A Greek word, having two meanings apparently far apart: the universe and beauty. Yet the good common sense of the Greeks rightly joined the two meanings in one word. For in spite of the infinite variety of objects, the universe exhibits a most marvelous unity of design and ultimate purpose. Now unity in variety is one of the most commonly accepted definitions of beauty. Moreover, the order and beauty resplendent in the universe is the visible exemplar of man’s activity; man is naturally urged to imitate this order and beauty in every sphere of action. <\/p>\n
SEE WORLD.<\/p>\n
(Gr. kosmos — in order, duly; hence, good behavior, government, mode or fashion, ornament, dress (cf. cosmetic); a ruler; the world or universe as perfectly arranged and ordered; cf. providence.)<\/p>\n
The early Greek notion of the universe as ordered by destiny or fate was gradually refined until the time of Plato and Aristotle who conceived the world as ordered by an intelligent principle (nous) of divine justice or harmony; Plato, Philebus, 30″. . . there is in the universe a cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges . . .”; and Aristotle, Physics, 252a-12″nature is everywhere the cause of order”. This cosmic view was an essential element of the Stoic metaphysics, and was later incorporated into medieval philosophy and theology as the divine governance or ordering of creation, i.e. providence.<\/p>\n
This “widespread instinctive conviction” in the order of nature, without its theological implications, became the basis and primary article of faith of modern natural science, whose aim is to express this rationality of nature as far as possible by the laws of natural science. Cf. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 5ff). Opposed to chaos, disorder, absence of law, irrationality. — L-M.H.<\/p>\n
cosmos A Greek word, having two meanings apparently far apart: the universe and beauty. Yet the good common sense of the Greeks rightly joined the two meanings in one word. For in spite of the infinite variety of objects, the universe exhibits a most marvelous unity of design and ultimate purpose. Now unity in variety … Continue reading “Cosmos”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-encyclopedic-dictionary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/dictionaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}