Toward a Unity of Knowledge. (Psychological Issues, Vol. VI, No. 2): Edited by Marjorie Grene. New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1969. 302 pp.

Psychoanalysts should welcome the publication of the proceedings of the Study Group on Foundations of Cultural Unity held at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine in August 1965. They should welcome it for two reasons. First, they will share with the participants of this colloquium the belief that reductionism in science has failed to describe man's position in nature and his relationship to his fellow man. Moreover, existential philosophy's response to mechanism has merely provided an extrascientific description of man as a sensuous, value-seeking being. Secondly, it is heartening and challenging to read the opinions of scientists of varying disciplines suggesting that there is an essential unity in the process of scientific creativity regardless of whether the problem is in physics, biology, or art. That this unity demands both intuition and discipline is not surprising, but the book does clarify the idea that the process of creative investigation seems to depend on the harmonious participation of both preconscious and unconscious operations as well as conscious deliberation.

This book should evoke a sense of humility in most readers because of the scope and range of insight demonstrated by the men who participated in this panel. They are, in William James's terms, 'tough-minded philosophers' whose intellect ranges over as broad a span of life enterprises as the very range of the conference itself. They are not only sophisticated in the methodology of science but in the practices of scientists. They are also self-consciously interested in their own cognitive and emotional instruments as sensitizers to their discovery and work.