism. The presentation is divided into two parts. In the first part we explore the main aspects of Voegelin’s understanding of Hobbes and his relevance in The New Science of Politics, where Hobbes is described as the paradigm of modern Gnosticism. In the second part we present Voegelin’s accusation against Hobbes and contrast it with Hobbes’s original sources, showing the relevance of the epistemological tension between strict science and hypothetical science in Hobbes in order to show that his defence of an everlasting constitution cannot be taken so strictly. Voegelin seems to neglect this epistemological tension. His differences with Hobbes are nonetheless to be found at the anthropological level, in a conception of human being closed to transcendence and to the good.
Eric Voegelin-Studies: Supplements offers an ideal forum to further elaborate on specific aspects of the contributions in the Yearbook. This creates scope for smaller or larger monographs as well as publications by several authors. The Supplements are conceived as an international and interdisciplinary project. They are intended to expand scholarly exchange and international collaboration on Voegelin’s work.