Charles Hartshorne

The Aesthetic Dimensions of Religious Experience

Aesthetic value in the most general sense is intrinsic, immediately felt value. Economic value is the opposite extreme, extrinsic and eventual. True, the consciousness of having valuable possessions, or money exchangeable for them, may have immediate and hence aesthetic value. Balzac describes M. Grandet’s miserly gloating over his gold as a species of immediate enjoyment. It is clear that Grandet enjoyed developing and pursuing his clever schemes for transferring money from other people’s pockets and bank accounts into his own. He saw life as a game in which this transference was the criterion of winning. In all games, even this one, there is an aesthetic aspect of immediate value. But the economic value of money, what it will buy, remains extrinsic and eventual.

Scientific and Religious Aspects of Bioethics

Both ‘scientific’ and ‘religious’ mean various things to various people. In this essay the results, as well as the methods, of empirical science, especially biology, will be relevant. As for ‘religious’, I shall emphasize what Judaism and Christianity have in common rather than what separates them. I feel close also, in some respects, to Buddhism, and to the Bengali branch of Hinduism (Sri Jiva Goswani), also to Iqbal in Islam; but these relationships will not be of central importance on this occasion. The two Great Commandments referred to by Jesus, viz. , love God with all thy mind and heart and soul and love thy neighbor as thyself, define what, for me, is the religious attitude.

The Organism According to Process Philosophy

Hans Jonas is a very interesting — I am tempted to say fascinating — as well as learned philosopher. He has written perceptively about biological problems and also about the type of philosophy in which I have most confidence. I have decided, however, not to comment in much detail upon his views. This is partly because I am not sure that he is at his best in evaluating process philosophy or in analyzing “the phenomenon of life.” I like him best either as an historian of ideas or as a moralist and philosopher of religion. He seems to me to stand for much that is most valuable in our spiritual heritage and also for much that is soundest in the “modern temper.” In both respects I think he is closer than he fully realizes to process philosophy.

Is God’s Existence a State of Affairs?

Upon most of what Mr. Price says my only comment is a hearty ‘Amen’! If I have any disagreement at all, it is with reference to some remarks on pages 4 and 5.

The Social Structure of Experience

IN many contemporary philosophical writings, what is most surprising to me is not the things asserted, nor those denied, but those not even mentioned (or barely mentioned as of no importance). Several of these slighted topics are summed up in the title of this essay. At the age of twenty, when I was not reading any technical philosophers, nor any author (unless a poet or two) who held an essentially social view of experience, I attempted to persuade myself of the adequacy of a non-social view, expressed partly in a self-interest theory of motivation, and partly in an idea of perception as experience of things not themselves constituted by any sort of experiences. So far from succeeding in this attempt, I began to find reasons for regarding both motivation and perception as manifestations of a single principle, that of the overlapping or inter-individual unity of minds, not simply of human minds, but of mind on various levels of nature, including inorganic nature. This overlapping I thought I found in experience itself, and not merely through speculation or postulation. Subsequent reading in philosophy has not shown me a basic error in this early philosophizing, but only a vagueness and blurring of distinctions which, when taken into account, strengthen rather than weaken the case. It seems plain that many of my colleagues have not gone through any such reflections as the above, and have only the faintest idea that anyone else has. It is chiefly for their benefit-if that is the word -that this article is written. It will appear in due time that while the position I present is not fashionable, it is not merely eccentric either, but represents a substantial tradition, though one whose clearest expositors are mostly fairly recent, albeit currently somewhat neglected. These predecessors-for me almost all subsequent discoveries-appear to have reached their convictions by something like the reflection upon direct experience, the phenomenologizing, referred to above. It is such reflection upon concrete experience

My Religious Beliefs

The following talk was delivered as a sermon at a Unitarian church on August 23, 1992. The talk was prefaced by readings from C.I. Lewis and William Blake which someone—perhaps Hartshorne—photocopied from the opening pages of his book Mans Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1941). There were, in addition, a meditation written by Hartshorne, borrowing phrasing from Harry Emerson Fosdick and Matthew Arnold, and a quote from William James. All of this material is reprinted below, preceding Hartshornes talk. (Donald Wayne Viney, editor)

John Hick on Logical and Ontological Necessity

A number of writers have recently taken fresh looks at the many centuries-old ontological proof of Anselm. 1 Three of these writers seem to agree with me that traditional ways of treating this topic have been inadequate and that the proof, whether or not it is a sufficient reason for belief, is not without important bearings for philosophy of religion. These writers are Malcolm, Findlay, and Plantinga. With each of these I find considerable common ground, and they have all indicated to me that they are aware of this. In the present article on the topic, however, I wish to discuss a fourth writer, who differs rather sharply from the other three and particularly from me. Since Hicks views are shared in certain respects by what I take to be a main stream of contemporary thought, particularly in Britain, it seems worth while to accept the challenge he offers.

Science, Insecurity, and the Abiding Treasure

ELIGION, we have sometimes been told, originated in mans weakness and fear, his inability to understand and control nature. Through the gods, man acquired an illusory sense of security. But now that we have science and technology, can we not be secure without religion? Still, there are grounds for discounting this possibility. Let us consider, first, the physical causes of anxiety, the chances of discomfort, injury, disease, hunger, and death. To what extent can we expect material and intellectual progress to eliminate these things? To eliminate death as eventually inevitable, nothing, it seems, can be done. Or shall we take seriously those who talk of science conquering death? For reasons which may be guessed, I fervently trust death will not be conquered. For one thing, do we not have troubles enough, due to population increase, even with inevitable death? What would we do if death should become avoidable? We may very well increase the proportion of deaths from old age (though then we should have somewhat fewer children)-provided that war is avoided and provided, or in so far as, crime and the careless use of dangerous tools, such as automobiles or atomic piles, are kept within bounds. But each invention adds new risks for carelessness or crime to turn into catastrophe. Risks from diseases are, of course, diminishing rapidly. Yet consider a mild but bothersome disease, tooth decay. It seems that people want to run the risk of eating the refined starch and sweet foods that are the causes of tooth decay. Do not many of us fear boredom almost as much as danger and want soothing tastes as much as freedom from decay? Most of our automobiles are not now equipped with even that most elementary of safety devices for fast-moving vehicles, seat belts, though the proportion is increasing. Surely these belts are more needed in private cars than in planes! Yet I have encountered exactly two cars equipped with them, and another passenger in one of these cars expressed rather disapproving surprise. (This, to be sure, was several years ago.) If such is human behavior, how secure are we likely to be, with all our science? (Nevertheless, I hope some of my readers will give this matter serious thought. It may enable them to avoid killing or mutilating one or more human beings, perhaps themselves, whom there was no need to treat this way.) It seems plain that a considerable probability of many kinds of physical evil and the certainty of eventual death * Charles Hartshorne is professor of philosophy at Emory University. He received his degrees, including the Ph.D., from Harvard University. He has held teaching positions at the University of Chicago; Harvard University; Frankfurt, Germany; Melbourne, Australia; Leland Stanford University; the New School for Social Research; and the University of Washington. With Paul Weiss he edited The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, and with William L. Reese he is the author of Philosophers Speak of God. His books include The Divine Relativity and Reality as Social Process. Professor Hartshornes articles have appeared in the Journal of Religion, the Hibbert Journal, and various other religious and philosophical periodicals. During the spring and summer of 1958 Professor Hartshorne is serving as Fulbright Lecturer at Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

A Realistic Philosophy: The Perennial Principles of Thought and Action in a Changing World.

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Ethics and the New Theology

HE relations between goodness and theistic belief have been conceived in ways that are extraordinarily various. The main European tradition is, of course, the supposition that atheism or agnosticism connotes moral disintegration. But, not only does experience present what to most of us appear to be more or less flagrant instances to the contrary, it even suggests to certain persons a very real connection between some of the most unethical aspects of modern life and belief in God. Those who profit most by social injustices have only to recall that since Gods in his heaven, all must be right with the world. Those who have reasons of their own for opposing social change have only to reflect that the Orderer of all things is above time and change, and that all possible value is realized-despite the seeming evils of the world-in the eternal perfection of the Creator. Those, again, who have power of such a kind and degree as virtually to enslave their fellows point to the absolute righteousness of the Dispenser of all powers. Moreover, those who are on the other side of social inequalities tend to accept these religious apologies for their misfortunes, and to console themselves with the hope of restitution in a future life. Thus, the chief use of faith seems to be to disarm criticism of social arrangements; to promote smugness in the fortunate, and stoical resignation in those deprived of the means of life on a really human plane. Another type of ethical objection to theism questions its compatibility with intellectual honesty, in the exacting sense which scientific progress has given to that conception. Can a mind which permits itself to accept a belief so devoid of scientific foundation as theism has been shown -by Hume, Kant, and many others to be, really maintain, with respect to its other in-