Preface to The Logic of Perfection
Charles Hartshorne
I feel chiefly indebted, in connection with this study, to my Harvard teachers of many years ago, to some discussions with Rudolf Carnap (who shares very few of my opinions), and to the advice on some logical points given me by Richard M. Martin and Lucio Chiaraviglio. If I knew all that any of the three men mentioned knows about logic, this book would be at least somewhat different. It might be simply a more rigorous statement of essentially the same thoughts. Or . . . I wish I knew!
I also feel deeply grateful to the members of my “Summer Seminar” of 1958 in Kyoto, for their patient and friendly interest, as we met five days a week for four weeks to discuss metaphysics, particularly the dominant theme of the present work. It was during these discussions that some of the key ideas first occurred to me. It is a temptation to mention every professor and advanced student of this group, but I must refer to my very understanding and dear friend, Professor Matao Noda of Kyoto University.
Mention should be made of the kindness of Brand Blanshard, of Yale, in bringing the essay which, slightly revised, forms Chapter Two to the attention of Dr. Eugene Freeman of The Open Court Publishing Company, whose idea it was that the argument of the essay ought to be embedded in a larger context. From this idea, and Dr. Freeman’s understanding and encouragement, grew this book. It is a singular good fortune and pleasure to have as publishing editor a man who is also a trained and thoughtful philosopher, experienced in this capacity both as teacher and as author.
The second chapter deals, in a manner not hitherto represented in the literature, with the ontological argument for belief in God. It is my conviction, and as will be shown not only mine, that this subject has been scandalously mishandled. In my own view, this is true of nearly all schools of philosophy which have attempted to deal with it. If I am mistaken in this, I hope to be corrected.
The subject-matter of the rest of the book is less restricted, but the theme of the ontological argument is central to much of it. Various topics in metaphysics, cosmology, and philosophy of religion are dealt with.
The first half of the book, through Chapter Three, is entirely new; the remaining chapters are based on articles previously published — often, however, in media not widely accessible to students of philosophy or theology. These articles have also been more or less drastically rewritten, and in some cases greatly expanded (Chapters 4, 7, 13).
The general philosophical standpoint may be described as that of philosophical rationalism, the “search for the coherence of the presuppositions of civilized living” (Whitehead), but a rationalism which has earnestly striven to learn what it could from modern empiricism and modern logic. I feel closest to Peirce, Bergson, and Whitehead; but I believe the present work is sufficiently different from anything hitherto published to constitute a challenge to my philosophical colleagues.
About the age of seventeen, after reading Emerson’s Essays, I made up my mind (doubtless with a somewhat hazy notion of what I was doing) to trust reason to the end. In pursuit of this ideal, I have tried to make my thinking about metaphysical and religious questions good thinking, good by the proper criteria of thinking, rather than of persuading, edifying, or expressing emotion. This is an ideal easier to proclaim than to adhere to. One obstacle in adhering to it has been the dearth of careful criticisms of my writings. Such criticism is indeed welcome. For Popper is right, the rational way is the way of criticism. Objectivity is not in the individual thinker but in the process of mutual correction and inspiration.
Another obstacle is the widespread conviction that the deepest questions simply elude or transcend the rational or critical process. On the contrary, a basic technical conviction of all my writings is expressed in the word “logic” as it appears in the title of this book. The conviction is that the ultimate concepts have a rational structure, lucid, intellectually beautiful. When I meet an opponent of metaphysics or theology who shows an awareness of this logic, then indeed I shall wonder why we disagree. And when I meet a theologian who shows it I shall be pleased. But theologians seem often to agree with skeptics that theism is unintelligible. This matter will receive some attention in Chapters One, Two, and Four.
Another conviction which has haunted me for many years is that a great deal of the discussion of metaphysics and philosophy of religion in our time has been rendered idle by the assumption that if “metaphysics” (meaning, an a priori theory of reality) were possible it would have to be the sort of thing which Hume and Kant knew and criticized, or perhaps Kant’s own queer and truncated sort of metaphysics, or else the Absolute Idealism of the last century. On the contrary, what I take to be the basic metaphysical issues were not clearly seen by Kant or Hume, nor yet by Green or Bradley. What these authors dealt with were forms of what may be called “classical metaphysics,” metaphysics of being or substance. There is another form — in some respects admirably worked out in Buddhism, but in some respects left unfinished in that tradition — the metaphysics of becoming or creativity. I call this the “neoclassical” tradition. Beginning in the West with Socinus in theology, with some anticipations in Origen and Tertullian, there has been an inconspicuous, but, to the careful student of its representatives, impressive, development of a metaphysics of creativity. This development is not comprehensively criticized, but is largely ignored, in the current debates. Yet when one examines these debates one sees that little if anything is established in them which is capable of deciding the questions posed by neoclassical metaphysics. It is as though one were to suppose that the estimation of physics can be made to turn upon “classical physics,” its limitations being taken as insuperable. There was a Greek-Newtonian attitude, both in physics and in metaphysics. Has it not had its day?
We may, for better or for worse, be entering upon a new period in the metaphysics of religion. Peirce, Bergson, James, Dewey, Whitehead, and many others before and after them cannot (if culture endures) have written simply in vain; contemporary eddies cannot stop the slow change of four centuries from the mode of philosophizing which ignored or belittled the responsibilities and opportunities of creative becoming — from which in a sense even deity may not be exempt — to the mode which, after three millenia (sic) of evasion, accepts these responsibilities, not skeptically or because nothing better can be reached, but with faith and enthusiasm, and because the very notion of “better” presupposes the “creative advance” which is reality itself.
Another way in which the challenge of neoclassical metaphysics may be missed is through the supposition that frankly antirationalistic rhapsodies, such as those of Heidegger or Berdyaev, or the intuitionism of Bergson alone are capable of expressing the standpoint of becoming or process in metaphysics. This is not so; Peirce and Whitehead are among the distinguished rationalists of modern times, and it is my clear conviction that an uninhibited rationalism is possible only if what Berdyaev in his rhapsodic way called the “slavery to being” is overcome in philosophy.
There are many who suppose that a metaphysics of becoming, if logical, will be non-theistic. In a later book I hope to deal with six or seven theistic arguments in a systematic manner. None will be simply the old well-known arguments, all will express neoclassical principles, both in assumptions and in conclusions. But at the same time all will have affinities with standard arguments, and the idea of God which they support will be relevant to religion, that is, to “worship,” or devotion of the whole man.
A distinguished ornithologist begins a book with a preface in which he ironically offers assistance to his future critics by telling them what is wrong with his work, even giving page references for some of the defects. I shall indulge in a bit of the same kind of irony and follow his example.
Taking this book as a whole, and apart from Chapter Two, the reader may complain that it is: (1) loosely organized and repetitious (note how the explanation of evil recurs over and over); (2) excessively polemical (see almost any chapter); (3) too much like a lawyer’s brief, with many pros and few cons (note how the tremendous difficulty of reconciling a general “creative advance” with the denial by relativity physics of a cosmic simultaneity is dismissed in a brief footnote in Chapter Seven); (4) without a definite subject-matter, since half the problems of human life seem to come in eventually.
My defense or excuse in each case is as follows. (1) Since some of the central ideas are very widely ignored or casually repudiated almost or quite without examination, they evidently need the emphasis of repetition; also, since metaphysical ideas are global not linear in their interrelationships, repetition is scarcely avoidable, and a satisfactory order of exposition is extremely difficult. (2) Since the theories I reject are often deeply entrenched majority opinions, it seems unlikely that moderately expressed objections, unspiced with occasional argumenta ad hominem, will even be noticed. (3) For similar reasons counterarguments to my views are sure to be urged by others. (4) The subject of the book is The Logic of Perfection, but since abstract ideas permeate life and culture mainly through their applications to more concrete matters, a number of these applications have been included as illustrations (above all in Chapter Thirteen). Also, besides applications to special topics, the ultimate or metaphysical abstractions (wholly summed up, I contend, in the concept of Perfection) have implications for one another (the global nature of metaphysics above referred to): accordingly, many of these are considered, especially in Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12. Chapters 4, 9, 10, and 11 try to relate the philosophical and religious aspects of the position.
In spite of the apparent impossibility of a non-arbitrary linear order, I shall hope in a subsequent work (referred to above) to achieve a more systematic analysis, besides profiting by the critical responses which I hope for from the present volume. In the later essay, I shall also pay more attention to certain epistemological and methodological questions. Perhaps some readers will find the standpoint naively realistic, and yet not realistic enough; for I seem to take it for granted that, just as men and elephants exist, so do atoms, or even particles, forgetting that these are but scientific constructs, based on everyday modes of perception of sticks and stones and chemicals. I suspect, but hope later to be able to see more clearly and show, that this matter is not crucial for my argument, since science has at least shown that sticks and stones and chemicals, as merely that, are entities which are but slightly understood; moreover, the extension of our understanding through science exhibits as illusory, not indeed any positive aspects of physical reality as experienced, but certain negative ones, such as mere inertness, lack of organization or of spontaneity. It is from these negations, and nothing positive, that materialism, determinism, and dualism derive their plausibility.
Undoubtedly some critics will think that I take language too much for granted, or pay too little attention to the normal meanings of words. Perhaps so; I am open to conviction on this point.
Besides supplying some criticisms gratis, the ornithologist above referred to suggested that any critic ask himself this question, “Do I know as much about the subject as the author?” Whereas, however, not many would imagine themselves to be experts in a class with Meinertzhagen on “the birds of Arabia,” a great many apparently claim expertness as to the right way to think about metaphysical questions. All I say here is, if there be those who have thought about them, even in some small aspect, more carefully or precisely, or with more intellectual freedom, or more adequate acquaintance with the various standpoints and writings, than four and one-half decades of effort have enabled me to do, it will be an honor to be instructed by them. It is they from whom we need to hear.
Since, as will be pointed out in Chapter Four, conceptions of God and of the creatures are correlative, mistakes in one tending to produce or be produced by mistakes in the other, a thorough consideration of the case for and against theism is possible only within a general speculative philosophy or metaphysics. A sane philosophy of religion cannot be fully articulated save as a sane comprehensive philosophy. What I take to be such a philosophy is indicated in Chapters Three to Thirteen but not systematically developed. This development I hope to accomplish in the subsequent volume. It will then, I think, appear still more clearly that a Neoclassical Theism belongs in a Neoclassical Metaphysics, and that many of the recent discussions of the possibility, impossibility, or nature of metaphysics have little relevance to this theism or metaphysics, but are at best applicable either to the classical form or to non-classical, eccentric metaphysics (Heidegger, Russell). Classical metaphysics is a metaphysics of being, substance, absoluteness, and necessity as primary conceptions; neoclassical metaphysics treats these as secondary abstractions, the primary ones being those of creative becoming, event, relativity, and possibility.
Since Chapter Two is more technically philosophical than considerable portions of the remaining chapters, readers untrained in philosophy may find it better to begin with the latter; however, they would probably do well to read first sections I-III especially II-III, of Chapter Two, since in these the neoclassical idea of divine perfection is explained. Note, the idea is explained, not the actual God. To “explain God” would mean explaining absolutely everything. Our knowledge of God is infinitesimal. Nevertheless it is, I am persuaded, the only adequate organizing principle of our life and thought.
Source:
Charles Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection, pp. vii-xiv.
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