Cosmopolis | Book Review

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough

This is a “mini-review”. It serves merely to give one a brief overview of the book. While it is not a Christian book, it serves as required reading at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena. The reason for this is surely the perception, particularly in the Church of the “Global North”, that Christianity has been dominated by rationalism, and has lost its holism.

“Cosmopolis” is a term which alludes to “the links between cosmos and polis” — that is, “the Order of Nature and that of Society”. Such links, considers the author, have increasingly been lost through the influence of modernism. In keeping with this, he considers that our society has become fixated with “abstract, universal theory” at the expense of “practice . . . that we feel on our pulses”.

With this in mind, he puts forward a rambling, yet convincing and “gifted” argument that rationalism was at first born of human concerns. He focuses in particular on Descartes and Leibniz, tracing the influence of deep human interests on their personal quests for certainty.

The author considers that the ultimate answer in our day lies in “humanizing modernity”. Regrettably, however, he remains vague. While he considers that we are under obligation “to reappropriate values from Renaissance humanism”, he gives a somewhat nebulous treatment to “humanism, defined”, and little compelling thought as to how this should be done.

All in all, however, this was a worthwhile book, and one that I would gladly recommend.

CITATION OF REFERENCE

Toulmin, Stephen. Cosmopolis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. ISBN 0-226-80838-6.