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Eric Voegelin Institute for American
Renaissance Studies
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Besondere
Aufmerksamkeit erfährt das Werk Voegelins seit Jahren
in den USA. Sie zeigt sich in den Aktivitäten des im März 1987 an der Louisiana
State University in Baton Rouge gegründeten Eric Voegelin Institute for
American Renaissance Studies ebenso wie in zahlreichen seinem Werk gewidmeten
Konferenzen im Rahmen der American
Political Science Association. Starke Impulse erfuhr die Auseinandersetzung
mit seinem Werk durch die Veröffentlichung seines wissenschaftlichen
Nachlasses durch die Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, Kalifornien, sowie
durch die 1990 begonnene, auf 34 Bände angelegte Edition der Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. Wichtige
Initiativen und Aktivitäten gibt es in einigen Ländern
Westeuropas: So wurden an der National University of Ireland in Dublin seit
Beginn der 80er Jahre Studien über Voegelin durchgeführt; in Großbritannien
entstand 1993 an der University of Manchester ein Centre for Voegelin
Studies, das sich durch eine Reihe internationaler Tagungen einen Namen
gemacht hatte. In Italien wurden zahlreiche Arbeiten Voegelins übersetzt —
die Beschäftigung mit seinem Werk konzentriert sich dort auf die Universitäten
von Salerno, Padua, Bologna, Florenz und Mailand. In Österreich befasst sich
das Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institut für Politik, Religion und Anthropologie in
Innsbruck mit seinem Werk. Zu Beginn der 90er Jahre setzte auch in einigen
Staaten Osteuropas die Beschäftigung mit der Philosophie Voegelins ein,
insbesondere in Polen, wo Übersetzungen einiger seiner Werke – darunter der
Neuen Wissenschaft der Politik –
erschienen. POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY in Germany possesses few thinkers of
the international rank. Eric Voegelin is one of these few. Born in Cologne in
the year 1901, Voegelin grew up in Vienna, where he habilitated in 1928 at
the Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät after making research
visits in the United States and France. In Vienna, he taught sociology and
political theory until 1938. Upon withdrawal of his teaching permit and in
view of his impending arrest, Voegelin fled in the summer of 1938: first to
Switzerland and then to the United States, where he was active at a series of
American universities. In 1942, he assumed a position at Louisiana State
University in Baton Rouge. It was here that he wrote The New Science of
Politics (1952) and the first volumes of Order and History
(1956/57), works which established his reputation as one of the most
significant political philosophers of the twentieth-century. In 1958,
Voegelin accepted an appointment at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,
Munich, and established there the Institut für Politische Wissenschaft. Science,
Politics and Gnosticism as well as Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der
Geschichte und Politik were written during this time in Munich. On
becoming an Emeritus Professor in 1968, Voegelin returned to the United
States and worked from 1969 until 1974 as Henry Salvatori Distinguished
Scholar. From 1974 until 1985, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the
renowned Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford,
California. In 1974, The Ecumenic Age - the fourth volume of Order
and History - appeared after a lengthy delay. On January 19, 1985,
Voegelin died at the age of eighty-four, shortly before finishing the fifth
and final volume of Order and History, which appeared posthumously
under the title, In Search of Order. IN THE UNITED STATES, Voegelin's work has received special attention for
some years. This is indicated by the activities of the Eric Voegelin
Institute for American Renaissance Studies, founded in March 1987 at
Louisiana State University. It is also indicated by the publication, beginning
in 1990, of a complete edition of his works spanning thirty-four volumes, as
well as by the numerous conferences devoted to his work at the American
Political Science Association. There are similar initiatives and activities
in several countries of Western Europe: at the National University of Ireland
in Dublin, studies of Voegelin's work have been undertaken since the
beginning of the 1980s. In Great Britain, a Centre for Voegelin Studies was
founded in 1993 at the University of Manchester. This centre has since made a
name for itself through a series of international conferences. In Italy, a
number of Voegelin's works have been translated and the universities of
Salerno, Padua, Bologna and Florence are significant sites of engagement with
his work. At the beginning of the 1990s, treatments of Voegelin's philosophy
also emerged in several states of Eastern Europe, particularly in
Poland. . |
