Author: hyattcarter

Charles Hartshorne Humanism seems to be a mode of thought incident to a certain stage in the development of science. It arises after the downfall of primitive animism, which is the mythological form of man’s fellowship with nature. The early Greek philosophers still possessed this fellowship and sought to render it intelligible. But the rise… Continue reading The Historic Role Of Humanism

Events, Individuals and Predication: A Defence of Event Pluralism Charles Hartshorne A statement, capable of being true or false, correctly describes or characterizes something. Philosophies may differ in the class of entities which they suppose to be the basic descripta, those which all true characterizations correctly, and at least indirectly, describe. Aristotle codified one answer:… Continue reading Events, Individuals and Predication: A Defence of Event Pluralism

Charles Hartshorne A. Prehension and Peirce’s Secondness The philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) is not (at least among philosophers) the most widely popular one of our time. But then, metaphysics, or, as he sometimes called it, speculative philosophy, is also not especially popular. However, interest in this type of metaphysics seems to be slowly… Continue reading Whitehead’s Revolutionary Concept of Prehension

Conclusion to Creativity in American PhilosophyCharles Hartshorne American philosophy, from Edwards to Peirce and Whitehead, constitutes a success story from the standpoint of neoclassical metaphysics. The problem of causality and freedom has been redefined in terms of self-determining experience that furnishes content for its later instances. The “furnishing content” aspect is the causal conditioning. Peirce… Continue reading Conclusion to Creativity in American Philosophy

Charles Hartshorne An absolute term, I have held, is abstract, object, cause, predecessor, constituent, rather than concrete, subject, effect, successor, whole—in any relation in which the term is absolute. That the absolute or independent being, as such, is cause in all cause-effect relationships is traditional doctrine; also, one spoke of him as first cause, as… Continue reading God qua Absolute

Charles Hartshorne Maximizing relativity as well as absoluteness in God enables us to conceive him as a supreme person. The absolute is neutral between any and all relational alternatives; surely a person cannot be thus neutral. If God be in all aspects absolute, then literally it is “all the same” to him, a matter of… Continue reading Divine Personality

Charles Hartshorne “Leibniz . . . had a very clear head.”—George Santayana 　The Importance of Leibniz (1646-1716) Karl Popper, who, with Kant, doubts that there has been progress in metaphysics, has told us better than anyone else how intellectual progress is to be made. The method of reason is the method of discussion, consisting in… Continue reading The “Clearheaded” Philosopher

Charles Hartshorne In the middle decades of the nineteenth century three German writers contributed significantly to speculative philosophy or philosophical theology. The first, Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), was especially influential in the United States. As Peirce said, somewhat scornfully, Lotze’s knowledge of science was that of a medical student; but still, Lotze was closer to… Continue reading Lotze, Fechner, Cournot, and Other Nineteenth-Century Forerunners of Process Metaphysics

Preliminary Survey to The Logic of PerfectionCharles Hartshorne Philosophy can scarcely refuse to deal with the idea of God. For (in spite of some psychoanalysts) no other idea more obviously transcends the scope of the empirical sciences. Yet “God” properly stands for the object of worship. Can a worshipful deity be the object of rational… Continue reading Preliminary Survey to The Logic of Perfection

Charles Hartshorne “All existences are Buddhahood.” Dogen (Japan, 13th Century). “On the tablet of the universe is no letter save thy name; By what name then shall we invoke thee ?” Jami (Persia, 15th Century). The Greeks held that concrete particulars are essentially unintelligible, objects of mere opinion, not knowledge. As men often do, they… Continue reading The Wider Context