ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces some of the relevant lessons from William James's lectures on both pragmatism and pluralism before explaining how Eric Voegelin interpreted them at three stages in his long and distinguished career. It summarizes Voegelin's initial findings in the first book he ever wrote, after returning from the US. The chapter describes how these lessons fit into his own mature theoretical statement titled Anamnesis. It shows how the scholar was continuing to develop his understanding during the last years of his life. The chapter sets forth implications for leadership today, when so many tensions and wicked problems' threaten to overrun our mental models and decision trees. Reality appears to be structured as a metaxy or tension that humans profitably symbolize, according to conceptual schemas that serve as abstractions for practical purposes, like maps. It proposes Voegelin's investigations about the metaxy to the organizational problems first identified by James, thereby informing prospective leaders what might be done.
