Category: Chapters from Hartshorne’s Books

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

Charles Hartshorne “Being . . . is undeducible. For our intellect it remains a casual and contingent quantum that is simply found or begged. May it be begged bit by bit, as it adds itself? Or must we beg it only once, by assuming it either to be eternal, or to have come in an… Continue reading Freedom Requires Indeterminism and Universal Causality

Charles Hartshorne “The ‘matter’ of materialists and the ‘spirit’ of idealists is a creature similar to the constitution of the United States in the minds of unimaginative persons. Obviously the real constitution is certain basic relationships among the activities of the citizens. . . . Similarly what we call matter is that character of natural… Continue reading Mind, Matter, and Freedom

Charles Hartshorne  Some Readers will feel the need for labels for the doctrines of this book1, and since such expressions as Second-Type Theism, or AR, are colorless and have no familiar meaning, while familiar labels like pantheism, supernaturalism, and the like are laden with vague and conflicting associations, I shall here discuss some labels that… Continue reading Panentheism, Transcendental Relativity, and the Trinity 

Charles Hartshorne It is hard to be certain, but apparently Dr. Bultmann holds that we cannot attribute any­thing like ‘historicity’ to God. However, ac­cording to neoclassical (dipolar) theism or panentheism, only something extremely abstract can be purely eternal, and all concrete reality, even divine, is in a broad sense historical. As Berdyaev, Heidegger, Barth, and… Continue reading Abstract and Concrete Approaches to Deity and the Divine Historicity

Charles Hartshorne In what sense, granted evolution, can God be called Creator? Charles Kingsley, an English clergyman, beautifully puts it thus, in formulating the divine procedure: “I make things make themselves.” Only so does a good parent, a good God, proceed. For the parent, or God, to do simply all the making is to leave… Continue reading God “Makes Things Make Themselves”

Charles Hartshorne The varied reactions with which Whitehead’s contribution to theism has been received are due in part to the fact that so few philosophers or theologians have learned to see the development of thought about God in anything like its full range and with anything like adequate balance and freedom. Whatever difficulties we have… Continue reading Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)