Ebook: Anamnesis

According to Voegelin, the ideological mass movements of the twentieth century were the result of a loss of contact with reality and a refusal to apperceive. His philosophy of consciousness is an attempt to restore that lost connection via practices of remembrance (or anamnesis) – and restore with it the potentiality for homonoia, a community of likemindedness in the soul, formed through mutual participation in reality, as opposed to a closed society determined by nationality or race. This chapter explores Voegelin’s philosophy of consciousness and its derivative, his political theory. It shows: Voegelin’s philosophy is hopeful. He may not only be understood as a “philosopher of order,” but indeed, as some have suggested, as a philosopher of revolution, whose insight is still particularly relevant today, to the discourse of crisis.