Eric Voegelin's Late Meditations and Essays

Eric Voegelin’s life work is best understood as a “zetema,” a philosopher’s life-long quest for truth, one that underwent substantial changes during the final phase of his quest. As Michael Franz explains in his Introduction, Voegelin’s last essays have not received the critical attention they deserve, yet they contain the most refined formulations of his thought. Franz has succeeded in enlisting scholars thoroughly aquatinted with Voegelin’s voluminous publications who are well qualified to analyze the theoretical advances in these last essays and relate them to the better-known, previous stages of his exploration of orders and disorders of the soul and of society.
—Stephen A. McKnight, Professor Emeritus of European Intellectual and Cultural History, University of Florida

Eric Voegelin was the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century. He not only stood up for liberal democracy and common sense against both Hitler and Stalin, working to understand the experiences that gave rise to their followings. Although his fully mature writings moved on from an early tendency to attribute many modern political and spiritual ills to a pattern of thinking he called “gnosticism,” many readers still tend to interpret his thought as centered on this outdated concept, which Voegelin himself later left behind. The analyses in this volume focus on essays representing his most developed and profound thought, offering us a more rounded understanding and enabling us to see how Voegelin can help us address the political and spiritual challenges of our present time.
—Eugene Webb, Professor Emeritus, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington