Abstract

In 1963-1964 the Carnegie Corporation awarded Grinnell College a grant to support new interdisciplinary programs. One of these was the "Interdisciplinary Seminar on Order." Scholars came from all over the country to lead discussions and read papers on some aspect of order as it related to their field. Various philosophers, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and people in religion, philosophy, and literature all took part. Philosophers show up under several of the book's headings. Paul Weiss has a short paper on some paradoxes relating to order. Feibleman speaks on disorder. Ernan McMullin kicks off the history of science section discussing cosmic order in Plato and Aristotle. Monroe Beardsley has a paper on order and disorder in art. Hartshorne discusses, among other things, the reality of chance in his essay on order and chaos in the section on Religion and Ethics. Voegelin and Toynbee are naturals in this volume. They comprise the whole section on history. Among the twenty-two other contributors are Talcott Parsons and J. M. Kitagawa on world religions. There is an enterprising introduction by Kuntz in which he brings an historical approach to the problem of order. Somehow, in the process, he manages to tie in most of the other papers.--S. O. H.