Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 93

REVIEWS

" 'Out of Such Crooked Wood': How Eric
Voegelin Read Immanuel Kant" (15-43),
Thomas W. Heilke discusses the role of
the German philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804) in the formation of Voegelin's
thought. Drawing mainly on Plato and
Augustine, Voegelin rejected "Kantian
epistemology of intentionality" (8). Some
aspects of Kant's philosophy, however, pos-
sibly influenced Voegelin's writings. Heilke
persuasively suggests that neo-Kantian epis-
temology affected Voegelin's "theory of con-
sciousness" and his philosophical analysis
of history, which Voegelin primarily based
on man's experiential encounter with tran-
cendent reality. Heilke's contribution overall
inspires the reader with the question whether
Kant effectively influenced Voegelin's politi-
cal thought and his theory of conscious-
ness. He concludes by saying that "Kant's
philosophy was, in fact, an element . . . of the
wide-spanning philosophical conversation in
which Voegelin was taking part" (40).
Cyril O'Regan's remarkable essay "Voege-
lin and the Troubled Greatness of Hegel"
(44-63) analyzes Voegelin's relationship
to the German idealist Georg W. F. Hegel
(1770-1831), one of the creators of German
idealism. Hegel's historicist and idealist
account of reality revolutionized European
philosophy and played a major role in Voege-
lin's critiques of "Gnosticism." O'Regan is
aware of Voegelin's "negative assessment of
Hegel," as the representative of the "apocalyp-
tic" crisis of modernity (9). However, Hegel's
influence can be felt, O'Regan suggests, in
Voegelin's understanding of the nature of
modernity. The account of the differentiation
of philosophy, reason (nous) and history, and
other significant themes implies an under-
current of Voegelin's appreciation for Hegel's
meticulousness. Or, to put it in O'Regan's
own words, "Hegel is worth approaching";
his is a "troubled greatness, worth the trouble

of difficult reading and worth the trouble of
constant vigilance" (57).
"Voegelin and Schelling on Freedom and
the Beyond" (64-84) is Steven McGuire's
careful assessment of the crucial differences
and commonalities between Voegelin and
the German philosopher Friedrich W. J.
Schelling (1775-1854). Schelling's "phi-
losophy of freedom" is reasonably considered
as "the midpoint" in the development of
German idealism (9, 69-72). For Schelling
man's "attempt to conceive the order of real-
ity in consciousness necessarily becomes dis-
torted," and, therefore, his "true knowledge
of order must exist prior to its articulation"
(9). McGuire argues that Voegelin's argu-
ably similar insights were not articulated
owing to his "framework of a philosophy of
consciousness." McGuire offers the striking
account that Voegelin, although indebted
to Schelling's philosophy, did not learn
Schelling's "deepest lesson" (9). McGuire is
convinced that the "next step would have
been to recognize that the search for order
must move beyond a science of the soul and
become also a metaphysics of freedom" (82).
Eugen L. Nagy's contribution, "Noesis and
Faith: Eric Voegelin and Soren Kierkegaard"
(85-107), argues that Voegelin could have
gained from those aspects of modern phi-
losophy that he neglected. Where the Dan-
ish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
took a "leap of faith" as the respectable reso-
lution and response to God's self-revelation,
Voegelin's path was more a "noetic (Socratic)
endeavor" to understand man's participation
in reality (106). Nagy persuasively discloses
"the similar structures of reality" in their
works: the "in-between" (metaxy) state of
"finite and infinite, temporal and eternal,
worldly and divine" (10). Nagy's analysis
is absorbing as it shows how both think-
ers were concerned with man's attunement
to divine reality, while reaching different
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Modern Age - Fall 2014

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