Frasi di Eric Voegelin

"Destino dell'uomo non è possedere la propria umanità, bensì preoccuparsi di realizzarla interamente."

Eric Voegelin



Eric Hermann Wilhelm Voegelin è stato un filosofo, politologo e storico tedesco naturalizzato statunitense.

Filosofo della politica, Voegelin nacque a Colonia, in Germania, studiò Scienze Politiche all'Università di Vienna, dove si laureò con Hans Kelsen e Othmar Spann. Divenne insegnante e in seguito professore associato di Scienze Politiche alla Facoltà di Legge. Nel 1938 fuggì insieme alla moglie dalla Germania nazista, emigrando negli Stati Uniti dove entrambi divennero cittadini nel 1944. Spese gran parte della sua carriere accademica alla Louisiana State University, all'Università di Monaco e all'Hoover Institution della Stanford University. È noto per aver reinterpretato sia la storia della filosofia moderna che la storia moderna, culminate nei totalitarismi del XX secolo, come storia dello gnosticismo in quanto antitesi del Cristianesimo. Wikipedia  

✵ 3. Gennaio 1901 – 19. Gennaio 1985
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Eric Voegelin frasi celebri

“Destino dell'uomo non è possedere la propria umanità, bensì preoccuparsi di realizzarla interamente.”

Origine: Da Equivalenze di esperienza e simbolizzazione nella storia, in Aa. Vv., Eternità e storia. I valori permanenti nel divenire storico, Vallecchi, Firenze, 1970.

“Le ideologie non hanno alcuna attinenza con la scienza.”

Origine: Da Anamnesis. Teoria della storia e della politica, traduzione di C. Amirante, Giuffrè, Milano, 1972.

Eric Voegelin: Frasi in inglese

“It is not the fear of a particular critical concept, like Hegel's Idea, it is rather the fear of critical analysis in general. Submission to critical argument at any point might lead to the recognition of an order of the logos, of a constitution of being, and the recognition of such an order might reveal the revolutionary idea of Marx, the idea of establishing a realm of freedom and of changing the nature of man through revolution, as the blasphemous and futile nonsense which it is.”

Origine: "From Enlightenment to Revolution" (1975), p. 260
Contesto: But it is useless to subject this hash of uncritical language to critical questioning. We can make no sense of these sentences of Engels unless we consider them as symptoms of a spiritual disease. As a disease, however, they make excellent sense for, with great intensity, they display the symptoms of logophobia, now quite outspokenly as a desperate fear and hatred of philosophy. We even find named the specific object of fear and hatred: it is "the total context of things and of knowledge of things." Engels, like Marx, is afraid that the recognition of critical conceptual analysis might lead to the recognition of a "total context," of an order of being and perhaps even of cosmic order, to which their particular existences would be subordinate. If we may use the language of Marx: a total context must not exist as an autonomous subject of which Marx and Engels are insignificant predicates; if it exists at all, it must exist only as a predicate of the autonomous subjects Marx and Engels. Our analysis has carried us closer to the deeper stratum of theory that we are analysing at present, the meaning of logophobia now comes more clearly into view. It is not the fear of a particular critical concept, like Hegel's Idea, it is rather the fear of critical analysis in general. Submission to critical argument at any point might lead to the recognition of an order of the logos, of a constitution of being, and the recognition of such an order might reveal the revolutionary idea of Marx, the idea of establishing a realm of freedom and of changing the nature of man through revolution, as the blasphemous and futile nonsense which it is.

“Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man's loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it.”

Eric Voegelin (1999), Science, Politics, and Gnosticism in The Collected Works, Vol. 5: Modernity Without Restraint, edited by Manfred Henningsen, , p. 273.
Contesto: Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man's loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it. Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the Gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one.

“It is impossible to understand the graveness of the Western crisis unless we realize that the cultivation of values beyond Littré's formula of civilization as the dominion of man over nature and himself by means of science is considered by broad sectors of Western society to be a kind of mental deficiency.”

Origine: "From Enlightenment to Revolution" (1975), p. 139
Contesto: The criterion of integral sanity [for Littré] is the acceptance of Positivism in its first stage. The criteria of decadence or decline are (1) a faith in transcendental reality, whether it expresses itself in the Christian form or in that of a substitute religion, (2) the assumption that all human faculties have a legitimate urge for public expression in a civilization, and (3) the assumption that love can be a legitimate guiding principle of action, taking precedence before reason. This diagnosis of mental deficiency is of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. It is not the isolated diagnosis of Littré; it is rather the typical attitude toward the values of Western civilization which has continued among "intellectual positivists" from the time of Mill and Littré down to the neo-Positivistic schools of the Viennese type. Moreover, it has not remained confined to the schools but has found popular acceptance to such a degree that this variant of Positivism is today one of the most important mass movements. It is impossible to understand the graveness of the Western crisis unless we realize that the cultivation of values beyond Littré's formula of civilization as the dominion of man over nature and himself by means of science is considered by broad sectors of Western society to be a kind of mental deficiency.

“Enlightened utilitarianism is but the first in a series of totalitarian, sectarian movements to be followed later by Positivism, Communism and National Socialism.”

Origine: "From Enlightenment to Revolution" (1975), p. 52
Contesto: The tenacity of faith in this complex of ideas is certainly not caused by its merits as an adequate interpretation of man and society. The inadequacy of a pleasure-pain psychology, the poverty of utilitarian ethics, the impossibility of explaining moral phenomena by the pursuit of happiness, the uselessness of the greatest happiness of the greatest number as a principle of social ethics - all these have been demonstrated over and over again in a voluminous literature. Nevertheless, even today this complex of ideas holds a fascination for a not inconsiderable number of persons. This fascination will be more intelligible if we see the complex of sensualism and utilitarianism not as number of verifiable propositions but as the dogma of a religion of socially immanent salvation. Enlightened utilitarianism is but the first in a series of totalitarian, sectarian movements to be followed later by Positivism, Communism and National Socialism.

“We see again confirmed the correlation between spiritual impotence and antirationalism: one cannot deny God and retain reason.”

in reference to Marx and Comte, p. 298
"From Enlightenment to Revolution" (1975)

“Christ is the head of the corpus mysticum, which includes all men from the beginning of the world to its end. He is not the president of a special-interest club.”

Eric Voegelin (1999), The Collected Works, Vol. 31: Hitler and the Germans, edited and translated by Detlev Clemens and Brandon Purcell, ISBN 0826212166, p. 200.

“The course of history as a whole is no object of experience; history has no eidos, because the course of history extends into the unknown future.”

Eric Voegelin (1987), The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, ISBN 0226861147, p. 120

“The death of the spirit is the price of progress.”

Eric Voegelin (1987), The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, ISBN 0226861147, p. 131

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