Eric Voegelin

Eric Voegelin Study Page

As a layman with a stack of books which I find rather challenging, I (Bill McClain) have assembled these resources as an aid to my reading of Eric Voegelin. I hope others in a similar situation will find them helpful.

The outlines are intended as an aid to the memory for those who are reading Voegelin, not as a substitute for the original material. It is impossible to summarize another man's words entirely accurately. I hope I have not done too much violence to his works, but readers should refer to the original sources for Voegelin's true thought.

Your comments and corrections are always welcome: please e-mail Bill McClain.

This is an excellent introduction to one of the great philosopher/historian and thinker of the 20th century. Voegelin is especially helpful in recognizing the modern descent into gnosticism—a deformed and truncated theory of being!

Resources

• Outlines

◦ Autobiographical Reflections

◦ Science, Politics and Gnosticism

◦ The New Science of Politics

◦ Anamnesis

◦ Order and History

▪ 1. Israel and Revelation [in progress]

▪ 2. The World of the Polis [in progress]

◦ The Nature of the Law

◦ Essays

▪ "On Classical Studies"

▪ "On Debate and Existence"

▪ "Immortality: Experience and Symbol"

• Dictionary of Voegelinian Terminology

• Short Glossary

• Index of Names

• Companion Literature

• Online Texts

◦ Eric Voegelin Remembered

◦ Papers from the "2000 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting"

◦ List of Eric Voegelin Society Papers

• Articles

◦ Advice for those who want to read Eric Voegelin

◦ Questions about Eric Voegelin

◦ The matrix from "Reason: The Classic Experience"

Download these pages

For the convenience of those who would like to have offline copies of the pages shown above, they are available packaged together as a zip file. Please do not put copies elsewhere on the web, as they will go out of date. Link to the main page instead: http://watershade.net/ev/.

E-mail update notices

If you would like to be notified of changes and additions to these pages, just e-mail me and I will add you to a notification list. Updates will be rather infrequent.

Related Links

• The Eric Voegelin Institute has research links.

• The University of Missouri Press is producing The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, which will contain 34 volumes when done.

• Back issues of Voegelin--Research News are available online.

• A German language site: Eric Voegelin Archiv, Geschwister-Scholl-Institut, Universität München. There are (or will be) order forms for Eric Voegelin: International Bibliography, 1921-2000 at this site.

• Blackstone Audiobooks has recorded versions of Autobiographical Reflections and Science, Politics and Gnosticism for sale and rent.

• Frederick Wagner has an Eric Voegelin Page.

• The Hoover Institute has a Register of the Eric Voegelin Papers, 1907-1997 cataloging materials in their archives.

• There is an evforum mailing list for discussion and communications.

Change History

27-Feb-2001

Added The Nature of the Law

14-Feb-2001

Added List of Eric Voegelin Society Papers

19-Dec-2000

Added The matrix from "Reason: The Classic Experience"

21-Nov-2000