Gnosticism as the Deep Structure of Modernity: A Philosophical-Anthropological and Political Analysis

This study examines modern humanity’s existential crisis and search for meaning from philosophical-anthropological and political perspectives by exploring structural parallels with ancient Gnostic cosmology. It argues that the existential void and chronic alienation arising from the dissolution of traditional theological frameworks cannot be adequately explained through purely sociological or empirical approaches. To illuminate the metaphysical dimensions of this crisis, the study brings Hegel’s, Marx’s, and Heidegger’s theories of alienation into dialogue with Eric Voegelin’s critique of the “Gnostic temptation” and the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler, Arnold Gehlen, and Helmuth Plessner. Methodologically, it adopts a comparative-hermeneutic approach in which structural analysis serves as the primary comparative principle, while phenomenological analysis clarifies how alienation is experienced across different philosophical frameworks. Rather than positing historical, genealogical, or causal continuity between modernity and ancient Gnosticism, the study identifies structural correspondences in how human beings experience estrangement, interpret disorder, and imagine possibilities of liberation, reconciliation, or transformation. It argues that modern alienation exhibits a pattern analogous to the Gnostic myth of the soul’s estrangement within a flawed material world, while differing substantially in its ontological assumptions and responses. Thus, modernity reveals structural affinities with the Gnostic imagination without implying direct historical or doctrinal continuity.