Lurching through Public Law: The Unsteady State of the Subfield

Abstract

David Walsh is a student of Eric Voegelin's political thought, and this essay evaluates the influence of Voegelin's work on Walsh, while also suggesting how Walsh deviates from Voegelin's philosophy. The analysis is performed in terms of several key concepts from Voegelin's work, including Gnosticism, metaxy, luminosity, equivalences of experience, and history. It is argued that Walsh makes extensive use of Voegelin's ideas of metaxy, luminosity, and the equivalences of experience, but that he transforms these concepts as he moves beyond Voegelin's philosophy of consciousness and turns to a philosophy of existence that is not subject to the epistemological problems that continue to challenge Voegelin's thought. Finally, it is suggested that, in so doing, Walsh is actually continuing Voegelin's philosophical project, rather than undermining it.