Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Third Collection

Titel: A Third Collection

Stichwort: Voegelin (Euripides, Johannes): Symbol. Leben - Tod; Plato (Höhlengleichnis); Zug - Gegenzug; helkein, sophrosyne

Kurzinhalt: Euripides: "Who knows if to live is to be dead and..."; there is a pull or attraction that, if followed, puts an end to questioning; and there are counterpulls that...;

Textausschnitt: 15/12 A basic symbol for that search was phrased by Euripides when he exclaimed, "Who knows if to live is to be dead and to be dead to live?" The symbol was resumed by Plato in the Gorgias (492 E) and elaborated at the end of that dialogue in the Myth of the Judgment of the Dead. But its most effective setting occurs at the end of the Apology when Socrates concludes, "But now the time has come to go. I go to die, and you to live. But who goes to the better lot is unknown to anyone but the God." (189; Fs)
16/12 Obviously what Voegelin is raising is a question not just for philosophers but for everyman. So there is no occasion for surprise when the same symbol comes from the lips of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel, "For whoever would save his life (psychen) will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What then will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world but has to suffer the destruction of his life" (Matt. 16:25-26). Or again one may read in Paul, "If you live according to the flesh, you are bound to die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom. 8:15). (189; Fs)
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18/12 I have been speaking of the double meaning of life and death as a symbol, and Voegelin would stress the point. For from the symbol one can either go backward to the engendering experience or forward to the doctrines Plato and Aristotle were later to formulate. The latter course obviously is contrary to Voegelin's intent, and so he directs our attention to the Parable of the Cave. (189; Fs)
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19/12 In brief there are opposite principles at work, and to them Plato adverts. On the one hand, opinion may lead through reason (logos) to the best (ariston), and its power is called self-restraint (sophrosyne); on the other hand, desire may drag us (helkein) towards pleasures and its rule is called excess (hybris) ...
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20/12 In brief there is a pull or attraction that, if followed, puts an end to questioning; and there are counterpulls that, when followed, leave questions unanswered and conscience ill at ease. The former alternative is what Voegelin means by a movement luminous with truth, or again by existing in the truth, or again by the truth of existence. The latter alternative is existence in untruth. As he contends, this luminosity of existence with the truth of reason precedes all opinions and decisions about the pull to be followed. Moreover, it remains alive as the judgment of truth in existence whatever opinions about it we may actually form. In other words, there is an inner light that runs before the formulation of doctrines and that survives even despite opposing doctrines. To follow that inner light is life, even though to worldly eyes it is to die. To reject that inner light is to die, even though the world envies one's attainments and achievements. (190; Fs) (notabene)
21/12 For Voegelin, then, the classic experience of reason in fourthcentury Athens was something poles apart from the reason cultivated in late medieval metaphysics and theology, from the reason of Descartes and the rationalists, from the reason of the French Enlightenment and the German absolute idealists. It took its stand not on logic but on inner experience. Its conflicts were not public disputations but inner trials.