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Voegelin on Eunomia (II)

Man’s bodily existence is also the basis of his social existence.  This may grow quantitatively from the family, to the labor-dividing small society, to that size in which ordering consciousness finds the material basis for the unfolding of the eu zen, the good life, Aristotle’s criterion of the eunomia, the good social order.  No matter […]

Man’s bodily existence is also the basis of his social existence.  This may grow quantitatively from the family, to the labor-dividing small society, to that size in which ordering consciousness finds the material basis for the unfolding of the eu zen, the good life, Aristotle’s criterion of the eunomia, the good social order.  No matter how well ordered society may be, its corporeality, compelling it to provide material care and the control of the passions, requires an existence in the form of organized rulership.  The organization of society through representatives charged with care for the social order within and for defense against external dangers is the conditio sine qua non of society to such an extent that the investigation and description of the various pragmatic organizations is a main part of political science.  A theory of politics cannot stop there, however, since this part deals only with that aspect of political reality that is founded in man’s corporeality. ~Eric Voegelin, “The Concrete Consciousness” in Anamnesis (University of Missouri Press, 1978)

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