Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was a German-American political philosopher. His work Order and History was intended to be a unique contribution to the philosophy of history. The theme was order in the human soul, in society, and in history, and the method was to be an exploration of the symbols of that order as they have changed historically from ancient oriental civilizations to the present. Voegelin, however, soon discontinued this project because he felt it necessary to revise its theoretical foundations; thus the last volume implementing the original schedule became the volume devoted to Plato and Aristotle. The latter shows philosophy (just at its peak) as the symbolic form by which the soul articulates the movements of the cosmos and society and, above all, its own movement between order and disorder, truth and untruth, justice and injustice, rise and fall, love of wisdom and love of appearances, and, lastly, between life and death.
Czech edition