Abstract

It is a commonplace that Marxist theories of order deal with the transition from one order to another, whereas most non-Marxist theories of order, whether of ideas or of societies, stress the stability of some established order, showing how, by gradual modification, it avoids the violence of revolutionary change. Wild's theory is one of the few non-Marxist theories of revolutionary transition. It stresses the breakdown of the mythical order and emergence of cosmic order which repairs the defects of its predecessor and what we are now enduring, the breakdown of the cosmic order. Out of the ruins is growing a new order, the personal order. That philosophers should attend to the transition from order to order is the precept and practice of Whitehead in Adventures of Ideas, and in Modes of Thought. Wild's theory resembles both the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic of orders and the Whiteheadian doctrine of orders. Wild's theory, although it does not mention Whitehead's, is in certain respects more like the latter than the former. Any order is from a perspective with limitations that become evident when we compare it with alternative perspectives; and although this implies that there is no absolute or final order, no framework within which all phenomena fit, it does not imply that there is no order or no knowledge at all. Most Hegelians will find Wild's theory lacking synthesis, and most Marxists would feel Wild had failed to grasp necessity, specifically material necessity, in the process. The transitions spring rather from the inadequacies of personal perspective: any interpretation is bound to the man in his situation and therefore must be superseded. The resemblance of Wild's theory to Whitehead's goes deeper than form because they are moved by esteem for the human individual and distrust of powerful groups that tend to overpower free men. Both refuse to bend the knee to collective order. Wild could well accept as this own this statement from Adventures of Ideas. There are.