Order and History"This second volume of Voegelin's magisterial Order and History, The World of the Polis, explores the ancient Greek symbolization of human reality. Taking us from the origins of Greek culture in the Pre-Homeric Cretan civilizations, through the Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod, and the rise of philosophy with the Pre-Socratics Parmenides and Heraclitus, this masterful work concludes with the historians of the classical period. In The World of the Polis, Voegelin traces the emergence of the forms of the city-state and of philosophy from the ancient symbolism of myth. He maintains that the limits and ultimate goals of human nature are constant and that the central problem of every society is the same--"to create an order that will endow the fact of its existence with meaning in terms of ends divine and human". Thus, Voegelin shows how "the meaning of existence" achieved concrete expression in the typical political, social, and religious institutions of Greece and in the productions of its poets and thinkers. He deals with more than fifty Greek writers in the course of his analysis of the rise of myth and its representation of the divine order of the cosmos as the first great symbolic form of order, one later supplanted by the leap in being reflected in the emergence of philosophy.The book is a tour de force, a virtuoso performance by a scholar and philosopher of great power, learning, and imagination that places its subject matter in a new light. The editor's critical introduction places The World of the Polis in the broader context of Voegelin's philosophy of history. Scholars and students of political science, philosophy, and the history of ideas will find this work invaluable". -- |
Contents
1 | |
Preface | 53 |
Mankind and History | 67 |
Part One Cretans Achaeans and Hellenes | 91 |
Hellas and History | 93 |
2 The Hellenic Consciousness of History | 99 |
The Cretan and Achaean Societies | 120 |
Homer and Mycenae | 135 |
But I say unto you | 270 |
Parmenides | 274 |
Doxa | 285 |
Heraclitus | 292 |
The Philosophy of Order | 301 |
Conclusions | 311 |
Part Three The Athenian Century | 315 |
Tragedy | 317 |
2 Order and Disorder | 144 |
Part Two From Myth to Philosophy | 179 |
The Hellenic Polis | 181 |
Sympoliteia | 189 |
Hesiod | 195 |
The Works and Days Invocation and Exhortation | 206 |
The Ages of the World | 213 |
The Apocalypse | 223 |
The Break with the Myth | 234 |
2 Xenophanes Attack on the Myth | 240 |
The Aretai and the Polis | 254 |
The Eunomia of Solon | 264 |
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Common terms and phrases
accepted Achaean Achilles action Aeschylus appears argument Aristotle assumed Athenian Athens authority become beginning called cause century civilization common conception concerned considered constitutional continued course created culture death developed Dike divine empire existence experience expressed fact find first force fragments further gods Greek hand Hellas Hellenic Hence Heraclitus Herodotus Hesiod Homer human idea important interest interpretation king Knossos knowledge later live Logos mankind meaning Moreover mortals myth nature Nevertheless Nomos occasion opposition organization origin parallel Parmenides Persian philosophers Plato poet polis political present preserved principle probably problem question reality reflections regard relation result revelation rule sense situation social society Socrates sophistic soul speculation speech symbols term theory things Thucydides tragedy transcendence true truth understanding universal Voegelin whole wisdom Xenophanes Zeus
Popular passages
Page 453 - Of the gods we believe and of men we know that, by a law of their nature, wherever they can rule they will. This law was not made by us, and we are not the first...
Page 19 - My thesis is that if we start with the supposition that there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure experience,' then knowing can easily be explained as a particular sort of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience may enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience; one of its 'terms' becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge, the knower,* the other becomes the object known.