Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: The World of the Polis

Titel: The World of the Polis

Stichwort: Parmenides: Doxa - Offenbarung; Doxa als Offenbarung der Wahrheit -> Christentum; Glaube, Pistis

Kurzinhalt: the Doxa as Revelation would be a truth beyond the Parmenidean truth of Being. This final step was taken, not within Hellenic philosophy ...

Textausschnitt: 289a We have opened our study of Parmenides with reflections on the symbolism of Way and Truth and its fulfillment in the Johannine symbolism of Christ as the Way and the Truth. Our last reflections on the evolution from Doxa to Myth open an entirely different historical perspective. The Way of Parmenides leads from the darkness of the world as experienced by mortals to the beyond of a light-vision in which man through his Nous experiences the immortal presence of the "Is!" This immortal Being is determined as to its nature by the necessity of the Logos; and the same necessity determines its cognitive articulation. It is pure logical structure, resting in itself; it has neither soul, nor will, nor creative power; and, what is most characteristic, it cannot even reveal itself but must be revealed by a light-goddess. The experience of the "Is!" as well as its logical articulation are surrounded by a symbolism of revelation through divine powers. This setting of the revelation raises interesting questions because in the revelation itself the gods are placed in the world of Delusion. What are the relations between the gods that appear in the revelation concerning Delusion and the goddess who reveals the gods as delusionary? Could it be that we, after all, do not emerge from the Doxa into the Truth of Being, but that the Truth of Being is embraced by the Doxa? Or are there non-delusionary gods beyond Being? Or is the revelation of the Truth, coming from a goddess, perhaps itself a Delusion? The poem offers no answers to such questions; we have reached the limits and the limitations of Parmenidean philosophizing. (Fs) (notabene)

289b Nevertheless, these questions, while not answered by the poem, are raised by its very structure. The revelatory setting is as much an expression of Parmenidean experiences as the content of the revelation. Hence, as a poet Parmenides has a much wider range of sensitiveness than as a philosopher of Being. This wider range must be taken into account if we want to arrive at a full understanding of the historical position of Parmenides and the secret of his effectiveness. The doxa and the revelatory Prologue, as we see, are pregnant with problems pressing toward articulation. In the evolution from the likely Doxa to the likely Myth we recognize a first step of such articulation, bridging the gap between Delusion and Truth; the Myth expands the realm of Doxa to include the incarnation of Truth. If the articulation of the Parmenidean range of problems would proceed in the same direction beyond Plato, we might anticipate an expansion of the Doxa to include the revelatory sphere itself; the Doxa as Revelation would be a truth beyond the Parmenidean truth of Being. This final step was taken, not within Hellenic philosophy, although its logic was immanent in its course, but only in the Hebrew-Christian revelation. (Fs) (notabene)

290a In Revelation the Doxa has expanded into a Truth beyond the Truth and Delusion of Parmenides. In order to arrive at this higher Truth, however, man had to discover the cognition of faith; and the way of Pistis (Faith) is not the way of the Logos that speculates on the experience of "Is!" Again, as in the analysis of Xenophanes, we are confronted with the problem of a plurality of experiences in which transcendence comes into grasp. In Faith and Revelation levels of transcendence beyond the Truth of Being become accessible? but the symbolism of Faith and Revelation retains the qualities of "likeliness" that characterized Doxa and Myth, as distinguished from the Ananke of the Logos. Revelation does not abolish the Truth of Being. Hence, with the entrance of Revelation into history we enter into the history of permanent rivalry between the two sources of Truth. It is a rivalry that occupied Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers. It could express itself in the demand that the Truth of the philosopher be subordinated to revealed Truth, that philosophy should serve as the handmaid of Scripture or theology; or in the demand of allegorical interpretation of Scripture in order to conform its meaning to philosophy; or in the theory of a harmony between Faith and Reason; or in the Arabic conception of Scripture as giving to the people the same Truth in doxic form that speculation gives to the philosopher in logical form. Or, finally, the intellect could take the offensive and substitute the truth of speculation for the truth of faith, as it has happened in the modern gnostic movements of Progressivism, Hegelianism, Comtism, and Marxism. (Fs)

291a The struggle between the Ways of Truth is the fundamental issue of Western intellectual history from the blending of Hellenism and Christianity to the present. And Parmenides is the thinker who has created the "type" for this world-historic struggle through his unshakable establishment of the Way of the Logos. (Fs)