Glossary of Terms Used in Eric Voegelin’s Writings
This glossary was compiled by Eugene Webb for inclusion in this volume of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. It is based on Webb’s earlier glossary as given in his Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981), 277–89. It has been augmented and refined by contributions from M. J. Hanak, William McClain, Jack D. Eliot Jr., Frederick Wagner, and the editor. These abbreviations are used, in addition to CW for Collected Works: HPI for History of Political Ideas, first published in CW, vols. 19–26; NSP for New Science of Politics; OH 1–5 for Order and History; SPG for Science, Politics, and Gnosticism; AR for Autobiographical Reflections—the last four published in various editions in addition to CW. Note that the terms included here as well as a great many others in this edition are referenced in the indexes to individual volumes and in the cumulative indexes provided by Linda Webster—our able indexer throughout—in vol. 26 of The History of Political Ideas and herein for the balance of the Collected Works.—E.S.
Adiaphora. Essentially indifferent matters.
Adikon, adikia. The unjust, injustice.
Ad litterarum studia. For the study of letters.
Agathon. The Good. In Plato, the good as such. Used by Voegelin to refer to the transcendent pole of the tension of existence.
Agnoein. To be ignorant.
Agnoia. Ignorance.
Aition, aitia. Cause, causes. Sometimes used by Voegelin to refer to the ground of order.
Akribeia. Precision, exactness.
Aletheia. Truth, that which is “unhidden” or “uncovered.” In Voegelin, especially “lived” truth, existential truth, the experienced manifestness of “existential consciousness” (q.v.). Equivalent to episteme (q.v.).
Alle bisherige Geschichte. “All of history until now” (Marx).
Allotriosis. Self-alienation, estrangement from the actuality of one’s experience of human existence. Autobiographical Reflections (76): “In the Stoic psychopathology, allotriosis means a state of withdrawal from one’s own self as constituted by the tension toward the divine ground of existence.”
Alogos. Speechless, lacking wisdom.
Amathes, pl. amatheis. Ignorant.
Amathia. Ignorance, folly, rudeness, boorishness. Term used by Plato in the Laws to refer to voluntary ignorance motivated by aversion to truth (consequently a stronger term than “folly” in English), an unwillingness to be drawn into the consideration of the transcendent.
Amator sapientiae. Lover of wisdom (=philosophos, philosopher).
Amicitia. Friendship. Used by Aquinas to refer to the possibility of mutual love between God and human beings.
Amor Dei. Love of God (Augustine); openness of the soul toward transcendence.
Amor sui. Love of the egoistically conceived self; closedness of the soul against transcendence.
Analogia entis. See Analogy of being
Analogy of being (analogia entis). The term in medieval theology for the idea that God is not one particular entity among others but radically transcendent Being Itself (Aquinas’s Ipsum Esse Subsistens), in which all particular entities or existents exist by “participation” (q.v.). Implies that the only adequate language for transcendent reality (q.v.) is analogical and that the relative adequacy of such language is grounded in the inherently analogical character of all participated being.
Anamnesis. Remembrance, or recollection. In Plato’s Meno, the idea that whatever one learns in this life is recalled from the memory of what was known in a former life. In Voegelin’s interpretation, a symbol for the recognition that the explication of experience is the bringing into consciousness of what had previously been implicitly present to awareness, but not been explicitly conscious.
Ananke. Constraint, necessity, fate, destiny.
Andreia. Manliness, courage.
Anima mundi. World soul. Latin term for Plato’s animate cosmos in the Timaeus. One of the hypostases of Plotinus.
Anima rationalis et intellectiva. A soul capable of understanding and of critically reflective judgment.
Anoia. Folly, oblivion. Discussed in In Search of Order (OH, vol. 5) as forgetfulness of one’s partnership in the community of being and, consequently, transformation of participation (q.v.) in existence into a self-assertive claim to separate existence. Cf. egophanic revolt (q.v.).
Anthropeioi nomoi. Human laws.
Anthropina, ta. Human affairs.
Anthropogony. The origin of the human species (especially as described in myths).
Apeiron. What is unlimited, indefinite, unbounded, the boundless or depth. In Anaximander, the “unlimited” source of all particular things. Because it transcends all limits, the apeiron is in principle indefinable. Voegelin uses it (especially in The Ecumenic Age [OH, vol. 4]) to refer to the pole of the metaxy (q.v.) standing opposite the One, or the Beyond (q.v.).
Aphtharsia. Imperishability. The characteristic of the gods as symbols of the perfection of being. An aspect of the transcendent pole of the tension (q.v.) of existence or metaxy (q.v.).
Apodictic. Expressing necessary truth or absolute certainty.
Apolaustikos (bios). Life devoted to enjoyment.
Aporein. To experience profound uncertainty, to feel at a loss how to proceed.
Aporia. An insoluble contradiction or impasse for thought.
Apostrophe. “Turning away” from the divine ground (Stoics), an act that Voegelin considered equivalent to “the withdrawal of man from his own humanity” (Autobiographical Reflections, 101).
Apperception. Leibniz’s term for the introspective or reflective apprehension by the mind of its own inner states. Contrasts with “perception,” which is awareness of something external. Used by Voegelin to refer to reflective self-awareness.
Arche. Beginning, principle, absolute origin and beginning. Especially the ultimate and indemonstrable principle, or ultimate, underlying substance.
Arete. Excellence, goodness, virtue.
Ariston. The best thing.
Aspernatio rationis. Contemptuous rejection of reason.
Athanatizein. To immortalize, the process of immortalizing. See Immortalizing; Aphtharsia; Exodus
Balance of consciousness. Voegelin’s term for the precarious awareness of the conditions of existence in the metaxy (q.v.), easily lost when the experience of being drawn to the transcendent pole becomes sufficiently vivid to tempt one to seek escape from the metaxy and from the existential tension (q.v.) that characterizes it.
Beginning and beyond. As another way of speaking about what he called “myth” as distinguished from “revelation,” Voegelin used “beginning” to refer to the “primary experience of the cosmos” (q.v.), which historically found expression in creation myths, while “beyond” (q.v.) refers to what is known through a revelatory awakening to the pull (see helkein) of transcendence (q.v.). See also Beyond, the
Berith. Covenant (Hebrew Bible).
Between, the. See Metaxy
Beyond, the. Translation of the Greek epekeina. That which is ultimate and is itself indefinable because it surpasses all categories of understanding. The proportionate goal of the fundamental tension of existence. See also Parousia; Beginning and beyond
Bios theoretikos. The life of reason, the contemplative life (Aristotle).
Caritas. In Christianity, the love of God for human beings and of human beings for God or for fellow human beings when this is an expression of the love of God. Latin translation of the Greek agape. Cf. amicitia (q.v.). See also Fides formata
Causa materialis, efficiens, formalis, finalis. Material, efficient, formal, and final cause, the four types of causality discussed by Aristotle in the Metaphysics.
Chiliasm. Millenarianism; in Christian speculation, the belief that Christ will rule bodily on earth for a thousand years; in Gnostic political speculation, the belief that some sort of radical change will take place in human nature and human behavior that will make a radically different political world possible. (Cf. New Science of Politics, chap. 4, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, both included in CW, vol. 5.)
Closed existence. Voegelin’s term (following Henri Bergson) for the mode of existence in which there are internal impediments to a free flow of truth into consciousness and to the pull of the transcendent. Contrasts with open existence (q.v.).
Cognitio fidei (or amoris, or spei). Knowledge through or by faith (or love, or hope). A more analytically fundamental and compact experience (q.v.) or cognitive mode, according to Voegelin, than reason. An important element in the preanalytic cognitive matrix from which reason (cognitio rationis, rational cognition) develops. See also Fides formata
Common sense. According to Voegelin’s interpretation of representatives of the late-eighteenth-century school of thought that goes by the name of Common Sense philosophy (particularly Thomas Reid), a compact form of rationality made up of good habits of judgment and conduct deriving historically from noetic experience but lacking a differentiated knowledge of noesis (q.v.). See Nous
Compact (experience, mode of cognition, consciousness, etc.). Voegelin’s term for experience having distinguishable features not yet noticed as distinct. Contrasts with differentiated consciousness (see Differentiation of consciousness).
Complex of consciousness-reality-language. Term Voegelin introduced in In Search of Order for the paradoxical structure of reality that is known through “the paradox of intentionality and luminosity, of thing-ness and It-ness” and that is therefore constituted of “language and truth, together with consciousness and reality.” Thus, “language participates in the paradox of a quest that lets reality become luminous for its truth by pursuing truth as a thing intended” (OH, 5:17).
Concrete. Constituting a real instance, not abstract. Thus, writing of the process of history Voegelin says (CW, 12:132), “We have immediate knowledge of the process only in its presence. A man whom we can name concretely—a Heraclitus, Plato, Plotinus, or Saint Augustine—experiences the process in its mode of presence. . . . [and] we share with Aristotle the belief in the premise that a truth concerning the reality of man found by one man concretely does, indeed, apply to every man.”
Condicio humana (or conditio humana). The human condition.
Coniuratio. Conspiracy.
Consciousness. Autobiographical Reflections, 73: “The term consciousness . . . could no longer mean to me a human consciousness that is conscious of a reality outside man’s consciousness, but had to mean the In-Between reality of the participatory pure experience that then analytically can be characterized through such terms as the poles of the experiential tension, and the reality of the experiential tension in the metaxy.” See also Between; Existential consciousness; Intentional consciousness; Intentionality; Luminosity; Pure experience; Reflective distance; Tension
Consubstantial. Composed of the same substance, or underlying reality (q.v.). See Consubstantiality
Consubstantiality. Term adopted by Voegelin from John A. Wilson (The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man) for the sensed underlying unity of reality and the common participation of all levels of being in the tension of existence toward transcendent (q.v.) perfection.
Contemptus mundi. Contempt of the world (and of its values).
Conversio. Conversion. Latin equivalent to Greek epistrophe (q.v.). See also Periagoge
Cosmion. A little world.
Cosmological myth. Myth that expresses the “primary experience of the cosmos” (q.v.).
Cosmos. In Voegelin’s usage, the whole of ordered reality including animate and inanimate nature and the gods. (Not to be confused with the modern conception of “cosmos” as the astrophysical universe). Encompasses all of reality, including the full range of the tension of existence toward the transcendent (q.v.). Noetic differentiation (q.v.) and pneumatic differentiation (q.v.) are “differentiations of consciousness” (q.v.) that separate this cosmos into the immanent “world” (q.v.) and the transcendent divine “ground” (q.v.). See also Primary experience of the cosmos
Daimonios aner. Spiritual man, a person sensitive to the pull (see helkein) of transcendence (q.v.).
Deculturation. Voegelin’s term for the loss or decline of culture, when culture is interpreted as a process in which soul and character are formed through experiences of transcendence and of the virtues (such as faith, love, hope, reason) essential to “open existence” (q.v.). Equivalent to “deformation” (q.v.), but with greater emphasis on the social aspects of the process of decline.
De-divinization of the world. The interpretation of the world as empty of the divine, or lacking the dimension of transcendence (q.v.). Contrasts with “primary experience of the cosmos” (q.v.).
Deformation. Voegelin’s term for the destruction of the order of the soul, which should be “formed” by (i.e., should receive its vital principle from) the love of transcendent perfection inherent in the fundamental tension of existence.
Despotikos. Inclined to the exercise of despotic power.
Dialectic. Constructive exchange of thoughts. The characteristic mode of inquiry of genuine noetic philosophy (q.v.). Characterized by critical reflectiveness and openness. The movement of thought or discussion within the metaxy (q.v.) that recognizes the limits inherent to existence in the metaxy.
Dianoetic. Having to do with rational thought. Dianoia in Aristotle, meaning thought or understanding broadly, or discursive thinking or reasoning more narrowly.
Differentiation of consciousness. Voegelin’s phrase for the process by which the discernible features of a previously “compact” (q.v.) field of experience are noticed as distinct and given expression. May have either noetic or pneumatic (q.v.) emphases. Refers especially to the development of a sense of the distinction between the transcendent (q.v.) and immanent (q.v.)—e.g., between truth as such and particular truths, the good as such and particular goods, the transcendent divine ground and the world of immanence. The transcendent pole that is differentiated serves as a point of orientation that rightly orders or structures consciousness.
Dikaion, pl. ta dikaia. Right, pl. rights.
Dikaiosyne (or dikaiosune). Justice or righteousness, either political or considered as a quality of a person.
Dike. Justice, order, law, right.
Disputatio. Debate.
Divina scripta. Holy writings. Also referred to as sacrae litterae.
Divine, the. General term for the dimension of radical transcendence, perfection of being. See also God; Reality, divine
Dogmatomachy. Voegelin’s term for conflict over opinions; motivated by philodoxy (q.v.).
Doxa. Opinion. In Parmenides, the realm of particular phenomena as compared with true being. In Plato, knowledge of the sensory world compared with knowledge of ideas; an inferior grade of knowledge as compared with episteme (q.v.). Voegelin uses the term particularly to refer to externalizing conceptions or opinions.
Doxic thinking. In Voegelin’s use, thinking that tends to focus on doxa (q.v.) and to confuse the interpretive model with the reality (q.v.) it symbolically represents.
Doxography. A descriptive (not analytical) account of opinions.
Dynamis. Aristotle: validity, strength, power, force, faculty, capacity, potentiality; the opposite of energeia (q.v.).
Eclipse. Voegelin’s term for the willed, perverse closure of consciousness against reality (q.v.), especially the reality of metaxy (q.v.) existence. Eclipse is a state that may become habitual and unconscious, but never entirely free from the pressure of reality and the anxiety produced by the attempt to evade it. Equivalent to “closed existence” (q.v.).
Ecumene. See Ekumene
Ecumenic age. Voegelin’s term for the “period in the history of mankind which roughly extends from the rise of the Persian to the fall of the Roman empire” (OH, vol. 4, chap. 2, ab init.); characterized by ordering of the ekumene (q.v.) through imperial conquest or power.
Ecumenicity. Voegelin’s term for the tendency of an imperial order (one that embraces a number of particular societies) to seek to attain genuine “universality” (q.v.) by extending its political domination throughout the ekumene (q.v.), considered as the full range of territory available for such domination.
Egological. Husserl’s term for that which pertains to the ego or to egology, i.e., the study of the ego considered as pure consciousness, all other aspects of the thinking individual being “bracketed,” i.e., placed outside consideration, in accord with phenomenological method.
Egophanic revolt. Defiant self-assertion claiming independence from a transcendent ground. Described by Voegelin in Autobiographical Reflections, 67–68: “the concentration on the epiphany of the ego as the fundamental experience that eclipses the epiphany of God in the structure of Classic and Christian consciousness,” denial of “the theophanic constitution of humanity.”
Egophany. Manifestation of separate selfhood (apart from the divine ground); contrasts with theophany (q.v.). See also Egophanic revolt
Egregium et admirandum humanum spectaculum. An uncommon and prodigious spectacle of the state of human affairs.
Eidos. Form, shape, figure, kind, nature, class, essence.
Eidos kai morphe. Idea (or species) and form (or shape).
Eikon. Image, likeness.
Eikos mythos. Likely or probable tale. In Plato, a myth that serves as an analogy for what ultimately lies beyond human comprehension, as in the cosmogonic myth of the Timaeus, the analogy of the soul to a chariot in the Phaedrus, and the story of judgment after death in the Gorgias and the Republic. See also Mystery; Myth
Einai. To be. Equated by Parmenides with noein (q.v.), to think.
Ekpyrosis. Conflagration.
Ekumene (ecumene, oikumene). The “world” conceived as a realm that might potentially be organized through power. In antiquity, the Greek or the Roman world, a universal community.
Elpis. Hope. See also Cognitio fidei (or amoris, or spei)
Energeia. Aristotle: activity, active exercise, actuality; the opposite of dynamis (q.v.)
Eneinai. To be present in, to inhere.
Entelechy. Aristotle: fully formed, completed realization as contrasted with potential existence.
Enthousiasmos. Enthusiasm, frenetic inspiration; literally, the state of being “in a god,” divinely possessed.
Epekeina. The Beyond (q.v.), the transcendent (q.v.) pole of the metaxy (q.v.). See also Transcendence
Epigeos (or epigeios). Terrestrial, earthly.
Episteme. Theoretical knowledge, as compared with doxa. In Voegelin, knowledge that is the explication of genuine philosophical experience; especially experiential knowledge of existence as ordered by the love of the transcendent perfection of being. Equivalent to theoria (q.v.).
Episteme politike. Political wisdom, science of politics.
Epistrophe. A turning toward. Used by Voegelin to refer to a turning toward the divine ground after having previously been lost or gone astray through self-alienation or allotriosis (q.v.). Equivalent to Latin conversio or German Hinwendung. Cf. also periagoge (q.v.).
Equivalence of symbols. In Voegelin, the principle that two symbolisms are equivalent, despite differences of individual form, if they refer recognizably to the same structures of reality (q.v.) and experience; applied by Voegelin especially to the recognizable identity of the reality experienced and symbolized on various levels of differentiation of consciousness.
Eristic. From the Greek eris, strife. In Plato, contentious reasoning, characteristic of philodoxy (q.v.). Speculative thought that attempts mastery over one of the poles of the tension of existence, i.e., over the apeiron (q.v.) or the nous (q.v.) or the Beyond (q.v.). The opposite of dialectic (q.v.)
Eros. Desire, love, longing. Voegelin’s use of the term, based on Plato’s, does not refer (in the manner made popular by Freud) to specifically sexual desire, but to desire as such and especially to desire for the summum bonum (q.v.) implicit in all particular desires for limited goods. As such it is virtually equivalent in Voegelin’s usage to the “tension of existence.” Figures as part of the triad eros, dike, thanatos, i.e., love, justice, death (Cf. OH, vol. 3, chap. 1, §1.2). See also Existential consciousness
Eros tyrannos. Lust for power (libido dominandi); in Voegelin’s commentary “the satanic double of the Socratic Eros [citing Plato, Rep. 573b, d]. . . . The desire which turns the soul toward the Good and the desire which succumbs to the fascination of Evil are intimately related” (OH, vol. 3, chap. 3, §5.3).
Ersatz. Artificial, a substitute for the real thing.
Eschatology. Speculation about the end of the world or about what might lie beyond existence as we presently know it.
Eschaton. The final end. In Christian use, refers either to (1) the terminating of the temporal world, or to (2) radical transcendence (q.v.), what is beyond the world as presently known.
Euboulia. Wise judgment in private and public affairs.
Eudaimonia. Happiness (the reference to “good daimon” implies that happiness must involve a right relation to transcendence).
Euergesia. Beneficient deeds.
Euergetikos. Beneficient.
Eunomia. Well-orderedness. Good social order. In Voegelin’s use, specifically existence ordered morally and cognitively by the tension of existence toward the pole of the transcendent perfection of being.
Eusynesia. Quick-wittedness.
Euthyoria. In Aristotle: a potentially infinite (i.e., indefinite) series. In ordinary Greek use: straight course or direction.
Eutyches. Fortunate.
Existential consciousness. In Voegelin’s use, the reflective self-awareness of human existence in the metaxy (q.v.), i.e., the tension between poles of immanence and transcendence, finitude and infinity, imperfection and perfection, and so on. Closely related to reflective distance (q.v.) and balance of consciousness (q.v.). See also Truth of existence
Existential tension. See Existential consciousness
Exodus. In Voegelin, the process of transcendence (q.v.). According to Voegelin, “exodus from reality” (which would be escape from the tension of existence) is impossible; what is possible, and is in fact the universal calling of humanity, is “exodus within reality,” i.e., open existence (q.v.) in the metaxy (q.v.) oriented toward its transcendent (q.v.) pole.
Experience. In Voegelin, a “luminous perspective within the process of reality.” Voegelin generally follows Aristotle’s conception of experience (Metaphysics a 1) as more than sense data, but less than art or “science” in the sense of episteme (q.v.). See also Pure experience; Transcendence, experiences of
Experiences of transcendence. See Transcendence, experiences of
Faith. Fundamental trust that reality (q.v.) has a meaningful structure, grounded in transcendence (q.v.), and leads toward some form of ultimate fulfillment. See also Fides formata; Metastatic faith; Pistis
Fides formata. “Formed faith,” i.e., faith with its vital principle (i.e., love). Aquinas’s term for the adequate orientation of the soul toward God, not only through correct teachings about Him but also through participation in divine love experienced within the soul. According to Aquinas, it is love (caritas, q.v.) that is the soul or vital principle of faith. A more developed faith than fides informis (q.v.), which, lacking love as its vital principle, is incomplete. Cf. CW, 19:35–36. See also Form
Fides informis. “Unformed faith,” i.e., faith lacking its vital principle, which is caritas. Aquinas’s term for a proper but rudimentary orientation toward God through doctrine; a lower level of faith than fides formata (q.v.).
Fides quaerens intellectum. “Faith seeking reason” (Saint Anselm of Canterbury). Central to Voegelin’s conception of philosophizing per se: “I am very much aware that my inquiry into the history of experience and symbolization generalizes the Anselmian fides quaerens intellectum so as to include every fides, not only the Christian, in the quest for understanding by reason” (CW, 12:294).
Form (Latin forma, Greek morphe). In Plato eidos, idea, or phusis (nature); for Voegelin’s exegesis see OH, vol. 3, chap. 3, §§4.3, 5.1–3. In Aristotle and Aquinas, the dynamic principle that orders the structure of a being; thus the “soul” is defined as “the form of a body capable of life,” and love is identified as the “form” of faith.
Fortuna. Fortune, chance. See also Tyche
Fruitio Dei. Rejoicing in God.
Gnoseological. Having to do with gnosis (q.v.).
Gnosis. Knowledge. Originally a general term in Greek for knowledge of various sorts. Later, especially with the gnostic movement of the Christian era, a purported direct, immediate apprehension or vision of truth without the need for critical reflection; the special quality of a spiritual and cognitive elite. According to Voegelin, the claim to gnosis may take intellectual, emotional, and volitional forms. See also Gnosticism
Gnosticism. As Voegelin uses the term, a type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality (q.v.). Relying as it does on a claim to gnosis in the sense of immediate apprehension or vision of truth without the need for critical reflection, Gnosticism considers its knowledge not subject to criticism. In Voegelin’s analysis, Gnosticism may take a transcendentalizing form (as in the case of the gnostic movement of late antiquity) or immanentizing forms (as in the case of Marxism, Comte’s positivism, and other modern movements that seek radical intramundane fulfillment of human beings and society). Cf. NSP, chap. 4, and SPG. See also Parousia; Parousiasm
God. In Voegelin’s use, a symbol (in mythopoeic form) arising from discernment of the transcendent pole of the tension of existence; not to be misconstrued as a conceptual term referring to a divine entity.
Gregarius miles. Common soldier, enlisted man.
Ground. That upon which something is based in the most fundamental way. In the sense of the “divine ground,” Voegelin uses it to refer to the supreme, indefinable, transcendent reality that may be considered either as the source or origin (arche, q.v.) of both the world and the metaxy (q.v.) or as “the Beyond” (q.v.) that forms existence by drawing it into participation (q.v.).
Habitus. Habit, acquired disposition. See Hexis
Hedone. Lust, sensual pleasure.
Heimarmene. Fate, destiny.
Helkein. To draw, drag, pull. In Voegelin, the tension of existence when it is experienced as the power of attraction exercised by the transcendent. Correlative to zetein or zetesis (q.v.). For a comparative analysis of the noetic and pneumatic experiences see CW, 12:189–99.
Hexis. Permanent condition, habit, characteristic.
Hiera anagraphe. Holy history, historia sacra as opposed to historia pagana, secular, pagan history.
Historici mundiales. Secular historians.
Historiogenesis. Term coined by Voegelin for the type of symbolism developed in speculation on the origin and cause of society. Along with the other symbolisms of origin collectively (designated by the standard terms, anthropogony, cosmogony, and theogony), it is considered by Voegelin to be the mythic equivalent of a noetic quest for the ground of being. Cf. OH, vol. 4 [CW, vol. 17], chap. 1.
Historiography. The writing of history.
Historiomachy. Voegelin’s term for competing claims to prestigious status made by one society or cultural or religious group against another on the basis of its purported antiquity.
Homoion. Something similar, a resemblance.
Homo mensura. Human being [man] as the measure of things.
Homonoia. Like-mindedness, concord. In Aristotle, friendship based on likeness in participation in nous (q.v.); not the sharing of opinions or positions, but sharing in nous as the dynamic movement elicited by the attraction of transcendent perfection. In Christian thought, the participation of Christians in the nous of Christ. Alexander the Great used the term homonoia to refer to the idea of peace among the subjects of his ecumenic empire (as discussed by Voegelin in The Ecumenic Age [OH, vol. 4; CW, vol. 17]). See also Ecumene
Homo novus. New human being [man] (expected to be the product of metastasis [q.v.], fundamental transformation, or revolution).
Hora. Vision (q.v.) in Plato. In Voegelin’s words, CW, 12:362: “The Vision [opsis, hora] is man’s participatory experience of ‘seeing’ the paradox of a reality [“It-reality” (q.v.)] which depends for its existence, formative order, and luminosity on the presence of ‘the god’ who, as distinguished from the Olympian gods, is a nonpresent Beyond [q.v.] of the being things in which he is present.” See Opsis; Parousia
Horizon. In Voegelin’s use, a phenomenological term for the experience of the limitedness of consciousness; symbol of the boundary between the known world and that which remains beyond it and is consequently mysterious.
Human nature. That which is constant in the fundamental being of humanity, especially all of those qualities that are inherent to metaxy (q.v.), existence, and horizon (q.v.). As defined by Voegelin in Anamnesis: “At its core human nature . . . is the openness of the questioning knowledge and the knowing question about the ground.” See also Representative humanity
Hybris. Overbearing arrogance, pride. See Superbia vitae
Hyle. The materials, matter.
Hyperouranion. Literally, “beyond the heavens.” Plato’s term in the Phaedrus for the world of ultimate reality beyond the realm of the gods.
Hypostasis. Literally, a “standing under,” support, substance, substructure, hence a real being, an individual entity, a thing. Used by Voegelin especially to refer to the false attribution of individual entitative status to something to which it is inappropriate, especially the fallacious assumption that the poles of the experience of existential tension (q.v.) in the metaxy (q.v.) are self-contained entities that come into contact on the occasion of an experience. (Not to be confused with the different Christian use of the term in the doctrine of the Trinity, where it does not involve attribution of individual entitative status.) See also Hypostatizing; Substance
Hypostatizing. Voegelin’s term for the process by which features of the metaxy (q.v.), e.g., the transcendent or immanent poles of the tension of existence, are falsely conceived as though they were individual entities.
Idiotes. In Heraclitus, one who lives in a private, imaginary world (“closed existence”) instead of the shared, common (xynon, q.v.) world known through logos (q.v.). In Aristotle it means “common man” (cf. Voegelin, OH, vol. 3 [CW, vol. 16], chap. 9, §4). In more general Greek use, it simply means an individual.
Imago Dei. The image of God. Voegelin writes: “Through spirit man actualizes his potential to partake of the divine. He rises thereby to the imago Dei which it is his destiny to be” (CW, 12:7).
Immanence. The state of being “immanent” (q.v.).
Immanent. Present within limited, mundane reality. The opposite of “transcendent” (q.v.). Literally, “dwelling in.”
Immanentism. The doctrine that God (q.v.) or spirit (q.v.) is exhaustively contained within, rather than transcending, the world. Contrasts with both (1) the dualistic idea that God or spirit transcends the world in such a way that He or it has no presence in the world at all, and (2) the idea that it can be present within the world while at the same time also transcending it. See also Metaxy; Participation
Immanentization, immanentizing. Movement toward “immanentism” (q.v.).
Immortalizing. (From the Greek athanatizein, in Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 10.7, 1122b33.) The process of transcendence considered as oriented toward the mode of existence (i.e., “immortality”) of the gods or of the divine “ground” (q.v.). See also Aphtharsia; Exodus
Imperator. Supreme commander, hence “emperor.”
Imperium. Supreme command, sovereignty; hence “empire.” See also Translatio imperii
In-Between. See Metaxy
Indelible present. Term coined by Voegelin in “Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme” (CW, 12:346) to refer to “the consciousness of divine presence as . . . formative appeal” in the present experience of a person who is aware of that appeal as calling for a response.
Index. Term coined by Voegelin (used primarily in “Eternal Being in Time” and “What Is Political Reality?” in Anamnesis, CW, vol. 6) for the language symbols used in the exegesis of existence in the metaxy (q. v.). Such symbols speak in terms of objects but do not refer to independently existing things. They are neither names, concepts, nor definitions. Rather they indicate poles of the tension of existence. For example, to say that “man participates in being” is to use “man” and “being” not as the names of entities but as pointers with which to explicate the tension of existence. Intended to counter the tendency toward hypostatizing (q.v.) of such symbols.
In novo esse constituuntur ex nihilo. “To be constituted anew out of nothingness.”
Insolentia. Insolence. See also Hybris; Superbia vitae
Intellectus. Understanding, intellect. See also Nous
Intentional consciousness. Consciousness oriented toward cognitive objects, esp. of the external world. Contrasts in Voegelin’s use with “existential consciousness” (q.v.). See also Intentionality
Intentionality. The property of consciousness whereby it is oriented toward cognitive objects. The “intentional object” is not necessarily an actual entity; it is whatever consciousness is conscious of.
Intuition. Direct and immediate apprehension (without need for interpretation and critically reflective judgment) of anything internal or external to the knowing subject. Gnosticism, as Voeglin uses the term, is characterized by intuitionist cognitive claims. See also Noesis; Nous; Reason
Ipsum Esse. Being Itself. In Aquinas, a term for God considered as unlimited, ontologically necessary Being (not “a Being”), as compared with finite, contingent beings, which are dependent for their existence on the creative act of God.
Ira Dei. Wrath of God.
It-reality. Term coined by Voegelin to refer to the whole of reality (q.v.), which includes both the objective and subjective poles of consciousness, with dimensions of both intentionality (q.v.) and luminosity (q.v.), immanence (q.v.) and transcendence (q.v.), and which comprehends the “cosmic” partners in being, i.e., God and the world, man and society. Voegelin writes, in CW, 12:362: “Reality is experienced as an anonymous ‘It’ in which such events as the divine-human encounter occur. The experience of the ‘It’ is a problem much neglected in philosophy.” Also: In Search of Order, OH, vol. 5 [CW, vol. 18], 44: “The Beyond [q.v.] is not a thing beyond the things, but the experienced presence, the Parousia [q.v.], of the formative It-reality in all things.” Cf. Voegelin in an earlier formulation, OH, vol. 4 [CW, vol. 17], 408): “There is a process of the Whole of which the In-Between [q.v.] reality with its process of history is no more than a part, though the very important part in which the process of the Whole becomes luminous for the eschatological movement beyond its own structure. . . . Things do not happen in the astrophysical universe; the universe, together with all things founded in it, happens in God.” Thus, It-reality means God, as in the following reflections on Gen. 1:2 in OH, vol. 5 [CW, vol. 18], 34: “The It-reality . . . is symbolized as the strong movement of a spiritual consciousness, imposing form on a formless and nonforming countermovement, as the tension between a pneumatic, formative force (ruach; in later Greek translation pneuma [q.v.]) and an at least passively resistant counterforce. Moreover, the tension in the It is definitely not the tension of a human consciousness in its struggle with reality for its truth; it is recognized as a nonhuman process, to be symbolized as divine; and yet it has to convey an aura of analogy with the human process because man experiences his own acts, such as the quest for truth, as acts of participation in the process of the It. When the authors of Genesis 1 put down the first words of their text they were conscious of beginning an act of participation in the mysterious Beginning of the It.”
Kalokagathia. Virtue defined in terms of beauty and goodness, the quality of gentlemanliness.
Kalon. The beautiful.
Kanon kai metron. Standard and measure.
Kata physin. According to (their) nature.
Kath homoioteta. Bearing resemblance to.
Kinei (kinein, kineitai). Moves, to move, is moved.
Kinesis. Movement, motion. In Thucydides, a movement of disintegration and disorder.
Kineton. Something liable to alteration, movable.
Koinon. That which is shared in common. See also Xynon
Koinonia politike. Political community.
Kosmokrator. Ruler of the cosmos.
Kosmos. Cosmos (q.v.), universe, not in the astrophysical sense but in the sense of the whole of reality (q.v.), spiritual as well as material.
Kritike. The art of discerning, right judgment.
Kyriotate episteme kai architektonike. The supreme and master science.
Libido dominandi. Pleasure in dominating, will to power.
Locus classicus. Classic passage.
Logos. Reason, rational capacity, definition, intelligible structure, an analytical account (as compared with a myth). A central feature of theoria (q.v.) or episteme (q.v.).
Luminosity. Term used by Voegelin in his later work to refer to the participatory identity and non-identity of knower and known, thought and being. Identified in In Search of Order as one of the three structural aspects of consciousness, along with intentionality (q.v.) and reflective distance (q.v.). Contrasts with intentionality as the (non-intentional) awareness immanent within intentional operations (the subjective awareness with which one performs them) rather than the (intentional) awareness bearing upon the objects of those operations. Autobiographical Reflections, 73–74: “the luminosity not of a subjective consciousness but of the reality that enters into the experience from both sides,” i.e., both poles of the experience of metaxy (q.v.) experience.
Mache athanatos. Everlasting or undying struggle (Plato Laws 10; cf. Voegelin’s discussion in CW, 12:364–66).
Malista auto. Itself to the highest degree.
Mankind. See Representative humanity
Mantike (as in techne mantike). Having to do with divination, the art of prophecy.
Meditation. The inward practice by which one develops awareness of the dimensions of consciousness (intentionality [q.v.] and luminosity [q.v.]), reflective distance (q.v.), and consciousness of existential tension (q.v.) and its poles of immanence (q.v.) and transcendence (q.v.). Described by Voegelin in “Wisdom and the Magic of the Extreme: A Meditation” (CW, 12:371–72) as “a philosopher’s effort to explore the structures of existential consciousness” and “[a] noetic movement through the metaxy of existential consciousness . . . to find the balance of truth between the intentionalist desire to know reality as an object, and the mystery of a reality in which such a desire to know its own truth occurs.”
Me physika all’ anthropina dikaia. “Not natural but human justice.”
Metalepsis. Participation (q.v.), especially, for Voegelin, divine-human participation.
Metaphysics. Traditionally (from Aristotle’s treatise, Metaphysica), the study of the fundamental structural features of being (i.e., form, matter, the four causes [see causa materialis, efficiens, formalis, finalis], etc.). Criticized by Voegelin as the manipulation of noetic symbols (q.v.) as if they were propositions referring to “intentional objects.”
Metastasis. Change, transformation, revolution. Term introduced by Voegelin, in Israel and Revelation (OH, 1:452), to signify “the change in the constitution of being envisaged by the [Israelite] prophets.” Subsequently used to refer to all unrealistically expected transformations of human beings, society, or the structure of existence. The fundamental form of such utopian expectation is that escape from the tension of existence will be possible through movement out of the metaxy (q.v.) toward identity or union with one of its poles.
Metastatic faith. Having to do with the expectation of a quasi-magical transformation of reality (q.v.) and the human condition. Faith that expects such a transformation to be caused by an act of divine intervention. Also Metastatic apocalypse: the radical transformation that would be produced by such faith.
Metaxy. Literally, “between.” Plato’s symbol representing the experience of human existence as “between” lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, the world and the Beyond (q.v.). Equivalent to the symbol of “participation (q.v.) in being.” Likened in Autobiographical Reflections, 72, to William James’s “pure experience”: “James put his finger on the reality of the consciousness of participation, inasmuch as what he calls pure experience is the something that can be put into the context either of the subject’s stream of consciousness or of objects in the external world. This fundamental insight of James identifies the something that lies between the subject and object of participation as the experience. Later I found that the same type of analysis had been conducted on a much vaster scale by Plato, resulting in his concept of the metaxy—the In-Between.”
Methexis. Participation (q.v.).
Metis. Wisdom, counsel, skill, craft.
Millenarianism. See Chiliasm
Miseria humanae conditionis. The misery of the human condition.
Modus deficiens. Deficient mode.
Morbus animi. Mentally diseased (Cicero).
Morphe. See Eidos; Form
Motus amoris. Movement of love, the motivation of conversio or epistrophe (q.v.).
Mystery (mysterium). In philosophical and theological use (e.g., in Gabriel Marcel and Saint Thomas Aquinas) a term for what cannot be known as an object of “intentional consciousness” (q.v.) because the knower’s subjectivity is inherently involved within it. Mystery is knowable only through participation (q.v.) and by way of analogical symbols or myth (q.v.). See also Analogy of being
Myth (mythos). Story, tale, fable. Originally any speech or account, not necessarily fictitious. In Plato’s philosophical use, an account in story form, as opposed to logos, a conceptual, analytic account. Eikos mythos (q.v.), a likely or probable story, i.e., an analogically illuminating account in the form of a story.
Mytho-speculation. Voegelin’s term for speculation (especially regarding ultimate origins and ends) in the medium of myth. A combination of mythopoesis (myth-making) and noesis (q.v.), intermediate between the compactness of cosmological myth and noetic differentiation.
Mythos synkeitai ek thaumasion. “Myth consists of marvels.”
Nefanda crudelitas. Abominable cruelty.
Noein. To think, to know, to cognize, apprehend by the mind, to see so as to remark or discern (distinguished from merely seeing). See Noesis
Noesis. The activity of nous (q.v.); in Voegelin’s analysis, the process by which episteme (q.v.) is developed as reflective understanding involving critical self-awareness on the part of the inquirer based on the understanding of the nature of inquiry as such. Noesis in this sense brings, not knowledge of a previously unknown reality (q.v.), but differentiated insight into hitherto compactly experienced reality. See also Noetic differentiation
Noetic. See Dianoetic; Noesis; Nous
Noetic differentiation. Voegelin’s term for the process by which one moves from compact (q.v.) consciousness (which tends to express itself in mythic symbols) to a more differentiated, conceptually articulated awareness of the inquiring consciousness and its structure, including both its reflective character and its orientation toward the transcendent pole of the tension of inquiry, i.e., toward Truth as such. Historically, the birth of philosophy in classical Greece through “the adequate articulation and symbolization of the questioning consciousness” (CW, 12:269). See also Reflective distance
Noetic symbols. Symbols that express the insights of noesis (q.v.) about the structure of participatory reality (q.v.).
Noetic vs. pneumatic. See Nous; Noetic differentiation; Pneuma; Pneumatic differentiation; also related to Voegelin’s distinction between intentionality (q.v.) and luminosity (q.v.); reason vs. revelation
Noeton. That which is known, the object of thought.
Nomikon dikaion. Conventional right, as opposed to physikon dikaion, natural right.
Nomikon, pl. ta nomika. Conventional matter, pl. conventional matters.
Nomos. Law, statute, measure.
Nosos, nosema. Sickness, disease, madness.
Nous. Usually translated as “mind,” “intelligence,” “reason,” or “rational intuition,” but involves more of what is connoted in English by “heart” (an intuitive sense of the directional tension of inquiry) than these words usually convey in English. In Voegelin’s use, based primarily on Plato and Aristotle, the capacity to seek episteme (q.v.) under the guidance of attraction toward the transcendent. Cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 6.6, 1140b31–1141a9 and Posterior Analytics 2.19, 100b5–14; also Voegelin’s commentary in SPG, §2.1. See Dianoetic; Reason
Nous echon. Endowed with mind. See Nous; Zoon; nous echon
Nulla fortunae varietatis habita ratione. “For no reason given by the fickleness of fortune.”
Ochlocracy. Mob rule, from ochlos.
Oikoumene. See Ekumene
On. Sing. neutral present participle of einai to be; pl. ta onta, existing things.
Opaque. As in “opaque symbol”: a symbol that has become literalized so that it has lost its original meaning. Contrasts with transparent (q.v.) symbol.
Open existence, openness. In Voegelin, the mode of existence in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward truth and toward the transcendent pole of the tension of existence. Contrasts with “closed existence” (q.v.).
Opsis. Vision (q.v.). Platonic term interpreted by Voegelin as referring to the revelatory aspect of the mutual participation of the divine and human in each other; what it reveals, according to Voegelin, is the fundamental order and direction of the process of reality (q.v.). See Hora; Vision; cf. Voegelin’s summary in CW, 12:362–65.
Order. Defined by Voegelin in Autobiographical Reflections, 75: “By order is meant the structure of reality as experienced as well as the attunement of man to an order that is not of his making—i.e., the cosmic order.”
Oregesthai. To grasp at, yearn for.
Orekton. What is desired, desire, object of desire.
Organon. Instrument, implement, tool.
Ousia. Essence. Aristotle’s term for “being” or “entity.” According to Voegelin, Aristotle’s term expressed the “things” of the “cosmos” (q.v.), which included both immanent and transcendent dimensions; should not be translated as “substance,” a term in later, immanentistically conceived metaphysics. In Christian use, on the other hand (in the Greek doctrine of the Trinity), ousia refers to the one existential “I am” at the heart of each of the three divine hypostases (in that context, what can be affirmed as the three forms of the knowable reality of God along the different lines of questioning that lead to the affirmation of God’s reality as Father, Son, and Spirit).
Pagani. Literally “country dwellers”; hence, worshippers of fertility deities, pagans, heathens.
Pan, to. The Whole, the Cosmos (q.v.). Literally, “the all.”
Paraclete. In Christian use, the Holy Spirit. Literally, “advocate.”
Parainesis. Advice, counsel; hortatory composition.
Parousia. Literally, in Greek, “presence,” and used in that sense by Voegelin, as when he writes in In Search of Order (OH, 5:31 [1987 ed.]): “Above all, the Beyond is understood not to be a thing among things, but is experienced only in its formative presence, in its Parousia.” Also traditionally used in Christian eschatological discourse to refer to the Second Coming of Christ.
Parousiasm. In Martin Heidegger and modern Gnosticism (q.v.) broadly: “The mentality that expects deliverance from the evils of the time through the advent, the coming in all its fullness, of being construed as immanent. . . . The aim of parousiastic gnosticism is to destroy the order of being, which is experienced as defective and unjust, and through man’s creative power to replace it with a perfect and just order.” Voegelin in SPG, end of part 1, §2, “Science, Politics, and Gnosticism,” and beginning of §3, “The Murder of God,” in CW, 5:276–79.
Participation. (Greek metalepsis, methexis, mimesis.) Refers to sharing the qualities of a supreme exemplar, in which they are present in their perfection. In “participation in being,” being is an analogical term with various degrees of applicability; it describes existence in the metaxy (q.v.) as taking place between higher and lower degrees of reality (q.v.). See also transcendentia, under Transcendentals
Pathos. Experience, experiential complex, event, passion, what happens to a person, what is undergone. Not to be confused with the popular use of the word in English to refer to “pitiableness.”
Patrikon. Paternal.
Patrios doxa. Faith according to the teaching of the fathers or forebears.
Peiras, pl. ta peirata. Limit, boundary. Cf. apeiron (q.v.).
Peitho. Persuasion. In Voegelin (following Plato), the persuasive communication of (or invitation to) truth, especially the truth of existential order.
Penia. Penury, poverty; discussed in Plato’s Symposium as lack of plenitude of being.
Percipere. To perceive, observe, to become aware of through the senses.
Periagoge. Turning around, conversion. Plato’s term for the cognitive and moral reorientation toward the True and the Good as such. Cf. Voegelin OH, vol. 3, chap. 3, §4.7. See also Conversio; Epistrophe
Peripatetic. Literally “walking around”; used to refer to Aristotelian philosophy (because Aristotle and his pupils were known for walking during discussions).
Peri tes physeos. About the nature of things.
Phenomena. Those things that appear, that are observable. Plural of “phenomenon.” Voegelin speaks of the natural sciences as sciences of phenomena, i.e., as having to do with physical objects and their relations to one another (force, motion, attraction, etc.).
Pheugein ten agnoian. “To flee from ignorance.”
Philia. Love, especially in the sense of friendship. Also used by Voegelin to refer to noetic love of God.
Philia politike. The bonds of affection (or friendship) that unite a group; the central virtue of political community.
Philodoxy. Voegelin’s term (based on Plato’s philodoxos, or “lover of opinion,” esp. meaning the sophist) for a quasi-cognitive activity that stops short of the pursuit of genuine understanding of reality. Also contrasts with philosophy (q.v.), or genuine love of wisdom, in that philodoxy conceives of truth in immanentist rather than transcendental terms and tends to claim a perfect correspondence between ultimate reality and the ideas or interpretive models used to represent it. Another point of contrast is that whereas philosophy is inherently oriented toward further inquiry through openness to the Question (q.v.), philodoxy is the expression of a desire to put an end to questioning and thereby to escape from the “tension” (q.v.) of existence. In this respect, philodoxy is a principal manifestation of “closed existence” (q.v.).
Philomythos. Lover of myth. Aristotle’s term for one who thinks in the medium of myth and whom he describes as, in a sense, a philosopher (see Philosophy) insofar as the philomythos seeks genuine understanding through the medium of analogical images and stories. Cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 982b18–20: “the lover of myths is in a sense a lover of wisdom,” as given in Voegelin OH, vol. 3, chap. 7.
Philosophia perennis. Perennial philosophy.
Philosophia peri t’anthropina. Philosophy regarding human affairs.
Philosophos. “Lover of wisdom,” philosopher. See also Philosophy; Philomythos
Philosophy. The love of wisdom in the sense of transcendental (q.v.) truth. As Voegelin (following Plato) conceives it, philosophy is characterized by the realization that one does not actually possess transcendental truth but is oriented toward it through love. Contrasts with philodoxy (q.v.). Voegelin also spoke of philosophy as the process of interpreting experiences of transcendence (q.v.).
Phronema. Self-will, but also spirit, mind, purpose, thought.
Phronesis. Intention, purpose; practical wisdom, prudence. In Aristotle, the understanding that guides ethical virtue. Plato had given the concept a more contemplative emphasis, sometimes treating it as virtually equivalent to nous (q.v.). For Aristotle’s meaning as one of the “existential virtues,” see Voegelin, Anamnesis [CW, vol. 6], 153–56. See Phronimos
Phronimos or Uphronimos. Knower and exemplar of right or prudent action (phronesis), a sensible, sagacious human being. Voegelin states, in CW, 6:156: “The synetos, the man of good judgment, knows how to assess action correctly [according to Aristotle], but he does not thereby become a phronimos, who acts correctly and effectively. Since synesis does indeed place objective distance between knowledge and action, which is precisely what distinguishes it from phronesis, the latter must be understood ontologically. The virtue that Aristotle calls phronesis, or political science, is an existential virtue; it is the movement of being, in which the divine order or the cosmos attains its truth in the human realm.” See Phronesis; Spoudaios
Physei dikaion. Right by nature.
Physikon. Natural right, as opposed to to nomikon, conventional right.
Pistis. Faith. See Fides formata
Pleonexia. A disposition to take more than one’s share. Greediness.
Pleroma. Fullness. Used especially to refer to the “fullness” of incarnate divinity in Christ (as in Col. 2:9). Cf. Voegelin OH, vol. 4, chap. 7, §1.4: “In Paul’s myth, God emerges victorious, because his protagonist is man. He is the creature in whom God can incarnate himself with the fullness (pleroma) of his divinity, transfiguring man into the God-man (Col. 2:9). The whole creation that is groaning can be redeemed, because at one point, in man, the sonship of God is possible (Rom. 8:22–23).”
Plethos. Multitude, mass, mob.
Pneuma. Wind, air, breath, spirit. Hebrew ruach; Latin spiritus. In Voegelin’s use, the presence of the transcendent pole of the tension of existence as a force ordering the soul from within. Correlates with the symbol helkein (q.v.), which refers to the felt force of pneuma.
Pneumapathology or pneumopathology. Spiritual disease (Schelling).
Pneumatic differentiation. Voegelin’s term for the awakening of the soul both by and to the experience of the pull (helkein, q.v.) in the tension of existence toward the pole of transcendent perfection; the emergent realization of the absolutely transcendent character of that pole. Historically, the realization among both the ancient Israelites and early Christians of the absolute distinction between the radically transcendent God and the created realm or world.
Poietike. The process of making something; production.
Polis. The Greek city-state. State or society characterized by a sense of community. Thus, Voegelin, quoting Aristotle: “ ‘the polis is an association of like people [koinonia ton homoion]’ striving for the best life, and not an association of just any human beings.” OH, vol. 3, §5.
Politeia. Commonwealth, republic; constitution; civil polity; the relation of the citizen to the state. Ariste politeia, the best constitution.
Politike episteme. Political science, the understanding of how to live in society.
Polymythoteros. With a higher number of legends; richer in legends; more partial to legends, myths.
Polypragmosyne. Meddling; officious interference.
Poros. Wealth, resource. Opposite of penia (q.v.).
Pothos. Desire, yearning, longing (for mundane fulfillments). Defined by Voegelin as “a powerful desire to reach out indefinitely toward the unknown and unheard of” and used especially in reference to Alexander the Great’s unlimited ambition.
Present, indelible. See Indelible present
Primary experience of the cosmos. Voegelin’s term for what is felt and known about reality prior to philosophical or spiritual reflection that differentiates it into a “world” and a “beyond.” For this reason it is experienced as “a cosmos full of gods,” a whole saturated with divine presence.
Princeps. In republican Roman use, a leading Roman citizen; in imperial times, a title of the emperor.
Proton kinoun. First cause, prime mover.
Pseude plasmata. False constructs.
Pseudos. A lie.
Psyche. Breath, vital principle, soul, “the sensorium of transcendence.” In Voegelin’s use, a comprehensive term for the process in which the pull toward the transcendent pole of the tension of existence is sensed and responded to; includes varying degrees of consciousness. Voegelin also spoke of how Greek thinkers developed it as a symbol that involved a level of “depth” below consciousness (see “Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History,” in CW, 12:124–25).
Pure experience. Concept of William James cited by Voegelin as analogous to Plato’s metaxy (q.v.).
Question, the. Voegelin’s term for the tension of existence in its aspect as a questioning unrest seeking, not simply particular truth, but still more the transcendent pole of truth as such: “not just any question but the quest concerning the mysterious ground of all being” (OH, vol. 4, chap. 7, §5 [p. 320 in 1974 ed.]). Expresses itself in mythopoeic as well as noetic acts and “shares by its varying modes the advance of experience from compactness to differentiation. The meaning of the Question can be ascertained, therefore, only by tracing the modes from the setting in the primary experience of the cosmos, through transitional forms, to their setting in the context of noetic and pneumatic differentiations” (ibid., 317).
Ratio. Reason. Defined by Voegelin in “What Is Political Reality?” (Anamnesis, CW, 6:352) as the directional factor in the tension (q.v.) of consciousness “as the quest for the ground” (q.v.), which orders it and thereby gives it structure as open inquiry. In this sense, ratio is the existential response of nous (q.v.) to the Question (q.v.). Cf. “Reason: The Classic Experience,” in CW, vol. 12, chap. 10; also, CW, 28:88–91.
Realissimum. The “most real.” Term for God or the divine ground considered as supreme reality. See also Reality, divine
Reality. In Voegelin’s thought, reality, at its deepest level, is not to be understood as a “thing” or a “fact,” but as a process structured, through the tension between the poles of “world” (q.v.) and “Beyond” (q.v.), as a pull toward the perfect fullness and luminosity of being that is symbolized in the language of myth by the realm of the divine or the gods. See also Reality, divine; Reality, existent and nonexistent
Reality, divine. A symbol (drawing on the mythic language of “the gods”) for the ultimate source or ground of all that is. Considered in this sense, it is the divine ground (q.v.) that is ultimately real, while all created reality may be described as a “myth” (q.v.)—a myth not in the sense that it is false but in the sense that its truth is an analogical imaging forth of the eminent reality of the ground. Cf. Voegelin, “The Beginning and the Beyond: A Meditation on Truth” (CW, 28:173): “Divine reality is being revealed to man in two fundamental modes of experience: in the experience of divine creativity in the cosmos; and in the experience of divine ordering presence in the soul.”
Reality, existent and nonexistent. Voegelin sometimes describes the ground (q.v.) as “non-existent reality,” reserving the term existence for spatio-temporally conditioned phenomena (q.v.). See Glenn Hughes, Mystery and Myth in the Philosophy of Eric Voegelin (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 48–49.
Reason. For Voegelin, not a merely calculative function (as in modern “rationalism”) but the expression in thinking of the love of the ground (q.v.) of being or divine reality (q.v.), the human capacity or “faculty” that becomes active through “the adequate articulation and symbolization of the questioning consciousness” (CW, 12:269). Cf. ten meanings of reason, CW 28:88. See also Noetic differentiation; Nous; Ratio
Reflection. Consideration of experience by way of mediating interpretive models. Contrasts with immediacy of experience.
Reflective distance. Voegelin’s term for the realization of the difference between the experience of existence as an event of conscious “participation” (q.v.) in being and the expression of this event in language symbols. This is an essential ingredient, according to Voegelin, in the “balance of consciousness” (q.v.) and involves the conception of truth not as information, but as growth of luminosity in the process of reality (q.v.). Contrasts with “doxic” thinking (q.v.) and with claims to intuitive Gnosis (q.v.).
Reflective symbols. Symbols—such as “tension” (q.v.) of participatory consciousness and its experiential “poles” in the metaxy (q.v.), “intentionality and luminosity”(q.v.)—that express the insights achieved by “reflective distance” (q.v.) regarding the structural features of consciousness.
Religio vera ipsa, id est purgatae mentis in Deum recta conversio. “The genuinely true religion, that is, a correct turning toward God by a purified mind.” Quoted in Bodin’s Letter to Jean Bautru, in Voegelin, HPI, vol. 5 [CW, vol. 23], chap. 6, p. 188.
Representation. In the “elemental” sense: the institutions that make organization and leadership possible in a society. In the “conventional” sense: representative democratic government. In the “existential” sense: societies as they are concretely ordered for purposive action grounded in truth. In the “transcendental” sense: the symbolism by which a society interprets its order as deriving from and expressing the order of the cosmos (q.v.) or of the Beyond (q.v.). Cf. NSP, chap. 1, in CW, vol. 5.
Representative humanity. Term used to refer to the modeling of well-developed humanity by one in whom some advance in the realization of human possibility has taken place; the existential basis for the development of the idea of “mankind.” Cf. Voegelin, “Configurations of History” (CW, 12:111): “Every new insight begins with a single person, who receives it, one might say, as a representative of the whole of humanity. As a matter of fact, the very idea that there is a humanity, that there is a mankind, and that one can generalize about man, appears only when certain revelatory insights occur.”
Res gestae. Heroic deeds, exploits.
Res publica. Commonwealth.
Revelation. A “spiritual outburst,” a radically new insight that discloses the possibility of more adequate participation in being. The differentiation (q.v.) of pneumatic (q.v.) consciousness through revelatory experience. See Noetic vs. pneumatic
Sacrae litterae. Sacred writings. Also referred to as divina scripta.
Saeculum. An age of history.
Saros. Babylonian cycle of 3,600 years.
Saving tale. A story that has the power, as narrative symbol, to evoke an existential transformation enabling more adequate participation (q.v.) in being and to free one from the power of other stories that pull one toward less adequate existence. (For Voegelin’s discussion of this concept, see CW, 12:182–83, 186, 336–38.) See also Exodus; Immortalizing
Scientism. The reductionist attitude that all reality (q.v.) should be knowable by the methods of the natural sciences (especially mathematical, quantitative method). Cf. NSP, introduction, and CW, vol. 10, chap. 7, “The Origins of Scientism.”
Scotosis. Darkening, turning toward darkness; the obscuring of sectors of reality (q.v.). Voluntary ignorance. Term coined by Bernard Lonergan and used by Voegelin for the attitude seeking eclipse (q.v.) of reality.
Scriptura sancta, sacra. Sacred scripture.
Search. See Zetema; Zetesis
Second reality. Voegelin’s term (drawn from Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities) for a fictitious world imagined as true by a self-alienated person using it to mask and thereby “eclipse” (q.v.) genuine reality. See also Scotosis
Secularization. The process by which the cosmos (q.v.), which had once been seen as having a dimension of transcendence, comes to be interpreted as lacking any relation to transcendence. Referred to by Voegelin (OH, 4:196) as “a polite word for deculturation” (q.v.).
Sophia. Wisdom.
Sophistes. Sophistic quibbler.
Sophos. Wise, clever, skillful.
Sophrosyne. Moderation, temperance, discretion, virtue of right understanding, as differentiated from the lesser quality, synesis or eusynesia (quick-wittedness, shrewdness).
Soteria. Salvation, deliverance to safety.
Soteriology. The theology of “salvation.” See also Saving tale
Spirit. Defined by Voegelin in “The German University and the Order of German Society” (CW, 12:7): “By spirit we understand the openness of man to the divine ground of his existence: by estrangement from the spirit, the closure and the revolt against the ground.” See also Pneuma
Spoudaios (aner). Aristotle’s term for the mature rational and ethical person, the fully developed human being capable of intelligent thought and responsible decision and action. See also Phronimos
Stoa (poikile). Literally, “painted porch or colonnade,” a building in Athens after which the Stoic school of philosophy was named.
Stromateis. Miscellanea (The title of a collection of various writings by Clement of Alexandria.)
Sub specie mortis. Under the aspect of death.
Substance. From Latin substantia: “standing under.” In Voegelin’s use, the underlying reality of anything. Refers to essential reality as compared with appearances, and in this sense it contrasts with phenomena (q.v.). Not to be confused with the use of the term in traditional metaphysics, where it refers to an independently existing entity, or hypostasis (q.v.).
Summodeism. The subsuming of lesser gods and their powers and functions under a highest god.
Summum bonum. The “highest good.” Equivalent Latin term for the agathon (q.v.) in Plato, Blessedness or Beatitude in Christianity; the “divine measure,” or “transcendent perfection.”
Superbia vitae. Overbearing pride, existential arrogance; the archsin as in “the pride of life” in 1 John 2:16. See also Hybris
Symbolism (primary and secondary). In Voegelin’s use, “primary symbolism” expresses genuine philosophical and spiritual experience, and correct interpretation of it requires a parallel experience on the part of the interpreter. “Secondary symbolism” replaces primary when the original symbol is separated from its engendering experience and is used to refer to some experience (either actual or purported) differing from the original.
Tale, the saving. See Saving tale
Tale, the time of the. The imaginative, analogical representation in myth of that which is beyond time, especially what Voegelin calls “The Beginning.” See “The Beginning and the Beyond: A Meditation on Truth” (CW, 28:175).
Taxis. Order, arrangement.
Techne. Art, technical skill, craft.
Techne metretike. The art of measuring. Cf. Voegelin, OH, vol. 2 [CW, vol. 15], chap. 11, §3; OH, vol. 3 [CW, vol. 16], chap. 3, §6. Techne politike. The art of politics, political skill.
Telos. End, purpose goal, completion. The objective or completion of a process of development. In Aristotle, the purpose or “final cause” of a process.
Tension. A condition of tending toward a goal. Voegelin uses the term especially to refer to what he calls “tension of existence,” the fundamental experience of longing for transcendental fulfillment, the Beyond (q.v.), the summum bonum (q.v.). Voegelin thought that when the fundamental tension of existence becomes conscious, so that one realizes its unrestricted character and its directional tendency, one can begin to understand and appropriate one’s existence as structured by that tension, with the result that one’s historical existence ceases to be a movement bounded by particular mundane goals and becomes a movement directed beyond the world—a movement that Voegelin also refers to as an exodus (q.v.).
Tes geneseos pateres. Ancestors of becoming.
Tetragrammaton. The word of four Hebrew letters YHWH (Yod He Vaw He) used for the unpronounceable name of God (Yahweh) in the Hebrew Bible and in Aquinas as most appropriate “for the purpose of signifying the singular, incommunicable substance of God.” Cf. Voegelin, OH, vol. 1 [CW, vol. 14], chap. 12, §3.
Thanatos. Death. Also Freud’s term for the desire for death or “death drive.” As a force in the soul of Socrates see OH, vol. 3 [CW, vol. 16], chap. 1, §1.1.
Thaumasia. Marvels, wonders.
Thaumaston. The wonderful, marvelous.
Thaumazein. To wonder; an aspect of what Voegelin calls the “tension of existence.” The experience from which Aristotle said philosophy begins. Correlates with “the Question” (q.v.).
Theios nomos. Divine law. See Nomos
Theiotatos. The most divine.
Theogony. An account of the origin and descent of the gods.
Theophany. A manifestation of the divine.
Theophilos. A lover of God.
Theoria. In Plato and Aristotle, contemplative wisdom; equivalent to episteme (q.v.). Described in The New Science of Politics as that type of rational construction and communication among mature individuals who are capable of imaginative reenactment of the experiences of which theory is an explication.
Thingness. Voegelin’s term for what characterizes thing-reality (q.v.).
Thing-reality. Reality insofar as it is conceived as an object for intending consciousness, as distinguished from It-reality (q.v.). Voegelin writes, in Anamnesis [CW, vol. 6], 374: “Although we are compelled to speak in terms of objects because of the intentionality of consciousness, the linguistic terms used do not have the character of concepts or definitions referring to things.” And in OH, vol. 5 [CW, vol. 18], 32: “there emerges the complex of consciousness-reality-language as a something that receives its character as a unit through the pervasive presence of another something, called the paradox of intentionality and luminosity, of thing-ness and It-ness.” See also Intentional consciousness; Intentionality; Participation
Third god, the. In Plato’s Laws the nous (q.v.), considered as the divine source of order, manifest after the ages of Kronos (the first god) and Zeus (the second god).
Thnetos. Mortal.
Timios. Held in honor, valued.
To pan. See Pan, to
Topoi. Topics (Aristotle).
Tou eidenai oregontai. “They desire to know.”
Transcendence. Literally, “going beyond”—e.g., going beyond the boundaries of categories (as in the medieval scholastic “transcendentals” [q.v.]), going beyond the horizon of present knowledge by asking further questions, or going beyond one’s present mode of existence through a new openness to the pull of the Beyond (q.v.). See also Transcendent; Transcendence, experiences of
Transcendence, experiences of. In Voegelin’s thought, experiences of reaching (or being drawn) beyond one’s present horizon of knowledge or spiritual and ethical orientation. Voegelin would sometimes illustrate the meaning of this phrase (and the fact that he did not mean something esoteric by it) by calling his interlocutor’s attention to his or her ordinary experience of being moved in questioning by a genuine desire for truth. See also Apperception; Transcendence; Transcendent; Transcendentals
Transcendent. From the Latin transcendere: to go beyond, surpass. General term for that which extends or lies beyond some set of limits; may be relative (beyond some particular limits) or absolute (beyond all possible limits). The opposite of immanent (q.v.). See also Beyond; Ground; Summum bonum; Transcendentals
Transcendental. General term for that which is transcendent (q.v.). Also used in Kantian discourse to refer to the a priori conditions that make some form of experience possible in principle. See also Beyond
Transcendentals. In medieval usage, the term for attributes that cannot be circumscribed by the boundaries of Aristotelian categories; the medieval transcendentia or “transcendentals” are: ens (being), unum (one), bonum (good), verum (true), res (thing), and aliquid (something).
Transcendentia. See Transcendentals
Translatio imperii. Transfer of sovereignty, transmission of sovereignty qua imperial power, or supreme command.
Transparent. As in “transparent symbol,” a phrase Voegelin used to refer to the ability of a symbol to evoke in its hearer an experientially grounded sense of what it refers to; the opposite of opaque, i.e., the inability of a symbol to thus communicate.
Truth of existence. Voegelin’s term for transcendentally oriented conscious existence; involves the experience of: (1) finiteness and creatureliness; (2) dissatisfaction with imperfection; (3) the luminosity or manifestness of such experience in consciousness; (4) the self-transcending tendency of consciousness seeking fullness of truth, especially in the form of more adequate participation in being. Defined by Voegelin in “On Debate and Existence” (CW, 12:49) as “the awareness of the fundamental structure of existence together with the willingness to accept it as the condicio humana [q.v.].” Cf. Voegelin (OH, 3:363 [1957 ed.; CW, vol. 16, chap. 10, §2]): “Truth is not a body of propositions about a world-immanent object” but “the world-transcendent summum bonum [q.v.] experienced as an orienting force in the soul.” See also Untruth of existence
Tua res agitur. “It has to do with you.” Horace, Epistles 1.18:83– 84: “Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet, et neglecta solent incendia sumere vires” (It is your own safety that is at stake, when your neighbor’s wall is in flames, and fires neglected tend to gather strength).
Tyche. Luck, chance.
Ukase. A Russian imperial decree, an edict having the force of law.
Ultor peccatorum. Avenger, punisher of sins or sinners.
Universality, universal. Voegelin’s term for the experience of the pull (helkein [q.v.]) of the transcendent pole in the tension of existence as the source of existential order for all human beings. Also refers to the order so constituted. See also Representative humanity
Untruth of existence. The opposite of truth of existence (q.v.). Defined by Voegelin in “On Debate and Existence” (CW, 12:49) as “a revolt against the condicio humana [q.v.] and the attempt to overlay its reality by the construction of a Second Reality [q.v.].”
Uphronimos. See Phronimos
Variae de religionibus sententiae. “Various pronouncements about religions.” Cf. Jean Bodin’s letter to Jean Bautru of 1563 in HPI, vol. 5 [CW, vol. 23], 188–90.
Via dolorosa. The path of sorrow; the route of Jesus bearing his cross.
Viator. Wayfarer. In Christian symbolism, the pilgrim moving toward eschatological perfection.
Vision. In Voegelin’s use, drawing on Plato’s terms hora (q.v.) and opsis (q.v.), a “reflective symbol” (q.v.) that refers to the mystery (q.v.) of reality (q.v.) developing luminosity (q.v.) in the emerging “truth of existence” (q.v.) in such a way that the poles of subject and object, human and divine are experienced as intimately bound together—but not fused into identity, as in Hegel. Voegelin writes in “Quod Deus Dicitur,” CW, 12:381: “What makes the Hegelinan insight . . . still unsatisfactory is the tendency to raise the paradoxic structure, as revealed in the reflective dimension of consciousness, into an ultimate solution of the problem of divinity. This hypostatization [q.v.] of reflective consciousness obscures the fact that the noetic movement itself, the divine-human encounter, is still an active process in tension toward the symbols of faith. The [Hegelian] hypostatization of the reflective symbols leads to the deformative construction of the process of thought into the finished thought of conceptual science.” In “The Beginning and the Beyond” Voegelin writes, CW, 28:229: “The opsis, vision, is Plato’s technical term for the experiential process in which the order of reality is seen, becomes reflectively known, and finds its appropriate language symbols. The ‘vision’ in this comprehensive sense, which includes the noetic vision, appears in the key-passages of Timaeus 47 as the opsis of the order in the cosmos, and in Republic 507– 509, as the opsis of the Agathon [q.v.] that creates the order in the soul of man.”
Vitae nimia cupiditas. “Excessive desire to live.”
World. In Voegelin’s use, not a quantity of territory but civilized existence, a substantive order involving the experience of universality (q.v.). Contrasts in this respect with ekumene (or oikoumene) (q.v.), which in Voegelin’s interpretation is a territorial term. According to Voegelin, the symbol “world” developed historically when the cosmos (q.v.) of the “primary experience of the cosmos” (q.v.) separated in the “differentiated consciousness of existence” into its immanent (symbolized by “world”) and transcendent (symbolized by “God”) components.
Xynon, or to koinon. Common, what can be known as shared reality. Cf. Voegelin, OH, vol. 2 [CW, vol. 15], chap. 6, §2.3, and chap. 9, §3.
Zetein. To seek. See Zetema; Zetesis
Zetema. That which is sought; inquiry. In Voegelin’s use (following Plato), an existential inquiry, the participatory process of conceptual illumination of the soul; a search for truth, both cognitive and existential. Cf. Voegelin, OH, vol. 3 [CW, vol. 16], chap. 3, §4.1.
Zetesis. Search, seeking. In Voegelin’s use, that aspect of the dynamics of the tension of existence in which the tension is experienced as a seeking or striving toward the transcendent pole of the tension. Correlative to helkein (q.v.).
Zoa. Living beings.
Zoon noetikon, politikon, historikon. Intellectual, political, historical living being. See Voegelin, “Reason: The Classic Experience,” in CW, 12:265–91; apropos Aristotle, Politics I.1.10–11, Voegelin writes in OH, vol. 3 [CW, vol. 16], chap. 9, §1: “Man is not a gregarious animal (agelaion zoon); he is a politikon zoon, and that means that the end, the telos, of the [human] community lies in the realm of conscious, deliberate recognition of good and evil, of right and wrong. For, ‘it is the characteristic of man, as distinguished from other living beings, that he alone has a sense of good and bad and right and wrong.’ ”
Zoon noun echon. Living and rational being; Aristotle’s characterization of man “as the living being that possesses Nous.” Voegelin in CW, 12:267.