A Restatement of Political Theory: a Note On Eric Voegelin's "the New Science of Politics"

Abstract

T HIS NOTE is designed to call attention to The New Science of Politics: An Introductory Essay by Eric Voegelin (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1952, Pp. xiii, 193. $3.00.) as a significant contribution to political thought. The work is a restatement of political theory which aims, above all, at a of political science to its (pp. 3-4). Such restoration appears necessary because consciousness of has been lost in the course of the positivistic era of the last hundred years. In the light of these principles relevant political ideas are to be presented in concreteness, i.e., meaningful for the present in contrast to reformulation of through return to a former concreteness (p. 2). The book is an introductory essay in a dual sense: besides introducing the reader to Voegelin's approach to political theory and political institutions, it is a forerunner of a more ambitious project by the same author: a three volume of political thought whose publication is eagerly expected. The New Science of Politics is based on six lectures on Truth and Representation, given in Chicago in 1951 under the auspices of the Charles R. Walgreen Foundation. The first half of the book (chaps. i-iii) focuses on nature of representation as the form by which a political society gains existence for action in history (p. 1); the second half (chaps. iv-vi) centers on gnosis as the essence of modernity.