FM> I must tell you that when I hear Eric Voegelin referred to as "Vogelar"
 FM> I cannot help but smile and realize that this colleague of Sowell at the
 JB> Well, I am glad, I caused a smile.  Please excuse my spelling, Voegelin
 JB> and Vogelar, albeit are spelled differently, look similarly to me.  I
 JB> will attempt if memory serves, probably won't, to spell it.
 JB> [snip]
 FM> I don't understand your curious assumption that Voegelin's "central
 FM> theme" was "man's INABILITY!!!"  Getting into his _Order and History_
 FM> might
 JB> You shouldn't.  Do you not see, this -one- major assumption, probablity
 JB> true, is the basis for Voegelin's philosophy?  IOW, if this one
 JB> assumption of Voegelin is -false-, most if not all of his philosophy
 JB> falls. I ask, is this -one- assumption open to debate?
   If Voegelin were still living and you implied in talking with him that he
"HAD A PHILOSOPHY" he would be genuinely puzzled at your use of philosophy in
such a manner.  Nobody HAS a philosophy.  Philosophy is a pursuit and, yes,
Voegelin's position would certainly be that somebody like Hegel or Marx or
Comte who HAD developed SYSTEMS, while they might have demonstrated much
knowledge in some area would be WRONG AT THE CORE because the erection of a
SYSTEM (assumption that everything essential that can be known about the end
of history is now revealed) is a VAST THEORETICAL MISTAKE.  Among other books
he would probably refer you to Berdiaev's _The Meaning of History_ and
Bergson's _Two Sources of Religion and Morality_ or William James, _Varieties
of Religious Experience_ (Voegelin had a lot of regard for some of our
American thinkers and he learned from them) among others.  His critiques of
Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx and others and of gnosticism is well known to students
of political science.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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