Order and History ─ Plato and Aristotle

This third volume of Order and History completes Voegelin's study of Greek culture from its earliest pre-Hellenic origins to its full maturity with the dominance of Athens. As the title suggests, Plato and Aristotle is principally devoted to the work of the two great thinkers who represent the high point of philosophic inquiry among the Greeks.
Through an analysis of the Platonic and Aristotelian vision of soul, polis, and cosmos, Voegelin demonstrates how the symbolic framework of the older myth was superseded by the more precisely differentiated symbols of philosophy.
In this view, history has no obvious "meaning" yet each society makes a similar venture after truth. Although every society works out its destiny under different conditions, each nonetheless creates symbols - in its deeds and institutions - which bear the meaning of its own existence. History, then acquires a unity in the common endeavor toward meaning and order. The rationality and nobility of this view of history have much to say to the present age.

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was a professor of political science in the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna. Voegelin spent much of his career at Louisiana State University, the University of Munich, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.