For Minoru Otsuka1 Although much of Wisdom as Moderation was written more than ten — or even twenty or thirty years — ago, it states what I still believe. Living to my advanced age of 93, and being still able to think vigorously, have their advantages, one of which is that one has had ample… Continue reading Hartshorne’s Preface to Otsuka’s Translation of “Wisdom as Moderation”
Month: June 2023
Theism as Radical Positivism: Minds, Bodies, Yes; Mindless Matter, No; Causality, Yes; Determinism, No.
By Charles Hartshorne Primitive animism and primitive materialism have the same origin, in ancient unawareness of the reality and natures of cells, atoms, and still smaller constituents of visible things. These now known things are ever-active, in a general sense organic, and not demonstrably mindless — even though their collections sometimes appear unmoving. As Leibniz,… Continue reading Theism as Radical Positivism: Minds, Bodies, Yes; Mindless Matter, No; Causality, Yes; Determinism, No.
A Rapid Journey into Neoclassical Theism
By Charles Hartshorne I awoke from a dream thinking how to arrive at my neoclassical theism in a few easy steps. We start from where we are, members of one of who knows how many species of animals on a comparatively tiny planet in a small solar system. Our species is special on this planet… Continue reading A Rapid Journey into Neoclassical Theism
Some Causes of My Intellectual Growth
By Charles Hartshorne I. Some Not Wholly Serious Preliminarieson Modesty and Its Opposite Before I begin this more or less chronological account of my intellectual coming to be, I wish to confess an apprehension that the reader will find the account self-serving and self-flattering. He might, however, remember that an illustrious board of elder statesmen… Continue reading Some Causes of My Intellectual Growth
The Development of My Philosophy
By Charles Hartshorne In my intellectual development, four principal periods may be distinguished. In the first (age 15-22, or 1912-19), the only philosophers in anything like the strict sense whom I can recall as having influenced me directly were the Quaker mystic and teacher, Rufus Jones (I had one course with him at Haverford College,… Continue reading The Development of My Philosophy
The Unity of Being Sections 1-7
By Charles Hartshorne Introduction The Unity of Being is Charles Hartshorne’s doctoral dissertation written at Harvard University in 1923. The dissertation is organized in two Parts with fourteen Sections. This presentation of The Unity of Being is divided into two Parts of Seven Sections each. Hartshorne’s Digest (or Preface) follows below which in turn is… Continue reading The Unity of Being Sections 1-7
The Unity of Being Sections 8-14
The Unity of Being Part II Section 8 [127] Section 8 The Implications of Quality Thesis: Not only has every entity a nature or quality, but every quality has itself a nature, i.e., requires to be specified in its determinate difference from all other qualities by means of a further universal. In the end, since… Continue reading The Unity of Being Sections 8-14
A Charles Hartshorne Timeline
1897, June 5: birth of Charles Hartshorne in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, to Francis Hartshorne, an Episcopal minister, and Marguerite Hartshorne. He had five siblings: an older sister and four younger brothers, two of whom were identical twins. 1909: The family moved to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 28 miles from Philadelphia. 1911-15: attended, from his fourteenth to eighteenth years,… Continue reading A Charles Hartshorne Timeline
How I Got That Way
By Charles Hartshorne What causes an individual’s choice of a philosophy? If to cause means to strictly determine, my philosophy holds that nothing causes such a choice. There are no literally sufficient conditions in the past for our present ways of thinking, or even for the precise happenings in inanimate nature. However, there are necessary… Continue reading How I Got That Way