Abstract
This is another letter to Eric Voegelin by Alfred Schutz, from November, 1952. The title is by Helmut Wagner, and the translation from German into English was made by Gregor Sebba,1 which Wagner revised stylistically and terminologically for inclusion here. The apparent occasion for Schutz’s letter is the arrival of a copy from the University of Chicago Press of Voegelin’s just published The New Science Politics, and Schutz’s reading of chapter drafts of the first volume Voegelin’s Order and History, Israel and Revelation to be published by Louisiana State University Press in 1956.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Sebba’s translation appeared in The Philosophy of Order. Essays on History, Consciousness and Politics,edited by Peter J. Opitz and Gregor Sebba (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), pp. 434–448. In a few cases, I have restored Sebba’s translation which Wagner had altered, and some of Sebba’s very helpful footnotes. For further discussion of the relationship between Schutz and Voegelin, see Wagner’s article, “Agreement in Discord”, in The Philosophy of Order: Essays on History, Consciousness and Politics,pp. 74–90.
Footnote of Gregor Sebba: Schutz’s term for Max Scheler’s “relativ natürliche Weltanschauungen” as against “relativ künstliche Bildungen”. Scheler, Ges. Werke,VIII (1960), pp. 63ff. and VI (1963), pp. 15ff.
Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952 ).
Gurwitsch’s letter referred to here is published in Philosophers in Exile. The Correspondence of Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch 1939–1959,edited by Richard Grathoff, translated by J. Claude Evans, foreword by Maurice Natanson (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 183. [FK]
Alois Dempf, Theoretische Anthropologie (Bern: A. Francke AG. Verlag, 1950), pp. 32, 51f.
Footnote of Helmut Wagner: As Schutz stated correctly further below, only total immanentization without transcendental irruptions is called “secularization”. Evidently he has difficulties in conceiving a radicalized profane society that understands itself to be a divinized sacred body. Already in 1938 Voegelin had spoken of totalitarian movements which mysticize and divinize the immanentist state; see Eric Voegelin, Politische Religionen (Vienna, 1938; Stockholm, 1939), Chapter 5, especially p. 53.
Note of Helmut Wagner: Schutz referred to Voegelin’s essay, “Die Juden als Gegenidee” contained in his book, Rasse und Staat (Tübingen, 1933), Part II, Chapter 7, pp. 181–183. The notion itself was not new, but apparently had never been seriously examined before.
Schutz refers to the Chapter, “Homer and Mycene” in The World of the Polis (Louisiana State University Press, 1957), pp. 103ff. [FK].
Footnote of Helmut Wagner: See Alois Dempf, Selbstkritik der Philosophie. Vergleichende Philosophiegeschichte im Umriss (Vienna, 1947).
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schutz, A. (1996). Gnosticism and Orthodoxy: Contrasts in Fundamental Metaphysical and Theologial Positions. In: Collected Papers. Phaenomenologica, vol 136. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1077-0_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1077-0_29
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4626-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1077-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive