Eric Voegelin's Changing Account of Greek Rationality: Aristotelian Noesis Before and After the Platonic Metaxy

Abstract

<p>Eric Voegelin's article "Reason: The Classic Experience" (1974) is perhaps his best known account of the Platonic-Aristotelian experience and symbolization of reason. Many interpreters have not recognized, however, that the account of the experiential origin and nature of reason developed in this work is significantly different than that which is found in The New Science of Politics (1952) and the first three volumes of Order and History (1956-1957).</p> <p>In this thesis I show that there is an important change in Voegelin's account of Greek rationality. I illustrate the change by comparing Voegelin' s account of Aristotelian noesis in The New Science of Politics and Plato and Aristotle with the account developed in Anamnesis (1966). I also develop an hypothesis to account for why the change came about. I suggest that Voegelin's reassessment of the nature and origin of the classic experience of reason is due principally to an important change in his understanding of Plato's philosophical anthropology.</p>