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Abstract
The article examines Voegelin’s concepts of existential and elementary representation starting from the formulations present in the first chapter of the New Science of Politics. The analysis highlights the theoretical origin of these two concepts in The Authoritarian State where Voegelin discusses the constitutional structure of Austria after World War II. The link between representative institutions and developing nations, as emerges from the analysis of some thinkers who experienced personally the dissolution of the Empire and looked critically at the birth of national states, allows Voegelin to provide tools for thinking about politics and representation beyond the nation-state.
Abstract
The object of the article is Eric Voegelin’s interpretation of Augustine’s idea of history. The analysis covers the period from the first volume of the History of Political Ideas. Hellenism, Rome and Early Christianity, to the New Science of Politics. I examine the theses of the authors Voegelin refers to in the works of Alois Dempf, Eric Peterson, Jakob Taubes, and Karl Löwith. In the course of the analysis, some central aspects of Voegelin’s thought such as political theology, representation and the philosophy of history are raised.