In "The New Order and Last Orientation, " Eric Voegelin explores
two distinctly different yet equally important aspects of
modernity. He begins by offering a vivid account of the political
situation in seventeenth-century Europe after the decline of the
church and the passing of the empire. Voegelin shows how the
intellectual and political disorder of the period was met by such
seemingly disparate responses as Grotius's theory of natural right,
Hobbes's "Leviathan, " the role of the Fronde in the formation of
the French national state, Spinoza's "Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus, " and Locke's "Second Treatise, " the
blueprint of a modern middle-class society. By putting these
responses and the thought of Montesquieu, Hume, and others in the
context of the birth pains of the national state and the emergence
of a new self-understanding of man, Voegelin achieves a brilliant
mixture of political history and profound philosophical
analysis.
Voegelin's verdict of modernity is pronounced most powerfully in
the opening part of "Last Orientation," in the chapter entitled
"Phenomenalism." His discussion of the intellectual confusion
underlying the modern project of scientistic phenomenalism is the
most original criticism leveled against modernity to date. It is at
the same time the first step toward a recovery of reality through
philosophy conceived as a science of substance in the spirit of
Giordano Bruno. Voegelin's first example of such an effort at
recovering reality is the chapter on Schelling, one of the
spiritual realists who has not been affected by the prevailing
rationalist or reductionist creeds that are part of the modern
disorder. Schelling's indirect yet powerful influence on
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Freud more than justifies Voegelin's
interest in his philosophy and character, even though Voegelin
would later distance himself from some of Schelling's
positions.
The volume's concluding chapter, "Nietzsche and Pascal," applies
the understanding gained from the study of Schelling to the thought
of the most powerful critic of the age, Nietzsche. Nietzsche's
self-avowed affinity with Pascal provides the key to an analysis of
the strengths and weaknesses of his thought and reaffirms the
connection that links the beginning of modernity with its most
recent crises and the efforts to overcome them.
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