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To cite this article: Eric Harold Wainwright (1979) The zetema of Eric Voegelin: symbol and experience in political reality,
Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 6:1, 80-84, DOI: 10.1080/02589347908704752
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DISSERTATION AND THESIS/
VERHANDELING EN PROEFSKRIF
Summan; of doctoral thesis.
in the past, the present, and the future. "shells" seeking for a substance with which they could be
During the period of the Israelite Empire, there begaa filled. On the other hand, the uprooted cosmic societies,
the prophetic revolt against the political order of Israel, in deprived of the traditional meaning of their existence,
which a new personal relation of the individual to God partly responded by an outburst of universal spirituality
received form. The revolt is presented as an exodus of the that, in turn, formed movements "in search of a people
spiritual Israel from the pragmatic Israel, and the type whose order they could become. 'This millenial process
becomes a symbolic form when the carriers of meaning of dissociation of order", Voegelin remarks (IV, p. 145),
release themselves from the concrete societies of their "its vicissitudes to the end in the rise of orthodox imperial
birth to develop a religious outlook for all men. civilizations, is what we have called the Ecumenic Age".
And it is symbolic of a new view in that the "existence of
The Order of Wisdom things is reduced to power; and the process itself is
The order of wisdom is the philosophical attitude, in hypostatized into a powerful existent thing. The mystery of
which the criterion for a public order is the private ethical reality has been deformed into a power game by which
order of an individual who has knowledge of the good. the power of the process keeps itself in existence" (IV,
Voegelin has traced the growth of the attitude from the p. 201).
mythopoetic writers of Hellas to Plato and Aristotle in
terms of the experience of the political community of the The Order of Consciousness
Greek po/is. The polis was the form to which the History is the structured flow within which man's
philosophers gave symbolic value as it was the crucible of consciousness perceives the four orders of his existence,
experience of disorder, and from the disorder both poets and, politically speaking, he then builds political forms
and philosophers built up the notion of a private order that are analogous to the order apprehended at any one
that was construed as an act of resistance to the public period in time. In a sense the order of time is understood
disorder in which the po/is existed at that time. The act of to lie behind the orders of existence as a subconscious
resistance is personal and it issues in the privacy of a imprint and when time comes to the fore in conscious
personal orderof existence; thus.itisboth therapeutic for thought an attempt is made to realize on earth an order
the individual and soteriological for those that would whose authority is derived from beyond the now (metaxy)
listen to him. The idea of the philosopher-king of Plato as of man's being. Voegelin calls these attempts to create a
a saviour is not "the singular opinion and the isolated blueprint of Utopia metastatic and believes that they are
personal feeling that it is often taken for. It seems rather to meant to exist as paradigms and his search for the order
be the high crest of a wave of consciousness sweeping of history is meant to clarify the components of the
over the East and the West, leading first to a spiritual Western symbolic form. The venture is conceived of as a
revolution in which there appeared saviors who were history of man's attempts to find the source of order and
thought to be sages and then to a political revolution in to create an analogy of this order in his political forms.
which there appeared kings who were thought to be This venture led to Voegelin's elucidation of the nature
saviors" (Dunne, 1974, p. 110). But, although Plato of political theory in an attempt to clarify the questions to
established the academy as a school for future leaders of be asked (1966, pp. 283-354). Briefly the main point of
the polis, the personal order of existence became a thing his essay may be stated as: The source of theoretical
apart from the public affairs of the polis and Aristotle knowledge is the human consciousness that experiences
retired his philosopher into the stellar regions of the bios the tensions of existence within the boundaries of a
theoreSkoi. In this way, the private order became particular and peculiar political order. Consciousness
divorced from any relevance for the public order, and it encompasses not only the activities that are carried out in
became accepted that the good man need not necessarily this existence, i.e. the fact of being in the order, but also
be a good citizen and vice versa. the passions, opinions, subconscious motivations for the
activities that are carried out in bringing the order into
The Order of Universal Humanity being and sustaining it. The central problem thus is not
The final symbol of order is found in the combination the formation of theoretical problems in terms of morality
of the pragmatic oikoumene and the spiritual outburst and values, which invite empiricist restrictions on the one
that recognizes the extensiveness of the ecumene. On the hand and theoretically untenable speculation on the
basis of his examination of the self-interpretation of the other, but the "return" from symbols that have "lost their
ecumenic empires, Voegelin concluded that these were meaning" to the analysis of the "experiences which
political structures sui generis, and cut across the constitute meaning". Voegelin notes that this approach is
boundaries of the civilized world of cosmic or personal "so generally recognizable as the problem of the present
order. Concomitant with the establishment of the that specific references are unnecessary". (IV, p. 58). An
pragmatic empires, there were parallel spiritual outbursts aspect of the experiences that constitute meaning are the
that endeavoured to express the unity of humanity. He opinions upon which political orders have been structured
disclosed that the ecumene itself had two symbolic and, in this sense, opinions become a proper subject of
meanings: first, it means the actual or potential unification empirical inquiry, as they are a part of a society's self-
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understanding. The historical documents that record such nature, which two forms constitute Being. These aspects
opinions are the sources for the theoretical analysis of reality demand that man explore their dimensions
specifically of the society's "preanalytical" self- through noetic experience and through the theophanies
interpretation, and to enquire critically, that is analytically, that the ultimate Reality has shown to man. Because
into the nature of political reality and into the structure of man's nature does not change, the experiences that
order requires a consciousness capable of experiencing issued from previous explorations of the noetic and
this reality at a distance from the pre-analytical self- theophanic depth of the structure of Being are relevant
understanding of the society. This kind of consciousness, for modern times and it is necessary to understand these
which must be of the transcendent source of order itself, is experiences so as to keep in being the Western symbolic
"philosophical consciousness", which produces form. This form has been distorted almost beyond
symbolisms as the adequate form of expressing its own recognition by the derailment of philosophy from the
uderstanding. The process of forming adequate symbols course originally laid down for it by the first philosophers
to express critical understanding of order is the noetic in recorded history, and part of the modem ailment - the
process, which can be tested in the crucible of experience question of alienation, the failure to recognize the telos
and verified through its conformity to or deviation from
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flow of history becomes the unceasing effort of a the answers to the questions that are formulated within its
consciousness turned in upon itself, trying to grasp itself in framework, the time has come to change the paradigm
its deepest condition of being so that it may give meaning itself. But Voegelin believes that the wrong questions are
to itself. In this way Voegelin has linked a philosophy of being asked and he has re-oriented his analysis towards
consciousness with ingredients from philosophies of what Germino calls the "critical study of the principles of
structure, flow, symbolic forms, and order, and has right order in human social existence" where such
established these elements as the constituents of the life principles are rooted "in the inwardness of human
of reason. Such a life, though different in outward form experience" and are tested by "meditatively re-enacting
and dispersed in time, is a continuity because it refers to the experience" that is being analysed (1967, p. 6).
the same tetos, and thus the zetemas of the past are If Voegelin's analysis is correct, then criteria of order
relevant for modem society precisely because of this can be theoretically ascertained, not as values and norms,
element of continuity. but as facts of existence in political society. The obvious
The shared universe of the life of reason is based on parallel with the natural sciences must have two major
the historical pattern of man's experiencesoforderandof qualifications:
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his interpretation of them in which the pattern receives (1) existential order is not an order of physical nature,
symbolic form through the representational efforts of the and
men who are able to articulate the meaning of the form. (2) history, historical change of a fundamentally non-
Among such men the life of reason is the dominant type predictive type is an essential part of the existential
because it allows man to assess the experiences of order experienced by man in society.
different forms of political organizations in terms of which It follows that noetic analysis cannot yield absolute
one best actualizes the potentialities of human nature. values or eternal norms; it is a continuing process of
Precisely because human nature does not change, the inquiry with its failues as well as its successes, and it is
efforts of previous thinkers to assess the experiences of confined to the limits of human knowledge.
order are relevant for today's society. Voegelin places Voegelins' political philosophy shows two features that
himself squarely in the tradition of the life of reason, and are of importance in formulating the principles of a
he has entered a powerful plea for the revival of the political order. These are:
life of reason in modern industrial society. (1) there is now in existence a rigorous type of politicial
The position taken in this Thesis is that the life of theory that has little to do with the establishment of
reason asithasbeen described by Voegelin is relevant to absolute norms or values and other "unprovable
man's existence in the international and national disorder problems". It has demonstrated its capabilities for
of the age, where the standards upon which the West dealing with the traditional questions of political
originally based its political forms have dissolved into a philosophy beyond the empirical study of the how
morass of relativism. Voegelin has said that the classical and why. and
political philosophy was the first to take up the zetema (2) despite its methodological and philosophical
into the subject of order, and that within this conceptual sophistication and its incorporation of a wide range
concern there lie many lessons for modem man; and, in of twentieth-century historical and other research,
particular, the lesson that "systems" of political philosopy the philosophy is within the tradition of the great
that postulate a te/osfor man-in-a-state-of-perfection are political thinkers of the Western culture and has
gnostic perversions of the elements of the truth that were also made an attempt to bring the East within the
discovered by the classical thinkers. Voegelin has ex- same theoretical orientation.
ercised an enormous influence on the few thinkers who Finally, it may be said the Voegelin has supplied the
have bothered to read his work carefully and to try to conceptual apparatus, and it is now for his successors to
understand what he is doing in his zetema into the order use it so as to gain a greater understanding of the
of history, and a few papers in fields other than that of existence of man in community.
political philosophy are showing the extent to which his
influence is spreading.
REFERENCES
CONCLUSION Dunne, J. (1974), The cities of the Gods, London,
In conclusion. Voegelin has answered the question: Sheldon Press.
what is political science? anew out of a radically re- Geomino, D. (1967), Beyond Ideology: the revival of
oriented reconsideration of the question: what is political political theory. New York. Harper & Row.
theory and what cognitive avenues lead to its critical Voegelin, E. (1966). Anamnesis, Munich Paper.
understanding? It is a truism to say that if the paradigm of Voegelin, E. (1975). The Ecumenic Age. Baton Rouse,
any particular discipline is no longer adequate to provide Louisiana State University Press.
83
accounts for a specific policy, the interrelation between during this period. An explanation of the prominent
internal and external factors also is examine. differences between his and previous policies also
The research concentrates on specific issues during this therefore can be found in his individual perceptions and
period and includes an analysis of Verwoerd's policy interpretations. Because of his intransigent ideological
towards the Commonwealth, the Protectorates, the Black convictions about racial matters, the external behaviour of
African states, Rhodesia, and the United Nations. In the the state was dominated completely by his domestic
last chapter the emphasis falls on a number of aspects policy of separate development. The increasing
that were consistently present in his policy decisions. international isolation that the Republic was experiencing
The study reveals that the role and influence of during the late sixties may be regarded as a direct result of
Verwoerd's personality was the single most important this domestic racial policy,
factor that influenced South Africa's external behaviour
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