1001Philosophers

Eric Voegelin Quotes on Politics

Eric Voegelin was a German-American political philosopher whose work ranged from political theology to a vast philosophy of history. This page collects quotes attributed to Eric Voegelin on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Eric Voegelin:

    “Order in society is the reflection of order in the soul.”

  • Attributed to Eric Voegelin:

    “Modern Gnosticism is the attempt to immanentize the eschaton.”

  • Attributed to Eric Voegelin:

    “Reason itself is a force in the constitution of human community.”

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

    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. 131”

    The death of the spirit is the price of progress.
  • “Eric Voegelin (1999), Science, Politics, and Gnosticism in The Collected Works, Vol. 5: Modernity Without Restraint , edited by Manfred Henningsen, ISBN 082621245X , p. 273.”

    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.