Category: Chapters from Hartshorne’s Books

Index to Chapters from Hartshorne’s Books Note: books are arranged in alphabetical order. Anticipations of the Ontological Proof  Source:Charles Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery, pp. 139-150 God or NatureSource:Charles Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism: Essays in the Philosophy of Nature, pp. 1-11. The Cosmic VariablesSource:Charles Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism: Essays in the Philosophy of Nature. pp. 111-124. The Historic Role Of… Continue reading Index to Chapters from Hartshorne’s Books

Anticipations of the Ontological Proof  Charles Hartshorne In a remarkable article, Prescott Johnson (see Bibliography) seems to succeed in showing that Plato’s dialectic (in The Republic) as means to knowledge of the Good amounts to an ontological argument for the necessary existence of the Good. The lesser ideas are incapable of expressing the principle of order… Continue reading Anticipations of the Ontological Proof  

Charles Hartshorne “There are few human beings, who, when they think of themselves in relation to the universe, are without a sense of curiosity, of wonder, and even of awe; and in so far as this leads them into specu­lation, they become philosophers. . . . And surely the questions that rise to the lips… Continue reading God or Nature

Charles Hartshorne As man looks out upon the world, he sees entities which he regards as “below” but akin to himself — the animals; other entities still farther below, yet remotely akin to him — the plants; and finally, two kinds of entity apparently so different from human beings that they seem not relatively but… Continue reading The Cosmic Variables

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