The rise of Asia in global affairs has forced western thinkers to rethink their assumptions, theories, and conclusions about the region. Eric Voegelin’s Asian Political Thought brings together a mixture of established and rising scholars from both Asia and the West to reflect upon the political philosopher’s thought about China, Japan, Korea, Central Asia, and India. From Voegelin’s writings, readers will not only understand how Voegelin’s approach can illuminate the fundamental principles and issues about Asia but also what are the challenges and possibilities that Asia offers in the twentieth-first century. For those who want to move past the superficial commentary and clichés about Asia, Eric Voegelin’s Asian Political Thought is the book for you.

This book analyzes Eric Voegelin’s scholarly works from the 1950s and early 1960s and examines the ways in which these works are relevant to the twenty-first century political environment. The collection of essays evaluated in this book cover a wide array of topics that were of great curiosity sixty years ago and still relevant in today’s society. The authors in this volume demonstrate that Voegelin’s erudition on topics such as revolutionary change, ideological fervor, industrialization, globalism, and the place for reason and how it may be cultivated in complex times remains as meaningful today as it was then.

Twentieth-century political philosopher Eric Voegelin is best known as a severe critic of modernity. Much of his work argues that modernity is a Gnostic revolt against the fundamental structure of reality. For Voegelin, “Gnosticism” is the belief that human beings can transform the nature of reality through secret knowledge and social action, and he considered it the crux of the crisis of modernity. As Voegelin struggled with this crisis throughout his career, he never wavered in his judgment that philosophers of the modern continental tradition were complicit in the Gnostic revolt of modernity. But while Voegelin’s analysis of those philosophers is at times scathing, his work also bears marks of their influence, and Voegelin has much more in common with the theorists of the modern continental tradition than is usually recognized. Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought evaluates this political philosopher—one of the most original and influential thinkers of our time—by examining his relationship to the modern continental tradition in philosophy, from Kant to Derrida. In a compelling introduction, editors Lee Trepanier and Steven F. McGuire present a review of the trajectories of Voegelin’s thought and outline what often is portrayed as his derisive critique of modernity. Soon, however, they begin to unravel the similarities between Voegelin’s thought and the work of other thinkers in the continental tradition. The subsequent chapters explore these possible connections by examining Voegelin’s intellectual relationship to individual thinkers, including Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The essays in this volume go beyond Voegelin’s own reading of the modern philosophers to offer a reevaluation of his relationship to those thinkers. In Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition, Voegelin’s attempt to grapple with the crisis of modernity becomes clearer, and his contribution to the modern continental tradition is illuminated. The book features the work of both established and emerging Voegelin scholars, and the essays were chosen to present thoughtful and balanced assessments of both Voegelin’s thought and the ideas of the other thinkers considered. As the first volume to examine the relationship—and surprising commonalities—between Voegelin’s philosophy and the continental tradition as a whole, this text will be of interest not only to Voegelin disciples but to philosophers engaged by continental modernism and all disciplines of political philosophy.

"Readers intimidated or puzzled by Voegelin's often daunting prose will find Federici's volume, the fourth entry in ISI's Library of Modern Thinkers series, an invaluable guide to one of the twentieth century's most imposing - and most impressive - philosophical minds."--BOOK JACKET.

The series will publish all of philosopher Voegelin's (1901-1985) works, including the previously unpublished, multi-volume History of Political Ideas, of which this is the second volume. Completed in 1944, it is not a conventional chronological account but an original comprehensive account of the political thought and experiential underpinnings that typified the medieval period. A survey of the structure of the period is followed by analysis of the Germanic invasions, the fall of Rome, and the rise of empire and monastic Christianity, climaxing in a study of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) is widely regarded as one of the greatest political philosophers of the 20th century, yet adequate understanding of his writings stands as a challenge for current and future generations. Voegelin's thought continued to develop at a rapid pace during the last two decades of his life, and as Ellis Sandoz has written, his work found "not only its final but its most profound expression" during this period. Voegelin's fame stemmed mostly from his many books and the laudatory review articles published in response to them, but he was "preeminently an essayist," as Sandoz observes. The meditative analyses and essays written in the culminating phase of Voegelin's career not only expand and deepen his work as a whole, but also revise central components of it in ways that compel reconsideration of even his most widely read texts. Voegelin's books gave rise to a vast secondary literature that continues to grow, yet the exceptionally impactful late essays and meditative works have never received the scholarly commentaries they deserve because they were published originally as journal articles or chapters in edited collections. This volume remedies that shortcoming with 14 critical analyses that elucidate the late essays while also addressing their implications for the entirety of Voegelin's thought. The commentaries will prove invaluable to students and scholars in political science, philosophy, history, theology, and other disciplines, serving as a companion piece to the singularly important Vol. 12 of Voegelin's Collected Works, Published Essays 1966-1985.