Charles Hartshorne In the hundred years since Darwin was a young man, science has made immense advances. Its most fundamental conceptions have been altered and clarified. During this same period theology also has made advances, though of these the public has been less well informed. It has been found that the conception of God upon… Continue reading Three Ideas of God
Author: hyattcarter
Religious Bearings of Whitehead’s Philosophy
Charles Hartshorne So old and widely used a term as “God,” it is frequently said, should not be given a radically new meaning. Perhaps this is just; but it should be remembered that there are several ancient meanings for “God” rather than but one. Admitting that the God of some present-day philosophers is not the… Continue reading Religious Bearings of Whitehead’s Philosophy
Whitehead’s Metaphysics
Charles Hartshorne What has Whitehead contributed to the subjects of metaphysics and cosmology? By “metaphysics” I mean the study of the necessary, eternal, completely universal aspects of reality; by “cosmology,” the attempt, combining metaphysics and scientific knowledge, to discern the large, comparatively universal features of nature as now constituted. Cosmology is science running more risks… Continue reading Whitehead’s Metaphysics
Whitehead after Forty-Five Years
Charles Hartshorne Except for a hasty reading of The Concept of Nature and a still hastier perusal of early, passages in Principia Mathematica, I was, as a graduate student at Harvard, unacquainted with Whitehead and his philosophy. However, in 1925, as a young instructor, I began to hear him lecture, to grade student papers for… Continue reading Whitehead after Forty-Five Years
Whitehead in Historical Context
Charles Hartshorne I: The Basic Categories What Whitehead called speculative philosophy, the central or noncontingent core of which he sometimes called metaphysics, is a difficult enterprise; and at most only a few crucially important individuals occur in it in a century. Plato and Leibniz were outstanding examples in the past, and in the hundred years… Continue reading Whitehead in Historical Context
How Some Speak, Yet Do Not Speak, About God
Charles Hartshorne Twenty-five years ago a critic of my ontological argument reminded us that if the premises of the argument are tautological rather than factual, that is, if they are “true in all possible worlds, then. . . they are vacuously true, since they then tell us nothing particular about our world.”1 He failed to… Continue reading How Some Speak, Yet Do Not Speak, About God
What Metaphysics Is
Charles Hartshorne Metaphysics can be approximately defined in a number of ways, including the following: (a) The unrestrictive or completely general theory of concreteness (b) The theory of experience as such (c) The clarification of strictly universal conceptions (d) The search for unconditionally necessary or eternal truths about existence (e) The theory of objective modality… Continue reading What Metaphysics Is
Preface to The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation
Preface to The Philosophy and Psychology of SensationCharles Hartshorne This book presents a theory of the sensory qualities. The theory may be called, for brevity’s sake, the doctrine of the “affective continuum.” It was first conceived as an attempt to solve certain problems of a philosophical character. But it was natural that the treatment which… Continue reading Preface to The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation
Preface to Beyond Humanism
Preface to Beyond Humanism (Bison Book Edition)Charles Hartshorne In the thirty-two years since the writing of these essays, the philosophical scene has changed in many ways. Writings by Russell, Dewey, Santayana, Carnap, and Moore are less in the center of interest; while those by Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, Strawson, Heidegger, Peirce, and (in this country at… Continue reading Preface to Beyond Humanism
Preface to Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism
Preface to Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of TheismCharles Hartshorne To the mountainous — I had almost said, monstrous — mass of writings devoted to “philosophical theology,” what can there be to add? I answer simply, if without apparent modesty, there is exactitude, logical rigor. Beyond question, of those who have dealt with… Continue reading Preface to Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism