Current Seminar:
• Voegelin’s Anamnesis
10/14/2006
Part II, chap. 6 - Reason: The Classic Experience; chap. 7 - Eternal Being in Time
Joanne Tetlow
Voegelin explains philosophy and history as noetic consciousness. The differentiating experience of reason by Plato and Aristotle changed the
compact nature of human understanding and existence. Never to return, the eruption of "reason" in the classical sense was a development that
changed the course of human history. It was not the only development of reason, but it was a foundational one. Voegelin's goal in
Anamnesis is to show the meditative structure of consciousness which gives rise to the symbols of philosophy and history. Starting with
the Stoics and continuing thereafter, the originating experiences of meaning behind the discovery of "reason" have been lost because of the opaque
encrusting of dogma, systems, logic, and the like. In order to understand the divine flowing presence of truth in the metaxy, we must understand
philosophy and the history of philosophy on its own terms, from within its own existential, concrete dimensions. To be sure, there is nothing
abstract about reality, philosophy, God, history, or politics. It is not a question of thinking the right ideas and concepts, but rather "being"
the right kind of person. As Parmenides stated: thinking and being are the same thing. The more "reason" we have as an experience of the
opening of our soul to the ground of our existence (transcendent), the more "reason" we have. Similarly, by casting philosophy, history, and
politics in terms of "objects" or "theories" or "systems" we have a loss of "being" and a loss of "reason." Subject-object relation has been
so accepted we do not realize the loss of being.
Typical of man, we objectify and literalize the symbols of philosophy so we can manipulate them and control the reality in which we participate
and in which we know deep down we cannot control. God as beyond time and temporal existence cannot be captured by a theory, a metaphysic, or
logical propositions. Yet, he is not the distant God. The noetic experience of consciousness where human and divine nous meet is
a participatory event, and it is here we understand the truth, something we have always known, because we have always participated in a reality
suffused with divine revelation. We do not construct philosophy, history, or politics, we discover the truth of it by the opening of our soul
and mind to the transcendent. This pre-analytical posture is not easy. It requires discarding the fiercely held pre-suppositional dogmas
which enclose our understanding of reality. These dogmas also prevent us from understanding history and the unfolding of the differentiation
of classical reason and the further differentiation of Christianity.
This is Voegelin's great contribution to us-to be wary of explaining philosophy and revelation in "object" form-to be wary of literalizing life
via logic, texts, and analysis. It is not that concepts have no use, but it is that concepts are misunderstood. Most philosophers only
rely on concepts rather than the noetic consciousness of the philosopher himself-his psyche (sense of the transcendent) is the key. Concepts
refer to "thing-reality," those objects that exist in time; whereas, symbols refer to "it-reality," that which is not a "thing" in time, but is the
mutual participation of divine and human nous. Noetic consciousness and experience cannot be manipulated: experience is what it is and
the truth of it has common authorization. Life cannot be understood except through the reality of experience. Thus, philosophical
understanding of human reality can only be captured by indices, not metaphysical categories. When an individual becomes aware of something,
when something dawns in the human consciousness, it is experienced in a spiritual, mystical way. Expression of it in metaphysical concepts of
potency and act are not what come to mind. Besides, the experience is not in object form. Justice, truth, and love are not objects somewhere
in the stratosphere. They exist in concrete persons and experiences. Rejecting universal categories, Voegelin furnishes us with an index
of levels of differentiating noetic experiences of consciousness. His crucial idea of "metaxy" of the "in-between" state we live in helps us
realize that the "tension of being" is inescapable. It cannot be removed by metaphysical or logical certainty. It cannot be removed by
ideological constructions; it cannot be removed by literalization of texts. The metaxy is the realm of the spiritual; it is where the mutual
participation of human in divine reality and divine in human reality occurs. It is the realm of noetic and pneumatic consciousness. It
is only in this participation of divine and human nous and the human response to the pull of the divine that philosophy and revelation
occur. The original meaning of the symbols has been lost; (e.g., thinking the Word of God is a text), and the experience of noetic consciousness
of revelation and philosophy has led to the deformation of order and political reality. In other words, what we understand to be true, to be
the source of order, to be the divine cannot occur outside of our noetic consciousness. The discovery of reason allows that understanding to
be internal not external-god is not in nature, he is transcendent. Yet, he is eternal being in time.
Philosophy and reason are part of the same structure of consciousness as faith and revelation. They both are part of the same whole, the
same eternal reality. This cannot be expressed in eristics, the speculative thought of Marx's socialist man. It is concrete experience
of historical, empirical materials interacting with consciousness. It is the constant search and openness to truth in our psyche where reason
becomes a luminous force and a criterion of order. The concrete nature of reason and noetic consciousness is amplified by Voegelin's
statement: "Eternal being realizes itself in time." This chapter reveals the interplay of philosophy and history in a way that is beyond
subject-object delineations. History started a long time before the differentiation of reason in the classical philosopher, yet it is in history
where philosophy can explain the experience of realizing the eternal in time. The three phenomena of spiritual outburst, ecumenic empire, and
historiography are the configuration where the tension of being between time and eternity, and the soul and its order take place. The nonobjective
nature of this experience is expressed in the poles of tension-it is a field where the flowing presence of the eternal manifests itself in noetic
consciousness. When we realize the eternal being in time, we realize the tension of being and existence and the limitation of our horizon.
Reason and philosophy symbolize the differentiation of our being from the cosmos. We are separate yet part of it. We can expand or
contract. We can be philosophers and experience the transparency of the eternal and expansion or be spiritually dull, compact, and closed.
To conclude, Voegelin gives us his theory of consciousness as an expression of the unity of thinking and being-reason and experience, philosophy and
history. It is a flow of presence to which we are either opened or closed within our noetic consciousness which determines where we are on the
index of divine-human encounter. The more "reason" we have by understanding human existence in terms of its originating source and the limitations
of its horizon, the more "being" we possess, and the more true reality we experience of the eternal being in time.
Chap. 6 - Reason: The Classic Experience
Kieran Dickinson
Aristotle, Socrates and Plato resisted the disorder of their age through the experience and exploration of the movements of a force that structured
the psyche of man and enabled it to resist disorder: what they called nous. The reality these philosophers experienced as
specifically human is man's existence in a state of unrest. Man is a questioner for the where-to and the where-from of his existence and
ground. In Plato and Aristotle, "the questioning unrest carries the assuaging answer within itself inasmuch as man is moved to his search of
the ground by the divine ground of which is he in search. The ground is not a spatially distant thing but a divine presence that becomes
manifest in the experience of unrest and the desire to know." Philosophy is not a set of ideas or opinions but man's responsive pursuit of his
questioning unrest to the divine source that has aroused it.
For the classical philosophers, nous or reason is by its nature linked to the divine order in the cosmos. It is not a purely human faculty
that exists independent from the tension toward the ground. (Cf., Fides et Ratio, John Paul II.) By contrast, closure to the divine
leads to disorder. The health or disease of existence makes itself felt in the "tonality" of the unrest. For Aristotle, the unrest was
joyful - the beginning of a theophany in which he nous reveals itself. The unrest of later philosophers, however, who ignored the ground was
full of fear, angst, anxiety.
Life and death is the key tension in which man must live. For Socrates, philosophizing was preparation for death, whereas for Aristotle it
was the practice of immortalizing. Man is an unfinished being who moves from the imperfection of death in this life to the perfection of life
in death. The tension between life and death has been the subject of much misunderstanding, especially when the tension has been reduced to an
uncritical tension between reason and passions. In fact the reason why man should follow reason over passions is that reason leads to immortalizing
while the passions when not subjected to reason lead to death. The psyche is the battleground between the forces of life and death, and God
gives life only to those who choose it.
Chap. 7 - Eternal Being in Time
David Alexander
If it is true that eternal being realizes itself in time, then the concept of history as a thing or essence that we can observe in detachment
is "no longer at ease." Then it is necessary to think in terms of a "constitution of being," which includes our own beings, so that when we
speak of observing, we speak as conscious actors and not as actors with a mask of "objectivity" denying our involvement in the drama of life.
Four
relationships are identified which bring order to the constitution of being:
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Philosophy as phenomenon in the field of history- Eternal being realizes itself in time with or without philosophy, and did so for
thousands of years in human history before philosophers appeared. So, philosophy and the appearance of philosophers (not their hygiene
but their manifestation) is a phenomenon in the field of history, a "spiritual outburst."
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Philosophy as a constituent of history- Philosophy has a specific relevance to the field of history because it is in the phenomenal event of
philosophy that consciousness is raised to the awareness of and harmonious relationship with, or realization of, eternal being in time.
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History as a constituent of philosophy- On the other hand, philosophy is not merely history but an encounter with eternal being compellingly
experienced in the historical continuum, and philosophers in human anthropology are best understood as those who are most receptive and
lovingly responsive to eternity in the heart.
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History as a sphere of phenomena for philosophical investigation- Philosophy however, is not the only kind of experience of the transcendant
but it is differentiated from the others in that the "logos of realization becomes transparent" in it through the use of the symbols which
comprise philosophic language. The illumination of the logos through means of philosophic language enables us to study the logos in
non-philosophic experiences of transcendence as well, thus opening up a field of inquiry. Voegelin's labor is thus implicitly through
the philosophic world of symbols to help illuminate the logos to his readers which they can then see in non-philosophic contexts.
Voegelin apparently sees himself in essential continuity with Plato's concept of the metaxy, which the Eric Voegelin Shorter Glossary defines as
"Plato's In-Between; between subject and object, time and the timeless, human and divine; the metaleptic reality", the place of the tension between
these two poles. But this seems to be distinct from the view of Plato that is currently popularly espoused which pictures Plato's ideals as
innocent of the empirical. He sees development of comparative studies as having brought about a new capacity to carry Plato's concept further.
Voegelin notes that Christianity derived much of its dynamism from apologetic differentiation in encounters with rival faiths, it seems to me, so
I just note here that applying Voegelin's philosophic anthropology to men like perhaps the world's most prominent atheist Richard Dawkins (who
will be speaking at Politics and Prose this month) one might say that Dawkins is in effect promoting a collapse of the metaxy and a lessening of
mankind by denying the validity of the continuum that Voegelin continually writes about. This of course assumes the existence of eternal being.
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