Autobiographical Reflections, Revised Edition with Glossary

Eric Voegelin, Ellis Sandoz

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780826272553
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Autobiographical Reflections is a window into the mind of a man whose reassessment of the nature of history and thought has overturned traditional approaches to, and appraisals of, the Western intellectual tradition. Here we encounter the motivations for Voegelin's work, the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. Included in this revised volume is a glossary of terms used in Voegelin's writings. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author's writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. Together, the glossary and enlarged index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin's oeuvre.

1

University of Vienna

 

 

I attended the University of Vienna, in the Faculty of Law, from 1919 to the completion of my doctorate in 1922. The atmosphere of the university at the time was determined by the breakdown of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the First World War. By its composition, the university was still the university of the capital of the empire and reflected in its scholarship and the personal attitude of the professors this cosmopolitan atmosphere. At the time when I was a student, and throughout the 1920s, or rather until the effects of National Socialism made themselves felt in the early thirties, Vienna still had an enormous intellectual horizon and was leading in science internationally in a number of fields. First, there was Hans Kelsen’s Theory of Pure Law, represented by Kelsen himself and the growing number of younger men whom he had educated, especially Alfred von Verdross and Adolf Merkl. Second, there was the Austrian School of Marginal Utility. Eugen Böhm-Bawerk had already died, but Leopold von Wieser was still the grand old man who gave the principal course in economic theory. Among the younger economists there was Ludwig von Mises, famous because of his development of money theory. Joseph A. Schumpeter was in Graz at the time, but his work of course was studied. Among the further intellectual and spiritual components that would impress themselves on a young man at the time was the school of theoretical physics going back to Ernst Mach and represented at the time by Moritz Schlick. An important intellectual force in this circle was Ludwig Wittgenstein, less by his presence than by his work. There further must be mentioned the Austrian Institut für Geschichtsforschung, represented by Alfons Dopsch, who by that time had attained international fame through his work on the history of Carolingian economics.

Among the younger men, there was the rising force of Otto Brunner, who later became famous by his theories of medieval feudalism.¹ A further glory of the University of Vienna at the time was the history of art, represented by Max Dvořák and Josef Strzigowski. Dvořák had already died by the time I came to the university, but Strzigowski was active. I had courses with him in the history of Renaissance art; and what especially was attractive about him was his interest in Near Eastern art, of which his two-volume work about Armenia is a great document. At the same time there was flourishing in Vienna the Institut für Urgeschichte.

More on the fringe so far as I am concerned were such famous institutions as the Institute for Byzantine Music under Egon Wellesz, with whom I later got acquainted. After the National Socialist takeover, Egon Wellesz went to Oxford. A further inevitable massive influence was represented by the psychologists. I took courses under Hermann Swoboda, who was very much addicted to the theory of rhythms of Ernst Kries; and he, in turn, was a close friend of Sigmund Freud. Into the psychology of Swoboda entered as a background his early friendship with Otto Weininger. The works of Otto Weininger were read by everybody at the time. The most important influence in psychology, of course, was given through the presence of Freud. I did not belong to the circle of Freud and never met him, but I knew quite a few of the younger men who had been trained by him. The most important at the time whom I knew was Heinz Hartmann, who later came to New York; Robert Waelder, who later established himself in Philadelphia; and Kries, who later went to Australia.

Now about the composition of the Law School. The great intellectual figures by whom the students were attracted at the time were Hans Kelsen, the lawyer and maker of the Austrian constitution, and Othmar Spann, the economist and sociologist who had developed a theory of universalism and had carried out a structural analysis of a people’s economy, going in its content far beyond the subject matter dealt with by the more restricted marginal utility theorists. The third figure who attracted students in masses was Carl Gruenberg, a stalwart of Social Democracy. In the wake of the upheaval through the breakup of the empire and the establishment of the republic in 1918 came the ascendancy of the Social Democratic party, and in the first election in which I ever participated I voted for it; an important figure had become the chief ideologist of the Social Democrats, Max Adler. More on the periphery, so far as I was concerned, were a number of excellent lawyers—for instance, Strisower in international law; Schey, who had conducted the reform of the civil code; and Hupka in civil procedure.

I had registered as a student for the curriculum that would lead to the Doctor rerum politicarum. My decision to take these courses leading to the doctorate in political science were partly economic, partly matters of principle. So far as economics are concerned, I was very poor, and a doctorate that would be finished in three years had a definite appeal. The law doctorate would have required four years. The matter of principle was a vague but strong impulse even at that time that I would embark on a career in science. The doctorate of law had the temptation that ultimately one could land, if one did not become an independent lawyer, in a civil service position; and I did not want to become a civil servant. The choice of political science was furthermore determined by the attraction of the faculty, which included such famous men as Kelsen and Spann. An alternative, seriously considered by my father, who was a civil engineer, and myself at the time, was to go into physics and mathematics. But politics had the stronger pull. Still, after I had finished the doctorate in political science, I enrolled in the Philosophical Faculty in mathematics courses, especially with Philipp Furtwaengler in Funktionentheorie. But these studies turned out to be no more than desultory, because I simply could not become enthusiastic about mathematical problems.

During these three years I began to form personal relationships with students of my own age, some of them not more than one or two years older and, by virtue of that slight age difference, coming back from military service, which had given them a maturity that people such as I (who had escaped military service by my youth) found attractive. The occasions on which these relationships were formed were the courses we heard in common, and especially the seminars. Three of these seminars were of major importance for the later cohesion among the group of young men about which I have to talk. I mention first the seminar with Othmar Spann, not because it was the most important under this aspect but because here I got acquainted with some people who later dropped out of my life. The general climate of the Spann group and of the young people attracted by Spann was Romanticism and German Idealism with a strong touch of nationalism. Some of these people later got involved in National Socialism or in even more radical national movements opposed to National Socialism. At the time when the Hitler problem became virulent in Austria, contacts with these people faded and were not resumed later. Still, I have to mention this phase, because to Spann and the work in his seminar, especially his private seminar, which I attended through several years, I owe my acquaintance with the Classic philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) and with the German idealistic systems of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. W. J. von Schelling. More important for my later life, apparently because it met with my own inclinations, were the seminars of Kelsen and Mises. Through the Kelsen seminar, and again especially the private seminar, were formed the connections with its older members, particularly Verdross in international law and Merkl in administrative law. Among the people closer to my own age group were Alfred Schütz, who later became professor of sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York; Emanuel Winternitz, who, after we were all thrown out by Hitler, became the curator of the collection of musical instruments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Felix Kaufmann, the legal philosopher who became professor at the New School for Social Research; and Fritz Schreier, who, when he came to America, entered the independent business of marketing and advertising. Third comes the private seminar of Ludwig von Mises, which I attended for many years, until the end of my stay in Austria, and where I formed connections with Friedrich August von Hayek, Oscar Morgenstern, Fritz Machlup, and Gottfried von Haberler.

From these groupings, determined by the institutions of the seminars and the personal friendships and relations between these people and others, there crystallized in the end an institution which, with ironical overtones, was called the Geistkreis [Spiritual or Intellectual Circle]. It was a group of younger people who met regularly every month, one of them giving a lecture on a subject of his choice and the others tearing him to pieces. Since it was a civilized community, it was a rule that the man in whose house we met would not be the one to deliver the lecture, because the lady of the house was permitted to attend (otherwise women were not admitted), and it would not be courteous to tear a gentleman to pieces in the presence of his wife. To this group, which gradually expanded with sometimes somebody dropping out, belonged on and off most of the people just enumerated, especially Alfred Schütz, Emanuel Winternitz, Haberler, Herbert Fuerth, Johannes Wilde the art historian, Robert Waelder the psychoanalyst, Felix Kaufmann, Friedrich von Engel-Janosi the historian, and Georg Schiff. An important characteristic of the group was that we were all held together by our intellectual interests in the pursuit of this or that science, but that at the same time a good number of the members were not simply attached to the university but were engaged in various business activities. A man like Alfred Schütz, for instance, was the secretary of a bankers’ organization and later entered a banking business. He continued his banking activities when he came to New York and had the fantastic energy of pursuing both his business successfully and of becoming the author of the studies that now have become famous through his collected works. Emanuel Winternitz was a practicing lawyer connected especially with Bausparkassen. He used a good deal of his income as a successful lawyer to make extended trips to Italy in order to indulge his interest in art history. That was the basis on which he later established himself in America, leading ultimately to his position in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His great success is the organization of that marvelous permanent exhibition of musical instruments that has attracted the attention of the visitors to the museum since 1972.

The economists were affected by the shrinking of the University of Vienna under the conditions of the republic. One university could not accommodate as many first-rate economists as emerged in these years, and the names of Hayek, Haberler, Morgenstern, and Machlup have become famous in England and America. They intended to leave Vienna even before Hitler. Machlup was one of the last to leave, because he was an independent industrialist. Engel-Janosi, besides being an excellent historian, was the owner of a parquetry factory; but I must say that the successful conduct of his business was largely due to the eminent business intelligence of his wife, Carlette. A further difficulty arose through the fact that, beginning with the establishment of the republic, anti-Semitism became an ineluctable factor in the University of Vienna. At the time I entered the university as a student, a considerable number of the full professors were Jews, reflecting the liberal policy of the monarchy. But after 1918 and establishment of the republic, no more Jews were appointed full professors, so that the younger people who were Jews had no chance of ever rising beyond the level of Privatdozent. That limitation was in part responsible for the necessity of excellent men like Felix Kaufmann and Alfred Schütz to pursue their business occupations. Schütz, as I have mentioned, was a banker; Felix Kaufmann was a director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Corporation. Many of these young people, through the advent of Hitler, the fact of being thrown out of their positions, and the necessity to flee, were thrown into their business careers. The friendships formed in these years held up. The members of this Geistkreis were physically dispersed, but the personal relationships have remained intact.

 

---

1. Especially as published in Land und Herrschaft, 4th ed. (1959).

2

High School

 

 

The development of my studies in the university requires some reflection on the background acquired in high school. I went to a Real-Gymnasium, which meant that I had eight years of Latin, six years of English, and, as an optional subject, two years in Italian. Besides, my parents took care that I had some elementary tuition in French. The school was further characterized during the war years of 1914 to 1918 by the drafting of a number of the regular teachers for military service, so that certain courses were supplied by persons exempt from military service who came from outside the regular teaching personnel. These happened to be the most influential for us teenagers. Especially should be mentioned the English teacher Otto Erwin Kraus, who so far as I know had been a journalist in England before returning at the beginning of the war to Austria and entering the teaching service. He was a knowledgeable intellectual who was especially interested in psychoanalysis in the variety of Alfred Adler. One of the high points of my high school education was the study of Hamlet, during a semester, as interpreted by Alfred Adler’s psychology of Geltung.

One of the regular teachers was Philip Freud, an excellent physicist and mathematician, who taught us so well that in the last year of high school (eighth grade), a friend of mine, Robert Maier, and I were quite able to become interested in the Theory of Relativity, which had just become famous; and Albert Einstein’s presentation of his theory of 1917, which had just come out, is still one of my most valuable possessions. We studied it and at first could not understand it, but then we discovered that our difficulty was caused by the simplicity of the theory. We understood it perfectly well but could not believe that something so simple could arouse such a furor as a difficult new theory. The mathematical apparatus, of course, was entirely at our disposition. When we encountered these seeming difficulties of understanding, we consulted with Freud, our physics teacher, and found out about our problems and received further information.

I remember especially from such a session with Freud his bringing to our attention that, according to the new theory of atoms, when you take a saw and cut through a piece of wood, you separate atomic structures. How it is possible to separate atomic structures by a handsaw was for him the greatest puzzle in the structure of physical reality. Freud had seen the problem of reduction and the autonomy of the various strata in the reality of being.

The stratification of reality led to an incident in another connection. One of the very good people who came from the outside during these years was a chemist from the Polytechnik in Vienna, Strebinger. I was called up for an oral test after I had been absent from a lecture in which the question of the composition of citric acid had been discussed. I had learned the matter at home and knew all about citric acid, but I could not answer the question of how one obtains it, because I thought there was some complicated chemical process involved. Then I was thundered down as an egregious jackass, because I did not know that citric acid is obtained by squeezing lemons. I got a bad grade that semester.

Another man from the Polytechnik who was of importance was Kopatschek, the mathematician. In mathematics, after we reached the prescribed level of differential calculus, we went further with enthusiasm into the theory of matrices and some hints at group theory. This wide range of interest represented by very good teachers will explain my receptiveness when I came to the university. But before I came to the university, in the vacation between the Abiturium and the beginning of my university studies in the fall, I studied the Kapital of Marx, induced of course by the current interest in the Russian Revolution. Being a complete innocent in such matters, I was of course convinced by what I read, and I must say that from August 1919 to about December of that year I was a Marxist. By Christmas the matter had worn off, because in the meanwhile I had attended courses in both economic theory and the history of economic theory and knew what was wrong with Marx. Marxism was never a problem for me after that.

3

Max Weber

This problem of throwing out an ideology because it is scientifically untenable remained a constant in these years. Very important for the formation of my attitude in science was my early acquaintance with the work of Max Weber, whose volumes on the Sociology of Religion, as well as Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, came out in these years and were of course devoured by us students. The lasting influence of Max Weber can be concentrated in the following points. First, the essays of Max Weber on Marxism going back to 1904–1905 completed my rejection of Marxism as untenable in science, which had been prepared by the courses in economics and in the history of economic theory that I had taken earlier. Second, Weber’s later lectures on Wissenschaft und Politik made it clear that ideologies are so-called “values” that have to be premised when one acts but are not themselves scientific propositions. The question became acute through Weber’s distinction of Gesinnungsethik and Verantwortungsethik—ethics of intention and ethics of responsibility, as they are usually rendered in English. Weber was on the side of the ethics of responsibility—i.e., of taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s action, so that if one, for instance, establishes a government that expropriates the expropriators, he is responsible for the misery that he causes for the people expropriated. No excuse for the evil consequences of moralistic action could be found in the morality or nobility of one’s intentions. A moralistic end does not justify immorality of action.

This fundamental insight of Max Weber, even though he did not analyze its implications fully, remained a firm possession. Ideologies are not science, and ideals are...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction to the Revised Edition
• Introduction
• 1. University of Vienna
• 2. High School
• 3. Max Weber
• 4. Comparative Knowledge
• 5. Stefan George and Karl Kraus
• 6. The Pure Theory of Law: Neo-Kantian Methodology
• 7. Political Stimuli
• 8. Concerning My Dissertation
• 9. Concerning Oxford in 1921 or 1922
• 10. American Influence
• 11. Concerning the Year in France
• 12. Return to Vienna
• 13. Anschluss and Emigration
• 14. Concerning Ideology, Personal Politics, and Publications
• 15. Concerning Emigration in 1938
• 16. Life in America: From Harvard to LSU
• 17. From Political Ideas to Symbols of Experience
• 18. Alfred Schütz and the Theory of Consciousness
• 19. Order and Disorder
• 20. The Background of Order and History
• 21. Teaching Career
• 22. Why Philosophize? To Recapture Reality!
• 23. Philosophy of History
• 24. Range, Constancy, Eclipse, and Equivalence of Truth
• 25. Consciousness, Divine Presence, and the Mystic Philosopher
• 26. Revolution, the Open Society, and Institutions
• 27. Eschatology and Philosophy: The Practice of Dying
• Glossary of Terms Used in Eric Voegelin’s Writings Compiled by Eugene Webb
• Index