Univ., Diss.--Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2003.

Texte remanié de: Doct. Diss.--Chestnut Hill (Mass.)--Boston College.

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[pt] A presente dissertação pretende explorar o debate entre os pensadores germanoamericanos Hannah Arendt e Eric Voegelin sobre os fenômenos dos regimes totalitários, em especial o Nacional-Socialismo cuja ascensão ao poder foi presenciada por ambos. A correspondência entre os autores revela a discrepância de análises, que julgamos ser benéfica para a compreensão dos eventos. Arendt observava no totalitarismo uma originalidade terrível ao passo que Voegelin ressalta que o fenômeno era apenas o clímax de uma crise espiritual que assola a modernidade. Para levar à cabo a análise, foi estudada a teoria de cada um dos autores sobre o totalitarismo, de modo a aprofundar o entendimento sobre as questões levantadas / [en] The present dissertation intends to explore the debate between the GermanHannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin thinkers about the phenomena of totalitarian regimes, especially National Socialism, whose rise to power was witnessed by both. Correspondence between the authors reveals the discrepancy of teams, which we judged. Arendt observed a terrible originality in totalitarianism, while Voegelin emphasizes that the phenomenon was just the climax of a spiritual crisis that plagues modernity. To carry out the analysis, it was studied on the theory of each of the authors the way to deepen totalitarianism, the understanding as raised.

[pt] O objetivo do presente trabalho é examinar o quadro teórico proposto pela obra do filósofo germano-americano Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), seus paradigmas orientadores e suas possíveis contribuições para a ciência da história e da política. Tomando como pressuposto a existência de uma dimensão espiritual na experiência humana, a obra voegeliniana procura oferecer instrumentos conceituais aptos a vislumbrar pontos de encontro entre a política e a religião. No cerne de sua problemática está o papel que símbolos exercem no ordenamento da vida humana e a natureza das experiências às quais esses símbolos procuram se reportar. Procuraremos explorar como Voegelin discerne as experiências que denominamos religiosas, como elas se manifestam na realidade política ao longo da história e como elas adquirem autoridade social. Paralelamente a isso, procuraremos explorar como símbolos podem se desprender das suas experiências engendradoras e gerar discursos ideológicos em desarmonia com a experiência da realidade. Na medida em que examinarmos como Voegelin trata esses e outros problemas, procuraremos expor os parâmetros através dos quais esse pensador elabora a sua própria filosofia da política e da história. / [en] The objective of this study is to examine the theoretical framework laid out in the works of German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), its guiding paradigms, and its tentative contributions for the science of history and politics. Presupposing the existence of a spiritual dimension to human existence, Voegelin s work seeks to provide conceptual instruments fit to explore the meeting points between politics and religion. At the center of its problematic is the role of symbols in the ordering of human life and the nature of the experiences to which these symbols refer. We shall seek to explore how Voegelin discerns the experiences we term religious, the way in which they manifest in political reality throughout history, and how they acquire social authority. Parallel to these questions, we shall explore how symbols can detach themselves from their engendering experiences and develop ideological discourses removed from the experience of reality. As we examine how Voegelin deals with these and other questions, we shall seek to expose the parameters through which this thinker elaborates his own philosophy of politics and history.

[pt] Uma das temáticas mais fascinantes e recorrentes nas Ciências Sociais e, mais especificamente na Antropologia, é a problemática da ordem. Essa dissertação foca a sua análise em como os homens empreendem a imprescindível tarefa de dar significado às suas vidas, às suas instituições, às suas sociedades. Ordenar, nesse contexto, nada mais é do que dar uma justificação, um fundamento à todas as coisas que compõem a vida humana. Assim, parto da ideia de que a maneira mais eficaz de dar ordem e significado (seja a vida individual ou a sociedade e suas instituições) se encontra na religião. Admito, porém, que as estruturas de significado presentes nas diferentes culturas não possuem a firmeza necessária para se impor a todos com a mesma intensidade e da mesma forma. Portanto, para evitar que o mundo social perca a sua eficácia, é necessário nomizar ou ordenar a sociedade de uma forma estável e duradoura. A religião, admitida aqui como a forma mais eficaz de dar ordem ao meio social, aparecerá no contexto do que o filósofo Eric Voegelin chamou de sociedades cosmológicas, ou nas chamadas sociedades frias como denominou o antropólogo Claude Lévi-Strauss. A ordem e a construção dos significados nas diferentes sociedades serão analisadas através das obras desses dois autores. / [en] One of the most fascinating and recurring themes in Social Sciences and, more specifically, in Anthropology, is the problem of order. This dissertation focuses its analysis on how men undertake the essential task of giving meaning to their lives, their institutions and societies. To order, in this context, is nothing more than to give a justification, a ground for all things that make up human life. Thus, I take off from the idea that the most effective way of ordaining and establishing meaning (whether to individual life or society and its institutions) lies in religion. I admit, however, that the structures of meaning present in different cultures do not have the necessary firmness to enforce all with the same intensity and in the same manner. Therefore, to prevent the social world from losing its effectiveness, it is necessary to normalize or order society in a stable and lasting way. Religion, admitted as the most effective way to provide order to social life, appears in the context of what the philosopher Eric Voegelin called cosmological societies., or cold societies as Claude Lévi-Strauss called in his works. The order and the construction of meanings in the different societies will be analysed through the works of this two authors.

The problem of understanding political foundings is situated at the nexus between political philosophy and political science. This thesis rethinks founding by asking both the philosophical question of how political order comes into being, and the political science question of how to understand particular founding moments. These two questions stimulate and structure a dialogue between the works of Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin. The approach of founding in all three has a common starting point: they begin from ordinary experience and outline a political science that is mindful of the phenomenality of political life. I show that Strauss’s return to ordinary experience is partial. By limiting political life to the normative claims raised in it and submitting them to philosophical judgment, Strauss moves too quickly beyond political phenomena. His account of founding, as a consequence, vacillates between understanding particular founding acts and conceiving the perfect founding moment in abstract thought. Arendt’s work decisively shifts the problem on the side of practical understanding. Yet, her ontological account of action as appearance subtly displaces her concern for understanding historical actions. I move away from approaching historical foundings as a mode of appearing in the world, by recovering an account of action as experience. On that basis, I suggest a hermeneutics of experience which approaches foundings in light of the quest for meaning. With Voegelin founding is recovered as a symbol that exists only in the quest of understanding. Founding occurs in the experience of struggle to restore a reality that has become symbolically opaque. This experience is shared by the philosopher and the political actor; therefore to understand moments of founding requires the interweaving, and not separation, of political philosophy and political science. At the end, the quest of understanding founding moments is neither derivative, nor preparatory, but encompassing the philosophical question of how order comes into being.

Cette étude, qui s'intéresse aux appropriations de l'Antiquité grecque au XXe siècle, se propose d'analyser les impacts de la lecture de Platon sur le développement de la pensée politique et éthique de Hannah Arendt. Notre approche du sujet est historique et philosophique. Premièrement, nous considérerons la toile de fond biographique, intellectuelle et historique de cette lecture. La relation intellectuelle entre Hannah Arendt et Martin Heidegger reçoit une attention particulière, puisque le Platon arendtien présente parfois des similarités avec celui de Heidegger. Nous considérerons également la réception de Platon en Allemagne entre la période de Weimar et l'après-guerre : les lectures idéologiques de l'époque nazie, et le débat autour du statut de Platon en tant qu'ancêtre du totalitarisme, clamé par Karl Popper, ont assombri la réputation philosophique de Platon jusqu'à la fin du XXe siècle. Nous trouvons des échos de ce climat intellectuel particulier dans le traitement de Platon chez Arendt. Dans un deuxième temps, nous examinerons les thèmes et les motifs de la lecture arendtienne en observant minutieusement une sélection d'ouvrages, d'essais, d'ébauches d'Arendt, en plus des notes du Journal de pensée (Denktagebuch) et des extraits de dialogues de Platon sur lesquels s'appuient sa lecture. Arendt déconstruit, transforme, altère et utilise ces textes afin de démontrer que notre tradition de pensée politique s'est édifiée sur un mépris de la politique qui trouve sa source dans la pensée platonicienne. Ce mépris culmine dans la pensée de Marx et le totalitarisme. Mais les réflexions d'Arendt sur la pensée, le jugement et la conscience, et son traitement du cas Eichmann suggère qu'elle s'approprie par moments la pensée de Platon. Des comparaisons avec d'autres penseurs émigrés allemands, qui s'inspirent aussi de Platon et des Grecs pour édifier leur pensée politique, Leo Strauss et Eric Voegelin, vont nous permettre d'affiner notre compréhension du Platon d'Arendt. / This study, which concerns the appropriations of Greek Antiquity in the 20th century, proposes to analyze the impacts of the reading of Plato on the development of Hannah Arendt's political and ethical thought. Our approach of this subject is historical and philosophical. First, we will consider the biographical, intellectual and historical background of this reading. The intellectual relationship between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger receive a special attention, since Arendt's Plato is sometimes similar to the heiddeggerian one. We also consider Platonic reception in Germany between the Weimar period and the postwar era : the ideological readings of the Nazi era, and the debate surrounding Plato's status as the forebearer of totalitarianism, as claimed by Karl Popper, darkened Plato's philosophical reputation until the end of 20th century. We find some echoes of this particular intellectual climax in Arendt's treatment of Plato. Second, we will examine the themes and motives of arendtian reading by scrutinizing a selection of Arendt's books, essays, drafts, and notes from the Denktagebuch, and excerpts from the Platonic dialogues that informs her reading. Arendt deconstructs, transforms, distorts and uses these texts in order to show that our tradition of political thought was founded on a contempt for politics that finds its source in Platonic thought. This contempt culminates in Marx's thought and totalitarianism. But Arendt's reflections on thinking, judgment and conscience, and her treatment of Eichmann's case suggests that she sometimes appropriates Plato. Some comparisons with other German Émigrés thinkers who also reads Plato and the Greeks to inform their political thought, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, will enhance our understanding of Arendt's Plato.

In addition to his renowned musical output, Richard Wagner produced a logorrhoeic prose oeuvre, including a dramatic sketch of the last weeks of the life of Jesus Christ entitled Jesus von Nazareth. Though drafted in 1848-1849, it was published only posthumously, and has therefore been somewhat neglected in the otherwise voluminous Wagnerian literature. This thesis first examines the origins of Jesus von Nazareth amidst the climate of revolution wherein it was conceived, ascertaining its place within Wagner’s own internal development and amongst the radical thinkers who influenced it. While Ludwig Feuerbach has traditionally been seen as the most prominent of these, this thesis examines Wagner’s sources more broadly. The thesis then summarizes and analyzes Jesus von Nazareth itself, particularly in terms of Wagner’s use of biblical scripture. The thesis demonstrates how his not infrequent misuse thereof constitutes one way in which Wagner transmogrifies Jesus as mutable lens through which his own ideology of social revolution is reflected. It also attempts to provide a critical assessment of the relative dramatic merits of Jesus von Nazareth and looks into Wagner’s ultimate decision not to complete the work. The thesis then briefly summarizes the changes that occurred in Wagner’s mature Christological outlook subsequent to his drafting of Jesus von Nazareth, attempting to concisely demonstrate some developments beyond Wagner’s well-known encounter with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of how Jesus von Nazareth informed Wagner’s general religious outlook and the extent to which this worldview is a productive one.