This is an incomplete list of people referenced by Eric Voegelin.
Your comments and corrections are always welcome: please e-mail Bill McClain.
Return to the Eric Voegelin Study Page.
Bacon, Sir Francis. His Novum Organum contains analysis of language so degraded that it can no longer express the experience of reality. He called the unanalyzed topics of his time "idols".
Balthasar, Hans Urs Von. A neo-Augustinian, his Prometheus was EV's first exposure to the problem of gnosticism.
Bergson, Henri. With Jean Bodin, a representative figure for the understanding of order in times of spiritual disorder. His The Two Sources of Morality and Religion "a masterpiece of contemporary philosophy of society."
Bodin, Jean. In the 16th century he recognized that doctrinal conflict could be resolved only by the elevation of mystical insight over doctrine.
Camus, Albert. Strove to regain reality by breaking out of the Parisian intellectual environment. His work "a prototype of existential catharsis."
Celsus His True Discourse, ca 180, was "the most competent pagan critique of Christianity". He recognized that the radical de-divinization of the world spelled the end of a civilizational epoch.
Cohn, Norman. His The Pursuit of the Millennium is a good study of the apocalyptic strand in Christianity up to the Renaissance.
Dewey, John. He and his Human Nature and Conduct were an early influence on EV regarding the Anglo-American common sense tradition.
Eliade, Mircea. "One of the best authorities on myth."
Flaubert, Gustave. A master of the literary representation of the grotesqueness which results from the cleavage of language and reality.
Fortescue, Sir John. (c.1385 - c.1479) "One of the finest English political thinkers."
Gadamer, Hans-Georg.
Hobbes, Thomas. "A fierce and relentless thinker". Although it contains simplifications, Leviathan brings new clarity to the problem of representation. It was an attempt to solve the problems of gnosticism as a civil theology, but introduces more problems of its own.
Hooker, Richard. (1553/4 - 1600) "A brilliant observer of the Gnostic movement". The Preface of his Ecclesiastical Polity has "an astute type study of the Puritan, as well as the psychological mechanism by which Gnostic mass movements operate."
Husserl, Edmund. His The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology precipitated EV's own work on a theory of consciousness.
Irenaeus. His Adversus Haereses (ca 180) is a still useful treatise on the Gnostic heresy.
Kraus, Karl. "[A] great artist of language who would defend the standards of language against its corruption in the current literature and especially through the journalists."
Locke, John. In chapter I of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding he argues against common opinions in order to return to the experiences that engendered them.
Lonergan, Bernard.
Mallarmé, Stéphane. Symbolist poet admired by EV.
Mann, Thomas. "...the gigantic work of Thomas Mann in his effort to break out of the ideologies of the Wilheminean period and the Weimar Republic, culminating in his great philosophy of history in the introduction to the Joseph novels."
Murray, Gilbert. "Distinguished English scholarship at its best."
Orwell, George. One of the recent authors attempting to break out of his intellectual surroundings.
Polybius. (ca 200 BC - ca 118 BC) Roman historian.
von Rad, Garhard. "one of the finest Old Testament scholars of our time" (1956)
Ricoeur, Paul.
Santayana, George. Early influence on EV. Lucretian materialism.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Severe derailment of existentialism.
Schuetz, Alfred.
Shakespeare, William.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. A worthy model for intellectuals. Used Bacon's "idols" in Cancer Ward.
Spengler, Oswald. Although The Decline of the West is dubious in some respects, it is a worthy work in the study of comparative civilizations.
Valéry, Paul. Symbolist poet admired by EV.
Weber, Max. Important early influence on EV.
Willey, Basil. Beginning in 1934, his "perceptive and extensive" Background studies have followed the changes in the "climate of opinion" since the 17th century.