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Cambridge University Press University of Notre Dame Du Lac On Behalf of Review of Politics
Cambridge University Press University of Notre Dame Du Lac On Behalf of Review of Politics
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ducted into the formationof his own consciousness through the recol-
lection of childhood experiences down to the age of ten. Its full fru-
ition is displayed in the other major essays from the original German
edition of the book, "Eternal Being in Time" and the revolutionary
analysis "What Is Political Reality?" and in "Reason: The Classic
Experience," here reprinted from the spring 1974 number of the
Southern Review. The cumulative result,which can only be hinted in
a brief review, is nothing short of startling.For what emerges is no
less than a new ontology and a new epistemologyto ground the claim
to a new science of politics in continuity with Aristotle's science of
human affairs. Not merely an alternative to Husserl's theory of con-
sciousness has been provided by Voegelin, but a coherent alternative
to the whole of positivist social science-the still-dominantmode of
thinking about man's political existence. Voegelin's differentiation
of the noetic science of man as the exploration of the In-Between
reality tensionally experienced in the several modes of participation,
as here elaborated, constitutesanother Copernican revolution,this one
in the sphere of the science of human existence.
Any translatorof Voegelin's work must face formidable problems
of accurately rendering concise and technical language, even if the
translationis only fromthe English works to the parlance of American
undergraduate students. ProfessorNiemeyer as editor and translator
is to be congratulated for his judgment and craftsmanshipand for a
generally reliable if not always elegant rendering of the masterful
German of the original. The achievement is a commendable one, even
if in detail it is not flawless either because of the translator's slip or
the publisher's carelessness. It is, for instance, unsettlingto have such
misprintsas "unwordly world" (p. 79) and "wordly time" (p. 133)
for unweltlichen Welt and Weltzeit, and more distressing to find
"present" for Zukunft (p. 20), "corollary" for Gegenstiick (p. 143),
"scientist claims" for szientistischenAnspriiche (p. 146), and "com-
pact-oblique" for kompakt-undurchsichtig(p. 169). But such lapses
are infrequent and virtually inevitable. Less inevitable, however, is
the rudimentaryindex which lists only persons mentioned in the text,
particularly by comparison with the German edition and its invalu-
able inventoryof concepts set in an analytical format.
-ELLIS SANDOZ