VOEGELIN -- RESEARCH NEWS
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Volume VI, No. 1 February 2003
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Note from the editor:
After a long absence, during which there were many changes in our
lives, we are back. It is our desire to resume publication of
VOEGELIN -- RESEARCH NEWS in a manner consistent with the standards
set in the past. We open with a refereed article by Dr. Jerry Day.
Dr. Day's article is part of a soon to be published work by the Univer-
sity of Missouri Press entitled _Eric Voegelin and the Schelling
Renaissance: The Schellingian Orientation in Voegelin's Later Works,
1952-1985_.
Since Professor Geoffrey L. Price is no longer part of the V--RN team,
I, for the time being, will assumed responsibility for producing up-
dates to the Voegelin bibliography begun by Professor Price. In this
respect, I would appreciate hearing from anyone who may have a contri-
bution to make to the up-dates.
Maben Walter Poirier
Concordia University
Loyola Campus
MONTREAL, Quebec
___________________________
VOEGELIN'S PUBLISHED REMARKS ON SCHELLING: VARIATIONS AND THEMES.1
Jerry Day, Ph.D.
Montreal (Quebec) Canada
Many books on the philosophy of Eric Voegelin, perhaps even most of
them, have but one type of reference to F.W.J. Schelling in their
indices. They cite either the point in _Autobiographical
Reflections_, pertaining to Schelling's role in Voegelin's decision
to abandon his early work on the _History of Political Ideas_, or
they cite some of the many possible references to Schelling as a
quasi-Hegelian intellectual, which are found throughout Voegelin's
published works. In the following article, I bring both types of
references together in a chronologically ordered presentation of all
that Voegelin had to say about Schelling in print. I thereby attempt
to indicate that his reception of Schelling was a good deal more
complex than scholarship has tended to acknowledge in the past.
Voegelin publishes considerable praise for Schelling at the beginning
of his career and in the last four years of his life; but he
criticizes him severely in the intervening decades, from 1951 to
1981, usually by appealing to the Hegelian or "gnostic" character of
Schelling's thought. Gnostic thinkers, at least in Voegelin's use of
the term, claim either to have achieved, or assume that it is
possible to achieve complete knowledge of the intractable mysteries
of life, death, the nature of the divine and the meaning of world
history. Gnostics claim to possess, or claim to have the method for
eventually possessing the saving knowledge that results from the
eradication of these mysteries--the knowledge that others have
attributed to God alone. More specifically, gnostics attempt to
replace knowledge based on religious faith or philosophical
hypothesis with knowledge based on claims to certainty; and often the
alleged overcoming of faith is announced as an apotheosis. Since
Voegelin consistently argues that divine knowledge cannot be attained
by human beings, one would not suspect that Schelling, if he were a
gnostic, could ever have provided any significant guidance for
Voegelin's own understanding of philosophy, the nature of human
consciousness and the broader sense of order that the latter
manifests in history. But the published praise of Schelling at the
beginning and end of Voegelin's career indicates otherwise. It allows
for three periods to be distinguished in the complex history of
Voegelin's estimations of Schelling: (1) the period of moderate
praise and acknowledged dependency, from 1933 to 1947; (2) the period
of general criticism, from 1951 to 1981; and (3) the last years of
Voegelin's life, from 1981-1985, when he offers high praise of
Schelling in public conversations, while repeating his gnosticism
critique in published writings.
1. The Period of Moderate Praise (1933-1947)
Voegelin first encountered the works of Schelling in graduate school,
at the University of Vienna, while working under the supervision of
Othmar Spann.2 It is clear that Spann held Schelling's thought in
high esteem. In several of his works from the early 1920s, Spann
draws on Schelling--along with Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Meister
Eckhart--to develop an account of the "inner" unity and
"religiousness" that he considers a prerequisite for understanding
the philosophical history of all religions, including the cardinal
role they play in the formation of distinct peoples. Several decades
later, Spann published a work on the philosophy of religion, inspired
by Schelling's _Philosophy of Mythology_ and _Philosophy of
Revelation_, which Manfred Schroeter, the editor of one collection of
Schelling's _Works_, considered to be the fulfillment of Schelling's
entire program.3
_Race and State_. There are no references to Schelling, nor any
clear indication of his signature guidance, in Voegelin's first book,
_On the Form of the American Mind_(1928). Voegelin begins to discuss
Schelling only in his 1933 book, _Race and State_. In the context of
an attempt to reach a critical understanding of the emergence of race
consciousness in "particularist communities," Voegelin says that
"Schelling's doctrine of myth as the ground of being of all peoples
or nations seems to us the first profound insight into the religious
nature, in the broadest sense, of all community formation." Schelling
argues that a people does not create its mythology. Rather, the
reverse is true: a people emerges when a common, inner movement of
the spirit creates the basis for a shared mythology. This mythology,
in turn, is what yields the consciousness that a particular people
has come to stand apart from humanity, presupposed as an original
unity. "A people's or nation's ground of being [_Seinsgrund_] and its
unity is its myth. Simply living together in an area does not unite
individuals into a people; nor do they become a people by virtue of
their shared pursuit of agriculture and trade or by a common legal
order. What makes a people and sets it apart is 'community of
consciousness,' 'a common world perspective,' a shared 'mythology.' A
people or nation is not given its mythology in the course of history;
instead, its mythology determines its history. In fact, for
Schelling. . . . mythology _is_ history itself."4
The impulse that eventually creates a people or nation "does not come
from outside." It is a common movement in the consciousness of
individuals who eventually declare themselves to be a distinct
people. Thus, Voegelin also credits Schelling with making "the first
contribution to the psychology of particularist communities
separating themselves from humanity. [Schelling] speaks of the barb
of internal unrest, the feeling of being no longer all of mankind but
only a part of it, of no longer belonging to the absolute One but to
have fallen prey to a particular god." As well, Schelling speaks of a
"spiritual crisis" that is necessary to break the consciousness of
unity and to drive individuals apart into nations. In remotest
antiquity, he imagines, the absolute unity of humanity "was effected
by a spiritual power," and all later separations from this original
unity were "caused by new spiritual powers springing up. The
principle binding people into unity was _one_ God." The original
religion of humanity was monotheistic, according to Schelling's
speculation, and "the means of separating [peoples] is polytheism."5
Schelling's focus on the "inner," divine motivation for the
development of mythical symbols in history likely played a
considerable role in persuading Voegelin to discount more common
reasons given for the formation of new peoples and their myths--for
example, natural disasters, trading practices and other types of
cross-fertilization between cultures.6 Schelling's elaborate account
of divine "potencies" or powers actualizing themselves in human
consciousness, and thus creating the discernable epochs in its
history, seems to persuade Voegelin, as it did his teacher Othmar
Spann,7 that the primary motivation for community formations in
history is religious, not pragmatic.8
_Political Religions_. Voegelin commends Schelling briefly in his
1938 study of _Political Religions_. He credits Schelling with
raising the "radical metaphysical question: Why is there Something;
why is there not Nothing?" The ability to raise this question, which
Voegelin laments as the "concern of few," indicates that Schelling is
beyond the purely temporal and scientistic understanding of the world
as mere "content" or sheer fact. Schelling has transcended the
understanding of reality that is shared by "the large masses" who
engage in little more than "political religiosity." He has attempted
to understand the world in its spiritual "existence."9 The point of
the reference is clear enough; but it is odd that Voegelin should
attribute this "radical metaphysical question" to Schelling. In his
later works, Voegelin more frequently attributes this question to
Leibniz. There is at least one important consequence to the later
change. Schelling asked this question in the context of his thoughts
on God's transcendent freedom from, and initial ability to create the
"necessary" powers (_Potenzen_) of nature. And Schelling's thoughts
on divine freedom in existence, beyond the essence of divine
necessity in nature, contributed greatly to his critique of Hegel.10
By shifting attention away from Schelling in his later references,
Voegelin avoids discussion, perhaps unintentionally, of a potentially
serious problem with his critique of Schelling's gnosticism.
Schelling, like Voegelin himself, became a staunch critic of Hegel.
But Voegelin never mentions in print that he is aware of Schelling's
existential critique of Hegel's idealism. His awareness of this
critique is to be found only in his unpublished "Last Orientation."
"Plato's Egyptian Myth." The period in which Voegelin publishes
moderate praise for Schelling draws to a close in his 1947 article,
"Plato's Egyptian Myth."11 By this time, Voegelin had emigrated to
the United States and had become an American citizen. His
understanding of Schelling begins to show some changes. He draws on
Schelling's philosophy of consciousness and mythology in his
interpretation of a section in Plato's _Timaeus_(17-27b). But
Schelling is mentioned only in a general way in the concluding "Note"
to this article. This bibliographical irregularity, along with a
curious claim made in the Note, may reveal the beginning of
Voegelin's reticence to be associated with Schelling in his
interpretation of Platonic myth, philosophy, and its historical
significance.
The article's concluding Note begins with the following statement:
"We have conducted the analysis of the Egyptian myth on the basis of
Plato's work only." This claim is curious because it is only partly
true. In the third section of his article, Voegelin writes: "we have
to remember that the _Timaeus_ is not the report of a historic event
but the work of a poet and philosopher; we have to take our position
outside the dialogue and to inquire into the meaning which the work
has as a creation of Plato." Indeed, Voegelin seeks ultimately to
interpret the entire dialogue as an historic event, as "a drama
within the soul of Plato." He writes of Plato's poetic ability to
"find Atlantis" through a recollective (anamnetic) investigation of
"the collective unconscious which is also living in him."12 But
Plato's text is not the only basis for Voegelin's interpretation.
Plato does not tell us in any of his dialogues about dramas in his
soul-- not to mention investigations of a "collective unconscious."
He simply does not write in this way. This point leaves readers to
wonder what informs Voegelin's external reading of the _Timaeus_ and
_Critias_. The second sentence of the concluding Note provides an
answer: "The problem of the idea [of a novel myth] and of its
relations to the unconscious could be clarified considerably through
a comparison with the work of the other great philosopher who
struggled with it, that is through a comparison with the work of
Schelling." Voegelin admits that a comprehensive account of how Plato
and Schelling struggled to understand the same phenomenon,
experiencing the need for new myths, "would require an extensive,
preliminary presentation of Schelling's philosophy" which, in turn,
"would burst the framework of this article."13 Voegelin is likely
thinking of his own research on Schelling, which would soon lead to
the writing of his "Last Orientation" (mid1940s), the text in which
he provides the suggested presentation of Schelling's philosophy
required for understanding the inner origin of mythic symbols. In
this manuscript, if not in the article, Voegelin reveals the extent
of his knowledge of Schelling's account of the birth of mythical
symbols through what he calls "protodialectic experiences" and
"anamnetic" explorations of the "unconscious." These terms refer
simply to the claim that genuine symbols arise beyond the conscious
control of a symbol-maker. They arise from powerful experiences in
the human soul and, so to speak, call out for names. A symbol-maker
then "recollects" these experiences and gives them names--_e.g._,
Prometheus, Sisyphus, Oedipus, and so on. Such is the account of
symbol formation that Voegelin takes to be thematic in Schelling's
work. Thus it may turn out to be that Schelling, not Plato, is the
principal guide to Voegelin's understanding of "recollection"
(_anamnesis_), both in its personal and historical dimensions.14
2. The Period of General Criticism (1951- 1981)
_The New Science of Politics_. In 1951, Voegelin gave the
prestigious Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago. These
lectures were published the following year as _The New Science of
Politics_. At this point in Voegelin's thought, criticism begins to
outweigh praise in his published remarks on Schelling. Both the tone
and substance of these remarks change greatly in the _New Science_.
Schelling is mentioned only twice: once in relation to Hitler and a
second time in relation to Hegel. The two citations are related by
the general theme of gnosticism. The fact that Schelling is not
exempted from Voegelin's criticism should now come as a surprise,
given the character of the remarks found in the previous period. The
fact that Voegelin begins to criticize Schelling for gnosticism may
also appear as a perplexing development for readers already familiar
with his later works, where Schelling is eventually credited with
coining one of the central terms--namely "pneumopathology"--with
which Voegelin diagnoses gnosticism as a "spiritual disease." In the
_New Science_, Voegelin criticizes gnostic thinkers as
"pneumopathological," but he does not call attention to Schelling as
the one responsible for coining this term.15 He classifies Schelling
only among the ranks of the spiritually sick. And later readers are
left to wonder how Schelling could have been a gnostic thinker when
he was also the one who coined a term central to Voegelin's critique
of gnosticism. This ambiguity first appears in Voegelin's _New
Science_, and it remains throughout the rest of his published works.
Given the appreciation of Schelling evident in Voegelin's earlier
writings, the portrayal given in his _New Science_ is shocking.
First, Schelling is related to Hitler. In the context of his
discussion of gnosticism as the general nature of modernity, Voegelin
writes: "Hitler's millennial prophecy [concerning the Third Reich]
authentically derives from Joachitic speculation." This remark refers
to the historical speculation of Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202), for
whom the order of history was understood as a progression along three
distinct ages, each governed successively by the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit of Christian trinitarian symbolism. Voegelin suggests
that Hitler's progressivism derives from a distinctively Christian
type of historiography, albeit one which has been "mediated in
Germany through the Anabaptist wing of the Reformation and through
the Johannine Christianity of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling." Note
well that Schelling is now placed in a direct line of progressivist
historical speculation that leads right to the comparatively "flat
and provincial" selfunderstanding of the National Socialists. The
Third Age of Christian speculation has simply been replaced by the
_Dritte Reich_, as propagandists are said to have acquired this
symbol through "dubious literary transfers" from Moeller van den
Bruck's tract of the same name.16 Voegelin does not explain this
provocative link in further detail. Instead, he leaves one to wonder
how these "dubious literary transfers" relate to Hitler's "authentic"
derivation of a millennial prophecy from a twelfth-century Italian
monk. More to the point, it is odd that Schelling should be placed in
this lineage, since scholars are now in a better position to know
that Voegelin drew explicit distinctions between the historiography
of Schelling and Joachim, distinctions based on solid exegetical
grounds, in his "Last Orientation."17
Voegelin does have more to say about the particular character of
Schelling's gnosticism in the _New Science_. He argues that "gnostic
experiences" are characterized by "an expansion of the soul to the
point where God is drawn into the existence of man." People who "fall
into these experiences" tend to "divinize themselves by substituting
more massive modes of participation in divinity for faith in the
Christian sense." It is possible to distinguish "a range of Gnostic
varieties according to the faculty [of the human soul] which
predominates in the operation of getting this grip on God."
Schelling's particular variety of gnosis is described as "primarily
intellectual" and "contemplative." He is joined explicitly in this
regard by the company of Hegel.18 Voegelin's brief dismissal of
Schelling raised no objections from any of his contemporaries. It was
well in keeping with the conventional understanding of Schelling as
an "Hegelian" idealist.19 But it is odd nonetheless for Voegelin to
equate Schelling's thought with Hegelian gnosis. Unlike many of his
American contemporaries, Voegelin knew and appreciated the works in
which Schelling was most critical of Hegel. Indeed, they provided
significant grounds for the celebration of Schelling's philosophical
achievements in the "Last Orientation." But the attempt to dismiss
Schelling as a gnostic intellectual in the _New Science_ would seem
to indicate that Voegelin has changed his mind considerably about
Schelling. Such is the strong implication, at least, although one
that is impossible to substantiate further on textual grounds; for
Voegelin's comments are impressionistic and vague, rather than openly
exegetical. At most, one can say that he now seems content to dismiss
Schelling in a conventional way, despite his apparently novel remarks
on gnosticism.
_Order and History_I-III. Voegelin reproduces this impression of
Schelling's gnosticism throughout most of _Order and History_.
Schelling is not mentioned in the first volume, _Israel and
Revelation_(1956), but is said to be a gnostic in the second volume,
_The World of the Polis_(1957). Schelling's _Ages of the World_, a
relatively early work, is said to contain mythic speculation that
resembles Cabbalistic and theosophic forms of gnosis. Voegelin makes
this suggestion in a footnote located in the broader context of his
distinction between polytheistic and monotheistic types of myth in
history. "While this is not the place to develop the problem
further," he writes, "the suggestion may be thrown out that gnostic
speculation, when it appears as demythization of the world is not an
unbroken process; there may break through again, in the monotheistic
phase of religiousness, a desire for remythization on the highest
level of intellectual speculation. This certainly was the case of
Schelling's _Weltalter_."20 Voegelin never develops this suggestion
further, at least with respect to Schelling's own "remythization" of
philosophy. He says only that Schelling's turn to myth is a
"reversion" in contrast to Hesiod's comparatively free invention of
mythic symbols. Within the context of his larger study, this remark
suggests that Schelling's turn to myth is historically regressive.
Hesiod was free to write myths about the presence of divinities in
the world, without being criticized as a gnostic, since he lived
before the first true experience and symbolization of God's radical
transcendence from the world, which, according to Voegelin at this
time, occurs only with the historical advent of Judaeo-Christian
revelation. But Schelling lived in the Christian era, a time when
myth is ultimately subordinate to philosophy and revelation as the
highest expressions of existential truth. Accordingly, Schelling's
high regard for myth in his _Ages of the World_ could appear to
Voegelin as a nostalgic return to natural theology, albeit one "on
the highest level of intellectual speculation," but which nonetheless
tends to leave Schelling's thought open to the charge of being
historically pedestrian.
The question of a philosopher's freedom to create mythic symbols
resurfaces in the third volume of _Order and History_(1957). Voegelin
writes of Plato's "freedom toward the myth" and Schelling's relative
lack in this regard. "[Plato] evokes the new myth of the soul; but he
preserves an ironic tolerance toward the old myth, even in those
instances where quite probably it has become unintelligible to him,
because there is a truth in it even if it is no longer quite
understood."21 Like Hesiod, as one who lived before Judaeo-Christian
experiences of divine revelation, Plato was free to create mythical
symbols for human experiences of the divine. Yet, unlike Hesiod,
Plato is said to have lived during a transitional time in history,
when philosophy flourishes as a symbolic form between myth and
revelatory theology. His historical position thus helps him not to
hold onto particular myths in an improperly literal way:
"Plato knows that one myth can and must supersede the other, but he
also knows that no other human function, for instance 'reason' or
'science,' can supersede the myth itself. The myth remains the
legitimate expression of the fundamental movements of the soul. Only
in the shelter of the myth can the sectors of the personality that
are closer to the waking consciousness unfold their potentiality; and
without the ordering of the whole personality by the truth of the
myth the secondary intellectual and moral powers would lose their
direction."22
What may be true of Plato in this summary is certainly true of
Schelling. It is Schelling, not Plato, for whom the origin and
historical succession of myths becomes a thematic concern. It is
Schelling who devotes, throughout his _Philosophy of Mythology_ and
_Philosophy of Revelation_, explicit attention to elucidating how the
"sectors of the personality," or potencies (_Potenzen_) of the soul,
unfold their potentiality in historical succession. Plato does not
write in this way, at least in his own name. Nonetheless, Voegelin
has little more than criticism for Schelling in _Order and
History_III. In contrast to Plato's "freedom toward the myth," he
accuses Schelling of the supposition that all mysteries of the divine
may be overcome one day through dialectical philosophy:
"The coincidence that the creator of a myth is at the same time a
great philosopher who knows what he is doing, as in the case of
Plato, is unique in the history of mankind. Even in the case of
Schelling, who ranks next to Plato as a philosopher of the myth, his
achievement is marred by the gnostic inclination to intellectualize
the unconscious and to reduce its movements to the formula of a
dialectical process. Schelling cannot be quite absolved of the charge
levelled by Irenaeus against the gnostics of the second century A.D.:
'They open God like a book' and 'They place salvation in the gnosis
of that which is ineffable majesty.'"23
This is an odd charge to bring against Schelling. Throughout his
_Philosophy of Mythology_ and _Philosophy of Revelation_, he
frequently makes a point of distinguishing between the types of
knowledge that can be conveyed by mythical symbols and Christian
revelation. He makes his case clearly: myths, which he tends to
deprecate as pagan, cannot reveal God's "ineffable majesty." Mythic
symbols can reveal, at most, how the powers or "potencies" of nature
form the mysterious basis of human consciousness--nothing more and
nothing less. In other words, a myth can open only the book of
nature, partially divine though it is, and reveal how it is
experienced in the human soul. But nature, for Schelling, is not
simply equivalent to God's "ineffable majesty." Rather, he maintains
that God's freedom from the world is what constitutes the true
essence of divinity, since freedom is thought to be more divine than
necessity, and does not claim that any myth or philosophical system
can lay bare the transcendental majesty of divine freedom.24
These points could not have escaped Voegelin, since his "Last
Orientation" study of Schelling's thought reveals that he knew the
_Philosophy of Mythology_ and _Philosophy of Revelation_ quite well.
Nonetheless, without reference to either of these works, Voegelin
continues his critical contrast of Plato and Schelling in an
important passage from _Order and History_III:
"The difference in the attitudes of the two philosophers is perhaps
most clearly revealed in Schelling's criticism that Plato had to use
the myth for expressing the fundamental relations of soul and cosmos
because dialectical speculation could not yet serve him as the
instrument for sounding the abyss [_i.e._, of the unconscious ground
of consciousness]. The criticism characterizes as a shortcoming in
Plato, though as one that was conditioned by his historical position,
precisely what we consider his greatest merit, that is, the clear
separation of the myth from all knowledge that is constituted in acts
of consciousness intending their objects."25
Aside from being an amplification of the earlier point, it is
interesting to note here that Voegelin takes no exception to
Schelling's account of Plato's "historical position." This is because
Voegelin, like Schelling, thinks that Plato's mythology only
"prefigures" the superior distinction between divine transcendence
and cosmological immanence, which is gained only with the advent of
Judaeo-Christian revelation.26 Yet, when all of these points are
taken into consideration, Voegelin's interpreters are left to wonder
how he can truly praise Plato's free use of myth as his "greatest
merit" when, in tacit agreement with Schelling and other Christian
historicists, he suggests that Plato's historical position left him
no other choice but to be free in this way. Voegelin offers no
textual references pertaining to where he thinks Schelling is guilty
of interpreting myths in an improper way. In a later essay, however,
he makes a similar contrast--this time between Platonic and Hegelian
interpretations of myth--and provides textual references and
arguments in support of the claim that Hegel improperly transforms
mythical symbols into the concepts of his objectifying reason.27 This
point may help to explain Voegelin's curious treatment of Schelling
in the earlier text. It seems that, in the third volume of _Order and
History_, he simply continues to conflate the thought of Schelling
and Hegel in a manner consistent with the conventional understanding
of these thinkers, at least during the time period of this
publication.
A final point needs to be considered. Voegelin criticizes Schelling's
understanding of the significance of myth for philosophy, but he does
so while continuing to use the distinguishing features of Schelling's
philosophy of the unconscious. This point can be supported by
consideration of the broader context in which his critical remarks on
Schelling have been found. Immediately before his critique of
Schelling, for example, Voegelin conveys the principles of his own
philosophy of mythology:
"[T]he conscious subject occupies only a small area in the soul.
Beyond this area extends the reality of the soul, vast and darkening
in depth, whose movements reach into the small area that is organized
as the conscious subject. The movements of the depth reverberate in
the conscious subject without becoming objects for it. Hence, the
symbols of the myth, in which reverberations are expressed, can be
defined as the refraction of the unconscious in the medium of
objectifying consciousness. . . . Before a philosopher can even start
to develop a theory of the myth, he must have accepted the reality of
the unconscious as well as of the relation of every consciousness to
its own unconscious ground; and he cannot accept it on any other
terms than its own, that is, on the terms of the myth. Hence, a
philosophy of the myth must itself be a myth of the soul. That
ineluctable condition is the chief obstacle to an adequate philosophy
of the myth in an age in which the anthropomorphic obsession has
destroyed the reality of man."28
This is an excellent summary of the principles guiding Schelling's
philosophy of mythology. Voegelin's focus on the unconscious origin
of mythic symbols, the relation of consciousness to its unconscious
ground, and the critique of anthropomorphism are all distinctive
features of Schelling's philosophical interpretation of myth. In his
"Last Orientation," Voegelin reveals that he is clearly aware that
these points are thematic concerns in Schelling's thought, but he
neglects to relate them to Schelling in _Order and History_III.
Instead, the Schellingian interpretation of myth published in
"Plato's Egyptian Myth" (1947) is reproduced almost verbatim in
_Order and History_III, in the pages immediately preceding the
critical remarks just considered.29 In _Order and History_III,
however, Voegelin drops the concluding "Note" in which he formerly
alluded to the Schellingian presuppositions guiding his reading of
Plato. Criticism replaces here the acknowledgment of dependency from
the earlier article, but Voegelin's interpretation of Platonic myth
and its historical position remains the same--that is, Schellingian.
Thus, critical remarks notwithstanding, it is clear that Voegelin
continues to draw upon Schelling's philosophy of mythology in his
interpretation of Platonic myth. But why he does so without reference
to Schelling in _Order and History_ remains, at present, unclear.
_Wissenschaft, Politik und Gnosis_. In 1958, Voegelin left his
position at Louisiana State University and accepted an offer to
establish the new Institute for Political Science at Ludwig-
Maximilian University (Munich). The first major publication resulting
from this move--_Wissenschaft, Politik und Gnosis_--appears one year
later. This text is an expanded version of Voegelin's inaugural
lecture to the University. He refers to Schelling only once, in a
passing remark on the gnostic character of Schelling's "philosophy of
nature" (_Naturphilosophie_). The comment is important, however,
because it reveals one of Voegelin's principal sources for his
understanding of Schelling's gnosticism: what he calls the
"monumental" work of Ferdinand Christian Baur, _Die christliche
Gnosis, oder die Religions-philosophie in ihrer geschichtlichen
Entwicklung_(1835). In Baur's work, Voegelin contends, "[t]he
speculation of German idealism is correctly placed in its context in
the gnostic movement since antiquity."30 Following Baur, Voegelin
includes a surprisingly broad range of movements and thinkers under
the heading of "German idealism": Boehme's theosophy, Schelling's
nature-philosophy, Schleiermacher's doctrine of faith and Hegel's
philosophy of religion. Yet Voegelin's reliance on Baur is surprising
in another respect.31 Baur published in 1835, roughly seven years
before Schelling had completed his _Philosophy of Mythology_ and
_Philosophy of Revelation_ and publicized these studies in his famous
Berlin lectures. In these lectures, Schelling delivers a strong
criticism against idealistic speculation in philosophy, precisely the
type of thinking he once shared with Fichte and Hegel. Baur knew of
and discussed only the earliest of Schelling's writings, those in
which he is indeed more easily classified with "speculative
gnostics." Accordingly, it is not surprising that Baur's portrayal of
Schelling drew no criticism from contemporaries to whom only the
early works were known. But Voegelin's reliance on Baur is surprising
because he had access to all of Schelling's later writings, and even
profited from Schelling's critique of idealism in his "Last
Orientation." Voegelin's decision to use an outdated secondary source
to support his public dismissal of Schelling remains an inexplicable
feature of the increasingly odd way that he presents Schelling's
thought.
By this point in his career, the frequency of Voegelin's critical
remarks against Schelling may suggest that he has left his guidance
well behind. But such is not the case. Voegelin continues to use the
Schellingian adjective _pneumopathischen_ (pneumopathological) in his
own diagnosis of gnosticism, and he continues to do so without
reference to Schelling.32 Despite the confusion that stems from this
practice, however, one point has started to become clear. Voegelin's
conflicting accounts of Schelling may have much to do with the
tension that arises between his own, sympathetic reading of
Schelling's later works and the portrayal of him that he is partially
compelled to accept from the most respected secondary interpreters at
the time.
"Religionsersatz." In 1960, Voegelin published a short essay in
which he contends that the gnostic massmovements of his time are
pseudo-religions.33 He refers to Schelling twice in this essay.
First, in his discussion of "gnostic ideas" that divide history into
three progressive phases, he says that "Schelling, in his speculation
on history, distinguished three great phases of Christianity: first
the Petrine, followed by the Pauline, which will be sealed by the
Johannine phase of perfect Christianity."34 This brief remark
immediately follows an equally brief list of three-phase histories
elaborated by Biondo, Turgot and Comte, Hegel, Marx and Engels--with
no discussion of differences between any of these intellectuals and
their systems. This practice is by now typical of the casual manner
in which Voegelin places Schelling in the company of such dubious
thinkers as Hitler. A few pages later, however, he acknowledges for
the first time in print that it was Schelling who coined the term
"pneumopathology" in order to diagnose the spiritual disease that
Voegelin calls gnosticism. The remark in question occurs in the
context where Voegelin wonders why Thomas More would have written his
_Utopia_, when More himself knew his perfect state to be impossible
in the world:
"[More's _Utopia_] opens up the problem of the strange, abnormal
spiritual condition of gnostic thinkers, for which we have not as yet
developed an adequate terminology in our time. In order, therefore,
to be able to speak of this phenomenon, it will be advisable to use
the term 'pneumopathology,' which Schelling coined for this purpose.
In a case like More's, we may speak, then, of the pneumo-pathological
condition of a thinker who, in his revolt against the world as it has
been created by God, arbitrarily omits an element of reality in order
to create the fantasy of a new world."35
Pneumopathological thinkers arbitrarily deny one aspect or another of
reality in order to fantasize about new and perfect worlds, which
they occasionally attempt to build. They are not "realists," to use a
term that Voegelin employs elsewhere to describe Schelling.36
The Problem of "Pneumopathology"
Voegelin's first reference to Schelling's coinage of the term
"pneumopathology" should have caused him, at least, to question the
extent of Schelling's gnosticism. Clearly, Schelling could not have
been so much at variance with reality's order if he was able to
criticize spiritual sickness in much the same way as Voegelin
criticizes gnosticism. So how are we to explain this tension in
Voegelin's reading of Schelling? The task of finding a satisfactory
answer to this question is greatly complicated by the fact that
Voegelin does not provide any textual references to any of
Schelling's works in any of his published writings. This means that
he provides no references to where Schelling allegedly coined the
term pneumopathology.37 It is clear that Voegelin first used the term
in his _History of Political Ideas_(1945), since it appears several
times in the chapters published from this work under the title _From
Enlightenment to Revolution_(1975).38 In 1976, Theo Broerson
wondered about Voegelin's use of pneumopathology and asked him where
he had found it. Voegelin replied by letter, saying that he could not
remember exactly where he had found it. He recalls first encountering
the term some thirty years earlier, during his intensive studies of
Schelling for the "Last Orientation," but he writes that he is now
unable to locate it in Schelling's works: "I refer to it only,
because I do not want to be accused by some Schelling scholar of
having pinched the term without acknowledging its authorship."39
Working from the published references alone, it is possible to
determine that the specific term pneumopathology was of more
importance to Voegelin than it was to Schelling. This is not to say
that what the term signifies was unimportant to Schelling. On the
contrary, there are several places in his _Works_ where he discusses
the problem of "spiritual sickness"--essentially a revolt against
God's ordering of reality--which Voegelin, at least, calls
pneumopathology. But Schelling seems to have preferred other terms
for his description of this condition. For example, as early as 1797
Schelling writes: "_Mere_ reflection is . . . a spiritual sickness
[_Geisteskrankheit_] of man."40 These words foreshadow his later
preoccupation with criticizing German idealism, what he calls
"negative" or purely "rational" philosophy. To this end, Schelling
elaborates a philosophy of consciousness that seeks to remind his
interpreters that life experience always presents us with more than
can be accounted for by rational systems of philosophy based
exclusively upon reflective consciousness--what Voegelin eventually
calls _intentionality_. Schelling also maintains that consciousness
is always grounded by an unconscious depth over which reflective
consciousness can exercise no ultimate control. He even wins great
acclaim from Voegelin, at least in his unpublished "Last
Orientation," for this account of how consciousness is related to its
transcendent ground.
In 1810, only three years after the publication of Hegel's
_Phaenomenologie des Geistes_, Schelling begins to develop his
critique of purely reflective systems of philosophy. He contends that
an "illness of the temperament [_Gemuethskrankheit_]" will emerge if
a proper understanding of relations between human beings and God
breaks down: "For it is the soul [_viz._, something broader than the
conscious mind] through which man establishes a rapport with God, and
no creature, especially no human being, can ever exist without this
rapport."41 Schelling speaks of a "rapport" here, not of a
constructed or reflective identity with the divine. According to the
philosophical anthropology developed in his _Stuttgart Seminars_,
Schelling would have thought it incorrect to speak of
psychopathologies (_Seelenkrankheiten_). For he takes the soul to be
what is most "impersonal" in humanity, and thus closest to the
divine. Only the spirit or conscious mind (_Geist_) can become ill,
because it occupies a potentially confusing and volitional,
middleposition between the soul and its passions. When the human
spirit turns properly toward the divine ordination of the soul it
becomes virtuous; when it turns toward the passions--especially
nostalgia--it becomes vicious or corrupt. Thus, Schelling understands
"spiritual sickness" as a perversion of the human spirit. In one
instance, he describes this condition as the "consumption of the
spirit [_Verzehrung des Geistes_]." This condition may result, for
example, from excessive reflection on the idea of infinite progress,
"the most distressing and empty thought of all."42 This
"consumption" may be closest to what Voegelin has in mind when he
says that Schelling coined the term pneumopathology in critical
opposition to "the progressivism of his time."43 But what of the
specific term? Since Voegelin could not remember where he found it,
and Schelling discusses equivalent states of spirit with the terms
_Geisteskrankheit_, _Gemuethskrankheit_ and _Verzehrung des Geistes_,
it is likely the case that "pneumopathology" is Voegelin's coinage
for this range of critical terms used by Schelling.
_Anamnesis_. In the 1966 publication of _Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der
Geschichte und Politik_, Voegelin's German readers learn for the
first time of his general agreement with Schelling's process
theology. Schelling's theology attempts to describe how the same God
allows himself to be experienced differently by human beings at
different times in history. Voegelin's understanding of this theology
is found in passing comments in a letter (dated November 1943) to his
friend, Alfred Schuetz, the phenomenologist. The letter has been
published in _Anamnesis_ under the title "On the Theory of
Consciousness." Even though the references to Schelling are brief,
they reveal how he helped Voegelin to balance the conflicting aspects
of Hegel and Kant's thought. More specifically, Schelling helped
Voegelin to appreciate the enduring legitimacy of "ontological
speculation" (_Die ontologische Spekulation_), while continuing to
accept the basic restrictions on human knowledge of divine
transcendence developed in Kant's critical philosophy. The fact that
Schelling raised and addressed the fundamental question about the
universe--"Why is Something, why is there not rather Nothing?"--is
once again mentioned by Voegelin. Schelling's freedom to ask this
question indicates to him that something in the human soul is always
capable of transcending the logical determinations of thought that
lead to the Kantian antinomies. Voegelin explains:
"Ontological speculation is a legitimate philosophical undertaking,
founded in precisely describable experiences, which it interprets
with the means of 'understandable' [_verstehbarer_] categories of
process. The formalized Something as an alternative to Nothing is a
correctly formed ontological concept. It is antinomic in Kant's
sense, but the idealization of reason that leads to the antinomies is
not 'nonsense' [_Unsinn_], its problems are not 'false problems'
[_Scheinproblem_]. Schelling's 'Something' is a symbol as much as is
a logical or cosmological 'infinite,' a symbol justified inasmuch as
it renders transparent the meditatively experienced real ground of
being in finite language. . . . Schelling's question is significant
insofar as it refers to the problem of process in the ground of
being, the assumption of which seems to me to be an unavoidable
requirement of system in a consistent interpretation of the
ontological experience complex."44
Voegelin makes the further claim that process theology
(_Prozesstheologie_), which he finds particularly in Schelling's
_Potenzenlehre_, is the "only meaningful systematic philosophy." He
understands process theology as "a matter of developing a symbolic
system that seeks to express the relations between consciousness, the
transcending intraworldly classes of being [Schelling's divine
potencies (_Potenzen_) of nature], and the worldtranscending ground
of being [what Schelling refers to as God's transcendent freedom from
the world]." Process theology expresses these relations "in the
language of a process constructed as an immanent one." Voegelin
commends Schelling's process theology for attempting, successfully it
would seem, to describe experiences of divine transcendence with a
"comprehensible" language of consciousness accessible "from within"--
that is, from the concrete experiences of a human soul.45 These
statements indicate that, already in the early 1940s, Voegelin
thought of Schelling as a helpful guide beyond certain perceived
extremes in the thought of Kant and Hegel. The "negative" (rational
and essential) and "positive" (historical and existential) aspects of
Schelling's philosophy allow Voegelin to appreciate the insights
gained by Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_, while avoiding its
alleged inability to account for the historical aspects of human
existence. Schelling's _Potenzenlehre_ also allows Voegelin to avoid
the obfuscation of boundaries between the human and the divine-- for
example, in Hegel's appeals to "absolute knowledge"--precisely
because of Schelling's greater ability to provide a reasonable
account of God's transcendent freedom from the world.
Schelling elaborated the _Potenzenlehre_, his doctrine of divine
potencies, over several decades in several works, the most important
being his _Ages of the World_, _Philosophy of Mythology_ and
_Philosophy of Revelation_. Summarized briefly, the _Potenzenlehre_
describes all of reality in terms of a tensional process of divine
powers or potencies, consisting of divine immanence (natural
necessity) and divine transcendence (freedom) as its fundamental
poles. This process, according to Schelling, can never be abolished
by human will or thought. What is more, since reality is experienced
as a process, it is always said to remain mysterious. God's freedom
always transcends human understanding and control, Schelling
maintains, and is properly approached by the interpretation of grace-
experiences rooted in "faith."46
All of these points return in Voegelin's criticisms of Hegel, who
allegedly attempted to destroy the intractable mystery of the divine
in human consciousness. Against Hegel, and in agreement with
Schelling, Voegelin argues that human beings are akin to the divine,
but nothing more. He maintains that the knowledge of how we are both
like and unlike the divine is gained in an historical process of
divine revelations, but he sees no humanlywilled end to the process
of history. These points of Schellingian realism become some of the
consistent features of Voegelin's later thought, but it takes the
better part of two decades before he again refers favorably to
Schelling--and only in relatively informal, public talks. The
publication of _Anamnesis_ marks the last time that Voegelin reveals
anything significantly new in his appreciation of Schelling's
thought.
_Order and History_IV. In _Order and History_IV (1974), Voegelin
returns to writing primarily for an English audience. His standard
criticism of Schelling also returns. He reproduces the claim that
Schelling was a Johannine gnostic, the point first suggested in _The
New Science of Politics_. By this time, however, Voegelin has
encountered some resistance to his claim that German idealism, in
particular, should be understood as a form of gnosis, making claims
to perfection similar to those found in the ancient gnosis of, say,
Valentinus. Accordingly, Voegelin finds it necessary to distinguish
between "the essential core and the variable part of a Gnostic
system. The essential core," he continues, "is the enterprise of
returning the pneuma [spirit] of the Beyond through action based on
knowledge. Moreover, the god of the Beyond to whom the Gnostic
speculator wants to return must be identical, not with the creatorgod
but with the god of the creative tension 'before there was a
cosmos.'"47 Voegelin warns that to exclude German idealism from this
essential core of gnosticism one "must ignore the fact that the
modern Gnostics do not appeal to Valentinus or Basilides as their
ancestors but to the Gospel of John. One must ignore, for instance,
that Schelling has developed a law of three phases for Christian
history: The Petrine Christianity was followed by the Pauline of the
Reformation; and the Pauline will now be followed by the Johannine
Christianity of the German speculative systems."48 Once again, the
summary seems to be accurate, and certainly in keeping with generally
accepted notions of how some German intellectuals carved up history's
order, but the matter becomes slightly more complicated once we
return to the texts in which Schelling presents these thoughts.
Schelling's discussion of the three phases of Christianity occurs in
Lecture XXXVII of his _Philosophy of Revelation_. He says nothing
about his teaching as a "law" of Christian history that is "now" to
be fulfilled by "German speculative systems." Rather, he appeals to a
Johannine phase of Christianity, not as something to be forced into
existence by the will of a human speculator, but as a _bona fide_
eschatological symbol, much like Voegelin's own account of the
historical emergence of "universal humanity," found in the conclusion
of _Order and History_IV. According to Schelling, Johannine
Christianity is equivalent to "philosophical religion." It is the
type of religion that will come about when God brings history as we
know it to an end, a time when humans will no longer feel the need to
distinguish between the real and the ideal, the inner and the outer,
and other such dichotomies. Human consciousness will be reconciled to
its God. Schelling maintains clearly that this type of religion does
not yet exist. His appeals to philosophical religion describe his
hope of being reunited with God beyond history as we know it, nothing
more and nothing less. He does not say that speculative philosophy
can bring about this transfigured state of human existence. It will
have a divine cause and will complete God's work in creation.
Schelling links the Johannine phase of Christianity with the biblical
vision of the "new Jerusalem" (Rev. 21:9ff.): "John is the apostle of
the Church to come, the only truly universal Church; he is the
apostle of this second and new Jerusalem, which he himself saw
descending from the heavens."49 Schelling wonders if "Church" is
still the right word for a divinely transfigured "city of God [_Stadt
Gottes_]" in which Jews, Pagans and Christians all live united in the
presence of the divine, that is to say, without needing to
distinguish themselves along the lines of their former religions. But
he is clear about when this phase of Christianity is supposed to
ensue: "[T]he Apostle [John] poses this time as being the end [_das
Ende_], and even this ultimate being-all-in-all of God [_dieses
letzte alles in allem Seyn Gottes_] will not be in the manner of a
pure theism, in the sense of our theists and rationalists; on the
contrary, it will be a theism which presupposes and contains in
itself all the path [_i.e._, the history and natural unfolding] of
God."50 The "function of saint John," in other words, the period of
Johannine Christianity, "begins with the time of Christ's return,
therefore with the last time of the Church." Schelling realizes that
this time has not yet come. "This Church is, to speak truthfully, yet
still to come [_noch immer zukuenftig_], since until now the two
elements [Jewish and Pagan] are still discernable."51
These passages indicate that any attempt to find the end of history
in Schelling's positive philosophy will be questionable indeed. I
have emphasized the time and transcendent manner in which Schelling
expects history to end because these and similar points are clearly
known by Voegelin in his "Last Orientation," ignored in his published
remarks, and speak against his treatment of Schelling as a modern
gnostic comparable to Hegel. But what of the God with whom Schelling
longs to be reunited? Perhaps Schelling's understanding of God is
consistent with the theology that Voegelin ascribes to gnostics.
Voegelin's claim that gnostics seek a God who is "identical, not with
the creator-god but with the god of the creative tension 'before
there was a cosmos'" recalls the well-known point that ancient
gnostics despised nature and its god; they sought perfection in a God
who had nothing to do with the creation of this world. But a
fundamental point speaks against including Schelling in such company.
Schelling's early fame arose from his Nature-philosophy
(_Naturphilosophie_), precisely the style of thinking that also
contributed to charges against his pantheism. But the gnostics
alluded to by Voegelin were not pantheists in any sense of the term.
They acknowledged only the aspect of divinity that completely
transcends the world. Schelling held nature itself to be divine, not
an aberration created by a pseudo-divinity. And he maintained this
view of nature throughout all of his mature works, despite the fact
that the focus of his thought changed with the 1809 publication of
his philosophical investigations into the nature of freedom. The
later Schelling accepted various accounts of nature as fallen. But a
closer look at his account of the Fall reveals that his thought was
closer to orthodox Christianity than to gnosticism.
Schelling's account of the Fall is found in Lectures XVI and XVII of
his _Philosophy of Revelation_. Unlike ancient gnostics, he says that
God's creation is essentially good, that the tensional powers of
nature (matter, spirit, and self-consciousness) are unified in the
beginning and at rest in a divine Sabbath.52 In these claims, he is
attempting to follow traditional, Christian readings of the seventh
day of creation in Genesis. He says that God ordained "original man"
to preserve the unity of divinity and creation, while giving him the
freedom to accept nature's harmonious tensions, with God as their
cause, or to rebel against the divine ordination of creation by
attempting to proclaim humanity as the ultimate cause of all
things.53 In accordance with traditional readings of Genesis,
Schelling accepts the notion that humans eventually fall. They do so
by attempting to arrogate God's freely creative powers to themselves.
Their fall does not occur all at once. It is a process in which they
increasingly posit the world "outside God, not simply _praeter_, but
_extra Deum_"; they begin to think of God's world as the creation of
their own wills.54 When humanity revolts against God's creation in
this way it sets in motion a new tensional process, one that causes
the original unity of God and creation to be divided into divine
transcendence (the God of conventional theology) and divine immanence
(the divinities of nature in pagan theologies). Schelling explains
the consequences of this divide as follows: "between this new
tension, which survives in human consciousness, and the original one,
which was in the creation, there is a great difference: the original
tension was created by the will of God; the second is created by man;
man has therefore put himself in the place of God and, to speak
truthfully, in place of the God who was the _cause_ of the tension
and whom we have called the _Father_. Man usurps in this way the
rightful majesty of God [_das Majestaetsrecht Gottes_]." The
specifically Christian elements in Schelling's thought increasingly
reveal themselves; he claims that "[t]he tension caused by man has
separated the Son [the demiurgic creator of the world] from the
Father [the substance of creation]."55 And herein one finds a
circumscript version of the basic presupposition behind Schelling's
account of the entire history of the world: True progress in history
is spiritual; it amounts to the gradual overcoming of the Fall, the
Son's return to the Father. In other words, history is Christ writ
large, a drama of salvation in which all of creation shall eventually
be restored to the Father.56 Thus, it would seem that Schelling's
gnosticism is not beyond dispute. He understands all of creation,
before and after the Fall, as an order of divine tensions. The God
with whom he longs to be reunited is the creator of the originally
harmonious tensions of nature--the "Son" of Christian theology, the
one who suffers from human rebellion, not the gnostic god "before
there was a cosmos." Schelling does not strive to know only the
transcendental aspect of divinity. He does not indulge in the
fantastic desire to be anything more than a creature, either now or
in the transfigured creation toward which he directs his
eschatological hopes. At least this much can be stated by way of
reopening the question of Schelling's gnosticism. Further treatment
of the problem lies beyond the scope of this article.
_From Enlightenment to Revolution_. In 1975, Voegelin allowed John
Hallowell to edit and publish considerable portions of his abandoned
_History of Political Ideas_, under the title _From Enlightenment to
Revolution_. Schelling is mentioned herein several times, always in a
favorable light, and is specifically credited with solving the
problem of phenomenalistic science. With his "_Potenzenlehre_ and the
philosophy of the unconscious," teachings that interpret both matter
and spirit as substantial aspects of reality, the All, Schelling
exposes the superficiality of scientific communities that attempt to
limit themselves to the discussion of phenomena as though they were
appearances of nothing substantial. Voegelin also mentions the
problem of the three-stage philosophies of history, but this time he
says that they developed "in the wake of Schelling." He distinguishes
Schelling's progressive historiography from positivist accounts of
history's necessary march toward a human perfection of humanity:
"The construction of Turgot-Comte was defective because in the
concept of the third stage [of history] the problem of [natural]
substance was not shown in a further phase of development, but was
simply excluded from consideration. If we do not exclude it, but
conscientiously continue the line of thought initiated in the
description of the first phase, the question will arise: what becomes
of the problem of substance once it has passed beyond the stage of
anthropomorphic symbolism? We know the answer given by Schelling in
his philosophy of the theogonic process and in the new roles assigned
to the protodialectic experiences and their dialectical elaboration.
But we also know Schelling's ultimate dissatisfaction with a type of
philosophical speculation that is a poor substitute for the forceful
imagery of mythology, a dissatisfaction that leads him to expound the
necessity for a new myth of nature. When it comes to the
symbolization of substances, the myth is a more adequate mode of
expression than a critical concept which can only clarify our
experience but cannot incarnate the substance itself."57
This passage, written in the early 1940s, reveals the general tone of
Voegelin's "Last Orientation." It reveals his early contention that
Schelling's critical philosophy properly addresses the problem of
substantial speculation ignored by positivism. Second, and in direct
contrast to the claims made in _Order and History_III, it reveals
Voegelin's understanding of Schelling's sensitivity to myth. There is
no intimation in the preceding passage that Schelling suffered from
an inclination to "intellectualize the unconscious," reducing its
manifestations in consciousness to the machinations of a dialectical
formula. To be sure, Voegelin's willingness to publish these comments
in 1975 hardly amounts to a retraction of his former criticisms of
Schelling. But it does reveal that he may have known better than to
dismiss Schelling in accordance with conventional accounts of his
idealism. Voegelin continues by stating that a philosopher's response
to "the destruction of the myth, to the dedivinization
(_Entgoetterung_) of the world," can take either "contemplative or
activist" forms. He praises Schelling's contemplative response to the
destruction of myth by modern science. He finds a similar effort in
Henri Bergson, whose _Deux sources de la morale et de la religion_ is
described as having been written "strongly under the influence of
Schelling." These contemplative responses to the destruction of myth
are praised in sharp contrast to the "pneumopathology" of activist
responses in Saint-Simon and Comte.58 Voegelin suggests that the
contemplative response can best be found "in Schelling's _Philosophie
der Mythologie und der Offenbarung_," that is to say, his _Philosophy
of Mythology_ and _Philosophy of Revelation_. No specific references
are given to these texts, but Voegelin summarizes his understanding
of their content as follows:
"The spiritual process in which the symbols of myth and dogma are
created is recovered [by Schelling] from the unconscious through
_anamnesis_ (recollection), and the symbols actually created in the
course of human history are interpreted as meaningful phases of the
theogonic process [_i.e._, process theology], manifesting itself in
history on rising levels of spiritual consciousness. In this
contemplative attitude the myth of the past need not be abandoned as
the aberration of an undeveloped intellect but can be understood as a
necessary step in the expression of spiritual reality. It can be
superseded historically but not invalidated in its own place by
subsequent fuller and more differentiated symbolic expressions."59
This is an excellent summary, both of Schelling's latest
historiography and of Voegelin's own. It indicates how each thinker
attempts to balance the discovery of permanent truths in historical
experience with the considerable changes that also emerge in their
symbolic expressions. To be more specific, one finds herein the
Schellingian seeds of Voegelin's notion of experiential and symbolic
"equivalents" in history, a notion which first appears in
_Anamnesis_(1966) and is further elaborated in the article,
"Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History" (1970).
Finally, in _From Enlightenment to Revolution_, Voegelin defends both
Schelling and Hegel against Bakunin's suggestion that German
idealists have brought about the same revolution in the intellectual
world that Napoleon brought about in the socio-political world.
Voegelin draws a clear line between the "derivative Christianity of
Hegel and Schelling," on the one hand, and the "revolutionary
speculation of Bakunin" on the other: "Hegel's and Schelling's
interpretations of history were contemplative in the sense that the
understanding of history was for them the most important cathartic
exercise in clarifying and solidifying their own existence. However
far their ideas diverged from orthodox, dogmatic Christianity,
however far they went in the direction of Gnosis, they still remained
substantially Christian thinkers and were concerned about the order
of their souls."60 Voegelin's later appraisal of Hegel, as previously
suggested, diverges widely from these relatively charitable remarks.
He eventually criticizes Hegelian philosophy, using his favorite
Schellingian term of critique, as a "pneumopathological" flight from
the actual world of experience to the imaginary construction of a
"Second Reality."61 However, Voegelin never develops the same type
of critique against Schelling. Instead, some of his work begins to
reveal greater signs of the importance of Schelling to his own
philosophical development.
3. Acknowledging the Importance of Schelling (1981-1985)
Autobiographical Remarks. In the last four years of his life,
Voegelin begins to acknowledge the extent of Schelling's guidance in
his own philosophical development. He does so in the context of
autobiographical reflections on his decision, several decades
earlier, to abandon his projected _History of Political Ideas_.
Schelling was not mentioned in Voegelin's first published account of
this decision, in a 1966 Memorial to Alfred Schuetz.62 However, in
1973, Voegelin discussed Schelling's significance for his work during
the course of a two-week series of interviews granted to a former
student, Ellis Sandoz. Most of the comments from these talks were
then published at various places throughout Sandoz' book, _The
Voegelinian Revolution_(1981). Voegelin recalls the time when he was
engaged in the research and writing of his _History of Political
Ideas_. He says: "While working on the chapter on Schelling, it
dawned on me that the conception of a history of ideas was an
ideological deformation of reality. There were no ideas [in history]
unless there were symbols of immediate _experiences_."63 Schelling's
role in this insight is somewhat unclear from this remark. It is
initially uncertain whether Voegelin's realization was brought on by
insights conveyed through Schelling's works or through his discovery
of their fundamental errors. Some help in clarifying this ambiguity
comes in 1983, when Voegelin comments further on the matter. In his
"Autobiographical Statement At Age Eighty- Two," he says that his
history of ideas "crashed" when he studied Schelling's philosophy of
mythology. He describes Schelling as "an intelligent philosopher"--no
longer as a gnostic intellectual--and recalls how he was affected by
his studies of Schelling in the mid-1940s: "[W]hen I studied the
philosophy of the myth, I understood that ideas are nonsense: there
are no ideas as such and there is no history of ideas; but there is a
history of experiences which can express themselves in various forms,
as myths of various types, as philosophical development, theological
development, and so on. . . So I cashiered that history of ideas,
which was practically finished in four or five volumes, and started
reworking it from the standpoint of the problem of the experiences.
That is how _Order and History_ started."64 This remark indicates
clearly that Voegelin's re-reading of Schelling had much to do with
his decision to rework the structure of the largest part of the
project that eventually became his great work. However, since
Schelling is only criticized in _Order and History_, it remains
unclear how Voegelin was able to rework his _History of Political
Ideas_ on Schellingian grounds, while consistently criticizing the
man whose thought served as the major catalyst for this
reorientation. Fortunately, there are more autobiographical comments
that shed some light on this problem.
After mentioning to Sandoz the role Schelling played in the
reorientation of his thought, Voegelin relates that it took some time
before _Order and History_ emerged as we know it. He says: "I would
characterize the five years between 1945 and 1950 as a period of
indecision, if not paralysis, in handling the problems that I saw but
could not intellectually penetrate to my satisfaction. . . . [O]n the
whole it was a period of theoretical paralysis with mounting problems
for which I saw no immediate solutions." Voegelin says that his work
did not stop during this five-year period. Specifically, he recalls
being elected by his department at Louisiana State University to
teach courses in Chinese government. This election meant that he had
to begin learning Chinese and to study Chinese history.65 And these
studies may well have helped him to overcome his period of
theoretical paralysis, for they provided him with an opportunity to
reflect on one of the central problems encountered by Schelling's
philosophy of history: what Schelling takes to be the relative lack
of historical development in Chinese symbols.
The cornerstone of Schelling's historiography is his attempt to argue
that human consciousness differentiates or "unfolds" in a relatively
homogeneous pattern throughout all civilizations in world history. He
goes to great lengths to find similar patterns of emerging self
consciousness in the West, the ancient Near East, and India. He is
able to show, with varying degrees of success, that mythological
consciousness begins in all of these civilizations with the
symbolization of the Sky, the Earth and the Sea--the principal gods
who exercise a considerable measure of control over human life. He
also finds that roughly contemporaneous "spiritual crises" occur on
civilization-wide bases, leading their members to the next phase of
historical differentiation. Ancient mythologists gradually become
aware of the role played by their own consciousness in the
symbolization of various divinities. Their symbols "unfold," or show
greater signs of self-consciousness, as they begin to reflect on the
precise nature of differences between humanity and divinity. But
Schelling is unable to demonstrate that Chinese symbols unfold in
accordance with the pattern he finds in other civilizations. Chinese
symbolists seem to retain a compact way of thinking, specifically
because they do not attain consciousness of world-transcendent
divinity on their own. This notion is brought to them only much
later, he argues, by people from the West. Schelling acknowledges the
problem that this difference in the nature of Chinese symbolism
presents to his otherwise universal account of emerging consciousness
in world history, and he attempts to resolve it by using Chinese
symbolism as a counter- measure against which the unfolding
civilizations can be understood as having attained higher levels of
consciousness. But this solution seems to have persuaded no one
completely, at times not even Schelling himself, and leaves
unresolved the problem of what appears to be a Eurocentric bias in
his thoughts on the development of consciousness in world history.
This problem was certainly one that Voegelin also had to face while
recasting his philosophy of history on Schellingian grounds, and it
likely contributed to his period of theoretical paralysis. But the
full extent to which he might have struggled with such problems,
because he found them in Schelling, cannot be determined with greater
precision here. It is a matter that needs to be addressed by further
scholarship. Suffice it to say, at present, that Voegelin's
interpretation of Chinese consciousness as a manifestation of a
separate, "Chinese ecumene"66 bears traces of the same problems
encountered by Schelling.
_Order and History_V. On two occasions, in 1969 and 1971, Voegelin
sent outlines to his publisher for the manuscript of _Order and
History_ V. Both of these outlines reveal a surprising plan that
ultimately did not materialize: the "Last Orientation" chapter on
Schelling from the abandoned _History of Political Ideas_ was to be
included in the last volume of _Order and History_. This is a most
interesting point; for Voegelin also says that only stylistic
revisions were necessary before the chapter could be published.67 Had
he published this chapter substantially intact, he would have
overturned the estimation of Schelling given in the preceding volumes
of _Order and History_. The reasons why he ultimately decided not to
remain unknown. But this much is clear: Voegelin concludes _Order and
History_ with one of his most perplexing estimations of Schelling's
significance in the history of modern philosophy.
Schelling is mentioned only once in the fifth volume of _Order and
History_. Voegelin writes: "As we know from numerous statements by
Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Friedrich Schlegel, and Schiller,
the actors of the event," _i.e._, the German revolution in
consciousness, "interpreted it as the German variant of the general
revolution that was taking place on the pragmatic level in America,
France, and the Netherlands (Batavian Republic of 1795). They derived
the intenseness of their fervor from the sense of participating in a
world-historic revolution of consciousness."68 This is the last of
Voegelin's published references to Schelling, now placing him in the
company of German idealists and blurring the lines more than ever
between thinkers who were and continue to be distinguished by
scholarship.69 Once again, Voegelin's comment implies that he accepts
the once-unquestioned account of Schelling as an Hegelian idealist.
This impression is reinforced by the volume's editor, Paul
Caringella, Voegelin's personal secretary at the time. Caringella
adds a footnote to Voegelin's remark and cites M.H. Abrams' _Natural
Supernaturalism_ for "representative statements" by Schelling and
others.70 Abrams' work provides no new grounds for thinking that
Schelling remained an idealist. It reproduces the conventional
account of Schelling by focusing its discussion almost exclusively on
his earliest, most idealistic writings, when he was closely
associated with Fichte and Hegel. Abrams, like Voegelin in _Order and
History_, does not distinguish between periods in Schelling's
philosophical development. Consequently, he neglects to mention that
Schelling became an important critic of both Fichte and Hegel. As one
may learn from detailed references in the "Last Orientation,"
Voegelin knew better than Abrams about Schelling's critique of Hegel,
even if his reasons for not calling attention to it remain, for the
moment, unclear.
Conclusion
The subject matter of Voegelin's use (and perhaps transformation) of
some distinctive traits of Schelling's thought is, of course, too
complex to treat comprehensively within the confines of a single
article. Nonetheless, the foregoing discussion has allowed for a
number of helpful questions to emerge, all of which call for further
treatment elsewhere. Despite the confusing mix of opinions expressed
by Voegelin's published remarks on Schelling, one point has become
quite clear: Voegelin consistently criticizes Schelling only in
_Order and History_, a project written primarily for an English
speaking audience, while he offers increasingly sympathetic
references to him in German publications, articles, and public talks.
Why is this so? Furthermore, how can one understand Schelling as the
gnostic thinker targeted by Voegelin's critical remarks, when he also
appears to have been one of the principal guides for Voegelin's
critique of gnosticism as a "pneumopathological" disorder? In light
of this critique, could one sustain the argument that Voegelin's
philosophical anthropology differs significantly from Schelling's?
Given that both philosophers attempt to recover what they understand
to be a generally Platonic account of human existence and a
mythological sense of order, does Voegelin's understanding of
_anamnesis_ and the way in which mythological symbols rise to
articulate speech differ significantly from Schelling's? Finally,
given Plato's relative lack of concern for what has come to be known
as the historicity of consciousness, what role might Schelling's
philosophy of history have played in helping Voegelin to understand
the historical dimension of philosophical truth?
These questions have arisen from conflicts in Voegelin's published
remarks on Schelling. Scholars who read nineteenth-century German
with ease are currently in the best position to respond to these
questions; for many of the Schellingian texts that Voegelin found to
be most important for his own philosophical development have yet to
be translated into English.
_Zurueck zu Schelling_!
ENDNOTES
1. Portions of this article have been reprinted from the manuscript
copy of _Eric Voegelin and the Schelling Renaissance_, by Jerry Day,
used by permission of the University of Missouri Press.
Standard abbreviations for the works of Voegelin are used throughout
this article: _Anam._ = _Anamnesis_. Edited and translated by Gerhart
Niemeyer (Available Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990);
_Anam.GER_ = _Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und
Politik_(Munich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1966); _AR_ =
_Autobiographical Reflections_. Ellis Sandoz, ed. (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1989); _CW_ = _The Collected Works
of Eric Voegelin_. Edited by Paul Caringella, Juergen Gebhardt,
Thomas A. Hollweck, Ellis Sandoz. (in 34 volumes) (Available
Columbia: University of Missouri Press); _FER_ = _From Enlightenment
to Revolution_. Edited by John H. Hallowell (Durham: Duke University
Press, 1975). "LO" = "Last Orientation," title of the last completed
Part of the _History of Political Ideas_, typescript located in the
Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford University), Voegelin Papers,
Box 59, folder 7: 126-244; now published in _CW_25: 173-250; _NSP_ =
_The New Science of Politics_ (University of Chicago Press, 1952);
_OH_ = _Order and History_ (in five volumes) (Available Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1999). A typical reference to one of
these volumes might read _OH_V: 22, where the respective numbers
indicate volume and page: Vol. I. _Israel and Revelation_, 1956, Vol.
II. _The World of the Polis_, 1957, Vol. III. _Plato and Aristotle_,
1957, Vol. IV. _The Ecumenic Age_, 1974, Vol. V. _In Search of
Order_, 1987.
All of Schelling's texts are cited from the following source: _Werke_
= Schelling's _Saemmtliche Werke_ published by his son, K.F.A.
Schelling, in 1856 and the following years. The pagination from this
edition is still retained by most other editions and scholarly
studies. There are fourteen volumes in this work, divided into two
Parts (_Abtheilungen_). Thus, a typical reference might read
_Werke_I,6: 152, where the respective numbers account for Part,
volume: page. All translations are my own, except where indicated
otherwise.
2. _Cf._, Voegelin, _AR_, 1-4. Also see Barry Cooper's Introduction
to Voegelin's _Political Religions_, T. J. DiNapoli and E. S.
Easterly III, trans. (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986),
vi.
3. _Cf._, Othmar Spann, _Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher
Grundlage_ (Wien: Gallus-Verlag, 1947). For a list of other works by
Spann and Schroeter's assessment of the religion-philosophy, see
William Petropulos, "Eric Voegelin and German Sociology," in
_Manchester Sociology Occasional Papers_, Peter Halfpenny, ed., 50
(February, 1998), 3, and notes 9-14.
4. Voegelin, _CW_2: 150-51, 149. Voegelin is interpreting one of
Schelling's latest works, the "Historical-critical Introduction" to
his _Philosophie der Mythologie_, _Werke_II,1: 65 (Manfred Schroeter
edition with page numbers from the original K. F. A. Schelling
edition).
5. Voegelin, _ibid._, 149, 151, 150. Schelling, _ibid._, 207.
6. _Cf._, _OH_I: 14, 126, 409, 412; _OH_II: 1-14, 18687; _OH_IV: 3,
5. In these passages Voegelin emphasizes the "inner" origin of
mythical symbolization and the impossibility of certain cultures
influencing each other's symbols across vast distances. In doing so,
he leaves behind a common practice among social scientists, which
attempts to find socio-economic causes for all hierophanic symbols.
7. Voegelin, _CW_2: 113.
8. _Ibid._, 150. Voegelin concludes his 1933 remarks on Schelling by
noting (_Ibid._, 153 n. 17) that "[t]he significance of Schelling's
philosophy of mythology for the theory of community is gradually
becoming clear," for example, in Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of
Symbolic Forms (1925) and Gerbrand Dekker's work on Schelling's
return to myth in _Die Rueckwendung zum Mythos: Schellings letzte
Wandlung_(1930).
9. Voegelin, _Political Religions_, _op. cit._, 58.
10. Schelling's most concentrated critique occurs in the "Hegel"
chapter of _Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_. For summary
discussions of this critique see Bernard M. G. Reardon, "Schelling's
Critique of Hegel," _Religious Studies_ 20 (1984): 543- 57; Andrew
Bowie, "Translator's Introduction," _On the History of Modern
Philosophy_(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 23-37; and
Voegelin's "Last Orientation," _CW_25: 213ff.
11. Voegelin, "Plato's Egyptian Myth," _The Journal of Politics_9/3
(August, 1947): 307- 24.
12. _Ibid._, 323, 315, 316.
13. _Ibid._, 323.
14. See, for example, Voegelin's sections on "The Anamnetic
Dialogue" and "Anamnesis and History" in his "Last Orientation,"
_CW_25: 211-13.
15. For Voegelin's further uses of the term "pneumopathological,"
see _NSP_, 139, 169, 186.
16. Voegelin, _NSP_, 113.
17. _Cf._, "LO," 231, 233-34, 237.
18. _NSP_, 124.
19. For discussion of Schelling's reputation, which arose largely
from works published in his youth, see Emil L. Fackenheim, _The God
Within: Kant, Schelling, and Historicity_, John Burbidge, ed.,
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 50-3, 92-3; and Victor
C. Hayes, "Schelling: Persistent Legends, Improving Image," in _The
Southwestern Journal of Philosophy_ 3 (1972): 63-73.
20. Voegelin, _OH_II: 136 n. 2. Schelling develops his own critique
of theosophy, which nonetheless retains a measured respect for its
manifestation in Jakob Boehme. Schelling describes Boehme as "a
miraculous apparition in the history of humanity," words which remind
us of Voegelin's own summary of Schelling in his "Last Orientation,"
but Schelling distinguishes the historical and scientific nature of
his own "positive philosophy" from the thoroughly mystical
speculation of Boehme. See Schelling's _Philosophie der Offenbarung_,
_Werke_II,3: 119-26; and the chapter on Boehme and theosophy in _Zur
Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_. This latter work has been
translated by Andrew Bowie as _On the History of Modern
Philosophy_(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), esp. pp.
164-85.
21. _OH_III: 191. Voegelin takes the notion that every myth has its
truth from Plato's _Epinomis_(_Cf._, _OH_I: 11; _OH_III: 191; and
_CW_12: 93).
22. _OH_III: 186.
23. _Ibid._, 193. This criticism, that Schelling tended to
intellectualize the unconscious depth of the soul, reappears in the
1970 essay "Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History"
(_Cf._, _CW_12: 130). Schelling himself appears to have sensed the
potential for this criticism of his philosophy of consciousness. At
two points in his latest work he qualifies the formula used in his
historical discussion of tensions between unconscious and conscious
dimensions of the soul, saying that this language is merely
hypothetical, a presupposition used to account for the present order
of consciousness. See Schelling, _Philosophie der Mythologie_,
_Werke_II,2: 523; and _Philosophie der Offenbarung_, _Werke_II,4: 8.
24. A similar point, calling attention to God's ineffable majesty,
is also made in Schelling's _Ages of the World_. Even when the
historical differentiation of spiritual truth reaches its apex in
Christian revelation, Schelling argues, "[t]hat highest spirituality
and ineffability of God cannot be changed into intelligibility and
comprehensibility, as water was changed into wine at the Galilean
wedding" (_Die Weltalter_, _Werke_I,8: 256). This statement does not
indicate limitations pertaining only to Christian symbolizations of
the divine; it suggests fundamental limitations in theological
symbolization per se, limitations that must be faced by philosophers
well beyond the experiences that led to Christian types of faith.
25. Voegelin, _OH_III: 193-94.
26. _Ibid._, 92-3, 96, 226-7.
27. See Voegelin, "On Hegel: A Study in Sorcery," _CW_12: 232-33.
This essay was originally published in 1971 as an extended version of
a conference paper that was given in 1969.
28. _OH_III, 192, 193.
29. _Cf._, _OH_III: 171-80.
30. Voegelin, _Wissenschaft, Politik und Gnosis_, (Muenchen: Koesel-
Verlag, 1959), 9. The English edition consulted is _Science, Politics
and Gnosticism_, William J. Fitzpatrick, trans., (Washington, D.C.:
Regnery Gateway, 1990), 3.
31. This reliance is not simply occasional. It resurfaces later for
a similar purpose (_Cf._, _OH_V: 53). Voegelin also credits Baur, not
Schelling, with helping him to understand Hegel as a gnostic
intellectual (_Cf._, "Response to Professor Altizer" [1975], _CW_12:
296).
32. Voegelin, _Wissenschaft, Politik und Gnosis_, _op. cit._, 47,
69; English, 36, 57.
33. Voegelin, "Religionsersatz: Die gnostischen Massenbewegungen
unserer Zeit," in _Wort und Wahrheit_ 15/1 (1960): 5-18. This essay
has been translated as "Ersatz Religion: The Gnostic Mass-Movements
of Our Time" and appended to the English edition of _Science,
Politics and Gnosticism_.
34. Voegelin, _Science, Politics and Gnosticism_, _op. cit._, 95.
35. _Ibid._, 101.
36. _Cf._, "LO," 199.
37. Neither are there any references to this term in the following,
standard referencing sources: the analytical table of contents to
Schelling's _Werke_, the _Historisches Woerterbuch der Philosophie_,
and the _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_(Macmillan and Free Press, 1967-
1972).
38. _Cf._, _FER_, 117, 259, 263, 276. Schelling is not mentioned as
the term's author in any of these early references.
39. Letter from Voegelin to Broerson, dated February 24, 1976 (Eric
Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 8, file 44).
Voegelin's comments to Broerson have been reproduced by the editors
of volume 31 of his _Collected Works_(_Cf._, _CW_31: 101 n. 35).
40. Schelling, _Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur_, _Werke_I,2:
13.
41. Schelling, _Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen_, _Werke_I,7: 469. The
Pfau translation has been used here. See Thomas Pfau, _Idealism and
the Endgame of Theory: Three Essays by F.W.J. Schelling_(New York:
State University of New York Press, 1994), 232.
42. Schelling, _Philosophie der Offenbarung_, _Werke_II,4: 13.
43. Voegelin, "Reason: The Classic Experience," _CW_12: 278;
_Anam._, 102.
44. Voegelin, _Anam.GER_, 53-4; _Anam._, 29- 30.
45. _Anam.GER_, 50-1; _Anam._, 26-7. My comments in brackets reflect
the understanding of Schelling's Potenzenlehre that is found in
Voegelin's "Last Orientation" (_Cf._, _CW_25: 208-09).
46. Schelling's mature understanding of faith is complex, but its
central features tend not to depart greatly from Christian orthodoxy.
See, for example, his discussion of the faith required to interpret
seriously the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, Resurrection and
Ascension (_Philosophie der Offenbarung_, _Werke_II,4: 153-221). In
his "Last Orientation," Voegelin offers a mixed account of
Schelling's understanding of faith, based mainly on passages from
relatively early works: _Ueber das Verhaeltnis der bildenden Kuenste
zu der Natur_, _Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit_ and _System der
gesamten Philosophie_. On the one hand, Voegelin praises Schelling's
ability to regain "the existential meaning of faith against the
decadent Christianity of the enlightened middle class. Faith is not a
belief that something is true; that was Voltaire's conception of
faith, and this faith succumbed to the attack of rational and
historical critique. For Schelling there is no merit in such belief.
Faith [rather] has to be restored to its original meaning (_fides_)
as trust and reliance on the divine that excludes all choice." On the
other hand, Voegelin questions the fleeting nature of the experience
of grace, the "flash of immanent happiness" that allows for faith,
which is also said to characterize Schelling's "Promethean"
understanding of the limitations of faith as a distinctively human
experience ("LO," 222).
47. Voegelin, _OH_IV: 20.
48. _Ibid._, 21.
49. Schelling, _Philosophie der Offenbarung_, _Werke_II,4: 328.
50. _Ibid._, 321, 328, 333.
51. _Ibid._, 331, 327.
52. _Ibid._, 365.
53. _Ibid._, 357, 349.
54. _Ibid._, 352. Schelling has Fichte's ego- based dialectics in
mind here.
55. _Ibid._, 366, 371.
56. _Ibid._, 375ff. Voegelin eventually makes the same claim about
history ("Immortality: Experience and Symbol" [1967], _CW_12: 78),
but he does so in the context of a discussion of how Thomas Aquinas
came to understand the historical Christ as the Lord of all humanity.
57. Voegelin, _FER_, 115, 116.
58. _Ibid._, 117. There are several other references to
"pneumopathology" and "spiritual disease" in this volume (_Cf._, 259,
263, 276). These references indicate that Voegelin knew of the term
already in his History of Political Ideas--though, curiously, it does
not appear in the Schelling chapter of this work.
59. _Ibid._, 116-17.
60. Voegelin, _FER_, 197, 199.
61. _Cf._, Voegelin, "On Hegel: A Study in Sorcery" (1971), _CW_12:
236.
62. _Anam.GER_, 19-20.
63. Voegelin, quoted in Ellis Sandoz, _The Voegelinian
Revolution_(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 77.
This remark is reproduced in _AR_ [1989], 63. Here Voegelin mentions,
in addition, that the original project for a small textbook also
"exploded" due to his studies of the ancient Israelite and ancient
Near Eastern texts that would have to be interpreted in a
comprehensive study of political order in Western history. Despite
these other, technical reasons for the collapse of his original
project, Schelling is increasingly singled out as the major,
theoretical catalyst for the change in program.
64. Voegelin, "Autobiographical Statement At Age EightyTwo," _op.
cit._, 119.
65. Voegelin, _AR_, 64.
66. _Cf._, _OH_IV: Chapter 6.
67. See _CW_28: 241, 243, and 239 (for Voegelin's comment on the
merely stylistic revisions needed for this chapter). The editors for
this volume of the _Collected Works_ confirm that the proposed
chapter on Schelling for the last volume of _Order and History_ was
indeed the same one from the _History of Political Ideas_(_Cf._,
_ibid._, xxiv, n. 11).
68. Voegelin, _OH_V: 50-1.
69. For example, see Paul Tillich, _Mystik und Schuldbewusstsein in
Schelling's philosophischer Entwicklung_(Guetersloh, 1912);
_Mysticism and GuiltConsciousness in Schelling's Philosophical
Development_. Victor Nuovo, trans. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University
Press, 1974); and _The Construction of the History of Religion in
Schelling's Positive Philosophy_. Victor Nuovo, trans. (Lewisburg:
Bucknell University Press, 1974); Othmar Spann,
_Religionsphilosophie: auf Geschichtlicher Grundlage_(Wien: Gallus-
Verlag, 1947); Frederick de Wolfe Bolman, Jr., trans. and ed., _The
Ages of the World_(New York: Columbia University Press, 1942); J.
Gutman, "Introduction" to _Of Human Freedom_. J. Gutman, trans.
(Chicago: Open Court Press, 1936); Walter Schulz, _Die Vollendung des
deutschen Idealismus in der Spaetphilosophie Schellings_. 2nd Ed.
(Pfullingen: Neske, 1975 [c. 1955]); X. Tilliette, _Schelling. Une
philosophie en devenir_(Paris: Vrin, 1970); Victor C. Hayes,
"Schelling: Persistent Legends, Improving Image," in _The
Southwestern Journal of Philosophy_ 3 (1972): 6373; Bernard Reardon,
"Schelling's Critique of Hegel," in _Religious Studies_ 20 (1984):
543-57; and Emil Fackenheim, _The God Within: Kant, Schelling, and
Historicity_. John Burbidge, ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1996 [a collection of essays that were published mainly in the
1950s]). In recent years, the ability of these earlier authors to
distinguish Schelling's thought from German idealism has been
confirmed by Andrew Bowie, "Translator's Introduction," _On the
History of Modern Philosophy_(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994); Edward Allen Beach, _The Potencies of God(s): Schelling's
Philosophy of Mythology_(New York: State University of New York
Press, 1994); Christian Danz, _Die philosophische Christologie F.W.J.
Schellings_. Vol. IX, _Schellingiana_(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
frommann-holzboog, 1996); Slavoj Zizek, _The Abyss of Freedom_(Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997); and Thomas Pfau,
_Idealism and the Endgame of Theory: Three Essays by F.W.J.
Schelling_. Thomas Pfau, trans., intro. & ed. (New York: State
University of New York Press, 1994).
70. _OH_V: 51 n. 2; M. H. Abrams, _Natural Supernaturalism_, (New
York: 1971).
[Download a MSWord version of this article here.]
_______________________
Bibliography Update #14
by
Maben Walter Poirier
_______________________
NOTE: There may be some overlap with Geoffrey Price's recently pub-
lished bibliography, at least, as regards entries prior to the year
2001.
The entries are ordered first by date, then by author's surname, and
finally by title.
SUBJECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Secondary sources: Articles:_
Heilman, Robert Bechtold. "Eric Voegelin: Reminiscences." _The
Southern Review_ (B^aton Rouge, La) XXXII, no. Winter (1996): 147-65.
Allen, Wayne. "Eric Voegelin, Philosopher of Consciousness." _Modern
Age_ XXXIX, no. Spring (1997): 162-5.
Harter, Nathan. "Eric Voegelin on the Authority to Lead." _Modern
Age_ XXXIX, no. Winter (1997): 21-7.
Babin, James. "Eric Voegelin's Recovery of the Remembering Story."
_The Southern Review_ (B^aton Rouge, La) XXXIV, no. 2 (Spring) (1998):
341-66.
Sandoz, Ellis. "Voegelin's Philosophy of History and Human Affairs,
with Particular Attention to _Israel and Revelation_ and Its
Systematic Importance." _Canadian Journal of Political Science_ XXXI,
no. 1 (March 1998): 61-90.
Burchfield, Charles W. "Tensional Language: The Priestly and the
Prophetic." _Modern Age_ XLI, no. 2 (Spring) (1999): 132-40.
McMahon, Robert. "Eric Voegelin's Paradoxes of Consciousness and
Participation." _The Review of Politics_ LXI, no. 1 (Winter) (1999):
117-39.
Nordquest, David A. "Vogelin and Dogmatism: The Case of Natural Law."
_Modern Age_ XLI, no. 1 (Winter) (1999): 32-9.
Russell, Greg. "Hans Morgenthau and Eric Voegelin on the Ethics of
Modernity." _Modern Age_ XLI, no. 3 (Summer) (1999): 230-9.
Mackler, Aaron L. "Universal Being and Ethical Particularity in the
Hebrew Bible: A Jewish Response to Voegelin's _Israel and
Revelation_." _Journal of Religion_ LXXIX, no. 1 (January 1999): 19-
53.
Baird, Marie L. "Eric Voegelin's Vision of Personalism and Emmanuel
Levinas's Ethics of Responsibility: Toward a Post-Holocaust Spiritual
Theology?" _Journal of Religion_ LXXIX, no. 3 (July 1999): 385-403.
Allen, Wayne. "Eric Voegelin on the Genealogy of Race."
_International Philosophical Quarterly_ XXXIX, no. 2 (September
1999): 317-37.
"Eric Voegelin and Voegelin Scholarship." _The Review of Politics_
LXII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 707-830.
Cooper, Barry. "Surveying the Occasional Papers." _The Review of
Politics_ LXII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 727-51.
Henningsen, Manfred. "The Collapse and Retrieval of Meaning." _The
Review of Politics_ LXII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 809-16.
Kromkowski, John A. "History of Political Ideas: Recovering the Text
and Discovering Eric Voegelin As Teacher." _The Review of Politics_
LXII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 777-93.
Maier, Hans, author., and Jodi Cockerill, ed and tr. "Eric Voegelin
and German Political Science." _The Review of Politics_ LXII, no. 4
(Fall) (2000): 709-26.
Porter, Jene M. "The Birth of Modernity." _The Review of Politics_
LXII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 795-808.
Schmitt, Hans A. "Reflections on Hitler: A Review Article." _The
Sewanee Review_ CVIII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 639-48.
Syse, Henrik. "Karl Lowith and Eric Voegelin on Christianity and
History." _Modern Age_ XLII, no. 3 (Summer) (2000): 253-62.
Weiss, Gilbert. "Between Gnosis and Anamnesis: European Perspectives
on Eric Voegelin." _The Review of Politics_ LXII, no. 4 (Fall)
(2000): 753-76.
Heilman, Robert, and Alexander Brock. "Erinnerungen an Eric
Voegelin." _Sinn Und Form: Beitrage Zur Literatur (SuF)_ 53, no. 5
(2001): 623-42.
Henry, Michael D. "Voegelin and Heidegger As Critics of Modernity."
_Modern Age_ 43, no. 2 (Spring) (2001): 118-27.
Opitz, Peter. "'Ordnung Und Geschichte,' Ein Unbekannter Klassiker."
_Sinn Und Form: Beitrage Zur Literatur (SuF)_ 53, no. 5 (2001): 611-
22.
Heilke, Thomas. "From Christendom to Crisis." _The Journal of
Religion_ 81, no. 1 (January 2001): 98-107.
Gerhardt, Volker. "Politik Und Existenz: Eric Voegelins Suche Nach
Der Ordnung in Uns Selbst." _Philosophische-Rundschau_ 48, no. 3
(September 2001): 177-95.
_Secondary sources: Books:_
Sandoz, Ellis, and Michael Henry. _The Voegelinian Revolution: A
Biographical Introduction_ (Second Edition). New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 2000.
Day, Jerry. _Eric Voegelin and the Schelling Renaissance: The
Schellingian Orientation in Voegelin's Later Works, 1952-1985_.
Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, forthcoming.
_Secondary sources: Reviews:_
Richert, Scott P. Review of _Revolt Against Modernity_, by Ted V.
McAllister. _The Review of Metaphysics_, L (March 1997): 675-6.
Holder, R. Ward, and Marc D. Guerra. Review of _History of Political
Ideas: Vol. IV: Renaissance and Reformation_, by Eric Voegelin. _The
Sixteenth Century Journal_, XXX no. 4 (Winter) (1999): 1181-3.
Heilke, Thomas. Review of _History of Political Ideas: Vol. I:
Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity_, by Eric Voegelin. _Journal
of Religion_, LXXIX no. 1 (January 1999): 136-8.
________. Review of _History of Political Ideas: Vol. II: The Middle
Ages to Aquinas_, by Eric Voegelin. _Journal of Religion_, LXXIX no.
2 (April 1999): 291-2.
________. Review of _The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin: Vol. V:
Modernity Without Constraint: The Political Religions, The New
Science of Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism_, by Eric
Voegelin. _Journal of Church and State_, XLII no. 3 (Summer) (2000):
568-9.
Schmitt, Hans A. "Reflections on Hitler: A Review Article." _The
Sewanee Review_ CVIII, no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 639-48.
_Tertiary sources: Articles:_
Burchfield, Charles W. "Tensional Language: The Priestly and the
Prophetic." _Modern Age_ XLI, no. 2 (Spring) (1999): 132-40.
_Tertiary sources: Reviews:_
Sills, Clarence F. Jr. Review of _Eric Voegelin and the Good
Society_, by John J. Ranieri. _The Journal of Politics_, LIX
(February 1997): 282-4.
McCarl, Steven R. Review of _Eric Voegelin and the Good Society_, by
John J. Ranieri. _The American Political Science Review_, 91 (March
1997): 177-8.
Richert, Scott P. Review of _Revolt Against Modernity_, by Ted V.
McAllister. _The Review of Metaphysics_, L (March 1997): 675-6.
Minogue, Kenneth. Review of _Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of
Modern Political Science_, by Barry Cooper. _The Times Literary
Supplement_ no. 5047 (December 24, 1999): 10.
Cockerill, Jodi. Review of _Eric Voegelin_, by Thomas W. Heilke. _The
Review of Politics_, LXII no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 817-20.
McAllister, Ted V. Review of _Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of
Modern Political Science_, by Barry Cooper. _The Review of Politics_,
LXII no. 4 (Fall) (2000): 820-3.
Rhodes, James M. Review of _Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of
Modern Political Science_, by Barry Cooper. _The American Political
Science Review_, 94 no. 1 (March 2000): 166-7.
McMylor, Peter. Review of _Consciousness and Transcendence: The
Theology of Eric Voegelin_, by Michael P. Morrissey. _Religion_, XXX
no. 4 (October 2000): 413-4.
_____//\_____
\//
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--------- Archive Address: vax2.concordia.ca/~vorenews ----------
======================================================================
Dr. M.W. Poirier |
Dept. of Political Science |
Concordia University |
Loyola Campus |
7141 Sherbrooke Street W. |
MONTREAL, Quebec |
H4B 1R6 |
E-Mail: poirmw@Vax2.Concordia.Ca |
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