Example Philosophy Essay

A discussion on various possible relationships between Voegelin's Partners in Being, God and man, and Society and the World in terms of compactness, differentiation, and truncation.

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), one of the premier minds of the twentiethcentury, made a name for himself after being banished from a university inVienna for his scholarly, categorical rejection of Nazism. Some of his philosophyincludes the compartmentalization of reality, including separation of empiricalobjects and ideals. Some of these ideals and concepts are the four partners inBeing: God, man, society and the world. Each of these separated ideologicalgroups has various possible relationships, which can be more carefully perusedby referencing Voegelin's Anamnesis and the twenty-third volume of hiscollected works, entitled Religion and the Rise of Modernity.

Discussion

Voegelin'sfour partners consist of what is known as the community of being, comprising ofthe Divine Being (God), the Personal Being (Man), the Social Being (society),and the World Being. The Beings participate through separate existence in acosmos marked by the rifts between them. Perhaps the most intriguing of thefour is the Social Being; it is reflective of the cosmos in which the fourexist. Society also dictates the cosmological order of Beings. For example, theSocial Being would determine the nature of the Divine Being. In a polytheistic societysuch as that of the Hellenistic Greeks, the Divine Being would remainomnipotent, but would relate more in the context of the Social Being, as thegods were human-like both in their nature and in their interaction with humans.The Personal Being would change as a result of the alteration in the DivineBeing; if there is a marked decrease in the separation of the Divine and SocialBeing (if the gods take part in society in man's world and create one of theirown), the Personal Being will inevitably change. If a woman becomes the consortof a Hellenistic god (as was often the case in mythology), she transcends thecosmos separating the four entities, shifting her involvement in the SocialBeing and altering her Personal Being as a mere human. It is in this sense thatthe four Beings are irrevocably bound to each other; every one of theirrelationships' stasis is reliant on the other. Changing one relationship in anyterm inevitably affects another as the relationship between one entity andanother is first dependent on the entity's relationship with the others.Continuing the Hellenistic example alters the World Being; unlikeJudeo-Christian tradition where the Divine Being is separate from the WorldBeing, the Greek gods reside and participate in the same world as the humanswho worship them.

Voegelinuses the term differentiation to compartmentalize his cosmos. In theJudeo-Christian tradition, Voegelin's differentiation acts to emphasize theseparation between the Beings, the preserving factor in the cosmos stasis.Differentiation connotes distinction in a grouping of Beings that woulderstwhile maintain their similarities. For example, the Biblical God and man(the Divine Being and Personal Being) are differentiated in the nature of Godas the only omnipotent Being. God has the power to alter every Being within thecosmos, where man does not. The relationship between God and man is onereminiscent of master and slave, as God has the ultimate decision in man's veryexistence. Differentiation makes the two Beings distinct in the Judeo-Christiantradition, whereas the Hellenistic tradition features gods who are notomniscient or omnipotent, rivalling each other's power in man-like fashion.They are compacted, or made similar in form and nature to man. In theJudeo-Christian tradition, Voegelin argues, god and man do not mingle(Voegelin 1990, p. 128). The figure of Jesus alters the relationship betweenthe Divine Being, Social Being, and Personal Being. It can be postulated thatJesus' relationship with man is possibly one compacting the Divine Being withthe Personal Being, as Jesus is God manifested as man. However, Voegelin'sdifferentiation rings true as Jesus' resurrection was one that could not bemimicked by man, nor could any of Jesus' other miracles (walking on water,turning water to wine, etc.). While Jesus interacts openly with man, he existedin the Christian tradition solely on behalf of the relationship between theDivine Being and Personal Being. Jesus never attempted to meddle in the earthlysociety in existence; unlike the vengeful Old Testament God who laid waste toSodom and Gomorrah, Jesus, a part of the Divine Being, never attempted tooverthrow the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem. Voegelin believed that whereverGod and world are kept apart [and] happen to meet, there also is concern withman who, in the experience of himself as one who experiences order, enters intoknowing truth of his own order (Voegelin 1990, p. 136). Essentially, in acosmos where the Divine and Personal Beings are separated, a meeting betweenGod and man such as that of Jesus makes man cognizant of the cosmos and theimportance of differentiation. Man is truncated, that is, stifled in his natureas a subservient entity under God. His truncation maintains the order of thecosmos and solidifies the differentiation of man and God.

The Personal andSocial Beings are the most intimately connected; where the Divine and Personalare defined through differentiation, the Personal and Social are defined bycompactness. Voegelin describes the Personal and Social Beings' experience asone of polarization. The two are not as distinctly separate as the Divine andPersonal, though the rift between them also defines their relationship. Thoughseparate, the Social cannot exist without the Personal, and the ensuing tensionthat exists (the term tension referring to the Social's dependence on thePersonal) becomes one of necessity. Voegelin asserts, the poles of the tensionmust not be hypostatized into objects independent of the tension in which theyare experienced as its poles (Voegelin 1990, p. 104). Thus, the Social istruncated in its reliance on the Personal. The hierarchy here established bythe possible relationships is one of dependence and definition, and also appliesto the World Being. In summation, the conceivable relationships in aJudeo-Christian cosmos are as follows: the Divine Being, differentiated fromthe Personal Being, truncates the Personal; the Personal, compacted with theSocial, truncates the Social; and the World is truncated both throughcompaction with and differentiation from the Social.

Voegelin's treatment of periagoge in Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Plato's Allegoryof the Cave is perhaps one of the most significant philosophical accountswritten in recorded history. In his renowned work, Plato describes a fetteredprisoner who perceives shadows on a wall. The shackled slave perceives theshadows to be reality, before realizing that they are cast by light from a firebehind him. Initial stages of the slave's enlightenment entail recognizing thefire as a finite reality and the subsequent emergence from the cave. Voegelin,in his Anamnesis, examines periagoge, the epiphanic moment wherein theslave turns away from the familiar fire and acknowledges the existence of alight (or reality) outside the cave.

Discussion

A significantpart of Republic, the Allegory of the Cave's prisoner ismotivated by an unknown force to turn around and begin his ascent to thelight (Voegelin 1990, p. 94). Plato ascribes this force, or periagoge, as anabstract emotion that inspires the prisoner to seek freedom and enlightenmentby leaving the Cave. The famed student of Socrates portrays the prisoner asbeing shackled as a voluntary imprisonment; since the prisoner is not aware ofan outside world comprised of more than just shadows, he/she opts to remain inhis/her state of arrested development. Voegelin, however, counters that theprisoner is held by the fetters of apathy, that periagoge is a state ofunrest in [one's] psyche caused by ignorance concerning the ground andmeaning of existence (Voegelin 1990, p. 94). The self-described modernVoegelin believes the prisoner finds comfort in the fire, which represents alimited knowledge of the world surrounding him/her. The shackles and fire,representing the world's stasis in the realm of the known, sate man'sproclivity to question his/her surroundings. Voegelin's take on periagoge is aform of realization, an epiphanic moment that is brought about as the result ofconscious metaphysical calculus. Man has to come to the conclusion that his/herworld is not how it is perceived. Plato, unlike Voegelin, attributes periagogeto an extemporaneous occurrence. Voegelin asserts that prior to periagoge manis apathetic, as man cannot comprehend anything outside the Cave. It is onlyman's knowledge of his existence from a ground that he is not himself thatspurs the existential unrest requisite for periagoge (Voegelin 1990, p.97).

Voegelin states that the prisoner needsto rebel against his current state, whereas Plato's original allegory portrayedthe prisoner as making a long and arduous journey to enlightenment and theoutside world. Contrary to Plato's portrayal of the prisoner taking initiative topursue enlightenment and the outside world, Voegelin treats periagoge as man'srebellion, an uprising or battle waged internally using man's tension towardthe divine ground of existence (Voegelin 1990, p. 97). Man can only attainfreedom and enlightenment through conscious rebellion; Voegelin regardsperiagoge as a fragile institution that can only be properly pursued if donefor the sake of knowledge's procurement. A form of rebellion, the act ofperiagoge is not essential in and of itself, but rather is a means toknowledge, the end. Plato placed great emphasis on the actual struggle, oremergence from the cave, as a central locus of the Allegory of the Cave.Voegelin, however, warns that if one simply follows rebellion as a guideline,one finds the desire for knowledge again blocked as man is not seeking formsof knowledge but rather the methods surrounding its decay (Voegelin 1990, p.188). The prisoner is not an archetype; periagoge can be used in different waysand should not be a formulaic means, as man is just as likely to rebel againstreality as he/she is against lesser forms as a part of ignorance is theinability to discern the real from the spurious. Voegelin regards periagoge, asa personal undertaking that has to happen once one is cognizant of one's ownignorance.

The approach purported in Anamnesisis one that regards periagoge as a negative undertaking. Where Plato'sdescription and portrayal in his Allegory suggests a suddenly developed disdainin the prisoner toward his surroundings, Voegelin writes of the prisoner'sability to fabricate an ersatz reality, or false impression of the world aroundhim in order to combat the feeling of rebellion that arises. Periagoge in thisrespect becomes a process of combating inner turmoil over the rejection of aformer reality in favor of a concrete reality constituting something with whichsaid individual is not familiar. Following the acceptance of a shadowy life,as Voegelin phrases it, the individual is prompted to continue down the pathstarted from the low point of realization, fighting to overcome extremelosses of reality by filling the void with the reality of existentialtension (Voegelin 1990, p. 170). Periagoge is not only a state of mind and thebeginning of a new reality, but also the alteration from a world of surety toone of insecure acknowledgements. Upon periagoge, there is no immediateenlightenment; in fact, enlightenment may never occur. The acknowledgement ofan individual's shadowy life leads only to the search for enlightenment, notthe guarantee of its advent. Thus, periagoge acts as a catalyst to begin theadoption of a non-empirical reality. The former ersatz image of life, basedon wealth, power, or sex is something accepted as well known, somethingtangible. Periagoge is the beginning of a journey whose nature cannot manifestitself in one of the ersatz media, and therefore causes the inner conflict notonly of giving up what was accepted as real, but adopting the unknown asreality.

The epiphanicmoment that inspires man to seek the real is essentially made more of aninternal conflict in Voegelin's opinion. Anamnesis reinterprets the existentialproblem posed first by Plato through periagoge; why would man not beautomatically cognizant of the real? The question is part of man's innerconflict as well. An irrevocable facet of existential dialogue, Voegelin's takeon periagoge begs the question of a finite world of real. If man decides hisreality is spurious, who is man to decide his conjectures of reality aregenuine and truthful? Theoretically, man could become enlightened and decidethat the light outside the Cave was a bigger fire, and the subsequent logiccould possibly conclude the existence of infinite alternate worlds based ondifferent degrees of the ersatz and henceforth promulgate perennial periagoge.

Voegelin's Theory of Enlightenment:the historical attempt to eclipse Divine Reality

Voegelinpostulates man's inner conflict in realization of his own inferiority in thesystem of the Divine Reality. The noted philosopher suggests man conceptualizesthe divine reality both in God's omnipotence in the cosmos and in God'sstringent requirement of a degree of godliness in man. Though man is cognizantof the nature of Divine Reality, he cannot fully escape or accept it.Enlightenment is therefore a form of supplication and concession of man'sintelligence and self-empowerment; in order for man to be fully enlightened,Voegelin suggests man must accept his natural limitations and inferiority, aunique philosophical perspective when applied to the idea of human potential.

Discussion

In order tounderstand the importance of eclipsing the Divine Reality, it is firstnecessary to understand the nature of man's consciousness. Voegelin contendsman's enlightenment hinges on the consciousness of divine reality. In keepingwith Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Voegelin suggests that there is a degree ofdivine influence in periagoge, manifested in periagoge's revelatory nature. Theremainder of periagoge's constitution is comprised of man's natural curiosityand questing tendencies (Voegelin 1998, p. 128).

Man'senlightened position is one of undeniable self-deprecation. In Voegelin'sChristian perspective, enlightened man must reconcile with the fact that he 1)did not create the cosmos, 2) remains in a fixed position relative to the restof the universe, and 3) has no real control over his destiny. Man'senlightenment is self-truncating; in the community of Beings, man is the onlyone that limits himself through his intellectual betterment. Because man didnot create the cosmos, he cannot change his order within it. Man is theoreticallyunable to eclipse anything; while the prisoner of the cave eclipsed hissurroundings, the paradox of man's enlightenment is the acceptance of theoutside world as a new form of limitation. Ironically, Voegelin's assertion isgrounded in man's flight from one truncation to another, more encompassingtruncation. It is arguable to say that enlightenment and acceptance of theDivine Reality is subjugating to a greater extent than man's previousignorance. What is more alarming is the question the Divine Reality begs inapplication to the Allegory of the Cave. If the prisoner of the cave isfettered and apathetic to the existence of the outside world, is he or she notwiser than the enlightened human? In Plato's original allegory, the prisoner isnot cognizant of the outside world, but is convinced of the reality of the caveas limitless. It is fully understood, the prisoner can comprehend everythingabout it. Upon exiting the cave, however, the prisoner cannot fully understandanything about the world other than his inferiority outside it. Conceivably, ifthe prisoner knew about the outside world and an alternate, more real truthand good and remained apathetic, the prisoner is more empowered, as his/herapathy is a reflection of conscious choice. The prisoner chooses to accept thefate of the Cave, and is in complete control of his/her destiny. Furthermore,the prisoner can eclipse Divine Reality by not accepting its existence by notparticipating; though Voegelin supposes man participates unwillingly in thecosmos, his reality as part of the Divine Reality is contingent first on hisacknowledgement of its very existence. If man is not cognizant of DivineReality (and is not self-truncating in the process), is he really a part of it?

Outside theJudeo-Christian framework, man is at the top of the order; however, Voegelin'sphilosophy dictates that the enlightened man accepts his nature and the natureof the God that created him, coerced by periagoge to accept the intangible asultimate truth. Voegelin suggests philosophical modernization (which includessecularization) is a self-defeating catalyst in enlightenment, [struggling tomaintain itself in opposition to theology, retaining the form of dogmatism inwhich philosophy entered the Judeo-Christian realm of truth (Voegelin 1998, p.187). Modernization is ironically more humbling before the Divine Being thanits classical predecessors, bound by conflicting dogmatic position andopposition that has remained the dominant form of self-understanding for theorder of Western civilization into the modern period (Voegelin 1998, p. 187).In enlightenment, man forgoes eclipsing the Divine Reality as he can neitherdeny nor ascend past the station relegated him in his search for the truth. Theenlightenment Voegelin endorses is one that involves man realizing himself,including the station ascribed to him. Man becomes an active participant in theDivine Reality upon his cognizance and self-truncation.

Hence, man cannot eclipseDivine Reality as his full cognizance of it only leads to his acceptance of thefact that he is a part of the Divine Reality. Voegelin writes that whenskepticism, enlightenment, and positivism rebelled against the older dogmatism,attention was drawn to the experiences for the expression of which the symbolsof the truth of order were created, but the process did not lead to a decisiverenewal of man's presuppositions; Voegelin supported the acceptance ofregression and humility as part and parcel of Divine Reality (Voegelin 1990, p.197). As enlightenment is a voluntary reaction and man has to choose to seekout the ultimate truth and good, eclipsing or escaping Divine Reality is notpossible as man's participation and his place in the cosmos is an ultimatetruth. Man can self-fabricate an ersatz reality, though upon enlightenmentwould have to be sated by his own delusion and the knowledge that his supposedtranscendence of Divine Reality is a farcical show to placate his own unrest.