The Politics of the Soul Eric Voegelin on Religious Experience

by Hughes, Glenn; Franz, Michael; McKnight, Stephen A.; Morrissey, Michael P.; Petropulos, William; Price, Geoffrey L.; Ranieri, John J.; Thompson, William M.

• ISBN13: 9780847692323
• ISBN10: 0847692329
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-23
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

The Politics of the Soul: Eric Voegelin on Religious Experience includes eight essays examining one of the most profound studies of religious experience to appear in the last century: that of the political philosopher Eric Voegelin. Voegelin is increasingly recognized as a political theorist of exceptional scope and erudition and the most important philosopher of his time since Toynbee, and his treatment of religious experience is a crucial part of his overall analysis of existence and history. This collection of essays by prominenet Voegelin scholars is the first book to explore the relevance of that analysis to the contemporary understanding of political theory, theology, history, and philosophy of consciousness, and as such it constitutes a significant contribution not only to Voegelin scholarship but to the current quest for theoretical foundations.

Author Biography

Michael Franz is associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Loyola College, Maryland Glenn Hughes is associate professor of philosophy at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas Stephen A. McKnight is professor of European intellectual and cultural history at the University of Florida in Gainesville Michael P. Morrissey is research assistant for the Institute of Reading Development in Novato, California William Petropulos has taught at the Geschwister-Scholl Institute for Political Science at the University of Munich where he is secretary of the Eric-Voegelin-Archiv-Gesellschaft e. V Geoffrey L. Price is the founder and current director of the Centre for Voegelin Studies at the University of Manchester, where he holds the position of senior lecturer in theological studies John J. Ranieri is assistant professor of philosophy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey William M. Thompson is professor of theology at Duquesne University and currently is president of the Catholic Society of America

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(10)
Part I: Religious Experience and the Human Condition
Voegelin, Religious Experience, and Immortality	11	(22)
Michael P. Morrissey
Grounding Public Discourse: The Contribution of Eric Voegelin	33	(32)
John J. Ranieri
The Epiphany of Universal Humanity	65	(22)
Geoffrey L. Price
Part II: The Priority of Meditation
The Person as Imago Dei: Augustine and Max Scheler in Eric Voegelin's Herrschaftslehre and Political Religions	87	(28)
William Petropulos
Philosophy and Mediation: Notes on Eric Voegelin's View	115	(24)
William M. Thompson
Part III: Spiritual Sources of Order and Disorder
Brothers under the Skin: Voegelin on the Common Experiential Wellsprings of Spiritual Order and Disorder	139	(24)
Michael Franz
Balanced and Imbalanced Consciousness	163	(22)
Glenn Hughes
Voegelin's Challenge to Modernity's Claim to Be Scientific and Secular: The Ancient Theology and the Dream of Innerworldly Fulfillment	185	(22)
Stephen A. McKnight
Bibliography	207	(14)
Index	221	(8)
About the Contributors	229