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1. According to Hartshorne, "a metaphysics" is "an a priori analysis (which does not mean analysis unrelated to experience, but analysis related to the strictly general traits of experience)" (Man's Vision of God: 29). Elsewhere he explains that to avoid "the fallacy of pure empiricism" is not to "desert experience" but rather to "recognize those elements in experience that have metaphysical generality, that are valid of all experience and all objects" (Ibid.: 53, n. 5). Yet again, he argues that "the way to deal with controversial matters is to start from the least controversial experiences and, by the application of formal, deductively powerful structures, which are also neutral to the controversies, test the relation of the more controverted ideas to those experiences. This is the general rational method, and it includes more than what is usually meant by empirical, for the experiences which are important in philosophy are observations not of particulars but of the dimensions of experience as such, its temporal character, its character as 'purposive,' 'emotional,' more or less 'harmonious,' 'discordant,' and the like. Philosophy is concerned with experiences which at least claim to be universal and fundamental-- just as religious experience involves at least the feeling that 'God' is relevant to and involved in all experience and all existence. The problem is not to generalize from such experiences and their claims, but to see whether the complete generality already in them, as a semblance at least, 'is or is not genuine, to see whether one can successfully, and with all implications in mind, deny their claim to generality. It seems evident, for instance, that all existence has value, for at every moment one values all of it that he thinks of and hence is interested in{}that is, he values whatever he can mean by--'all of it.' The problem is to clear this apparent insight of irrelevant details, to see what it could conceivably imply, and to relate it to other insights of the kind. To assume that this must not 'be the philosophical method is to assume definite answers to certain philosophical questions. To assume that this method should be given a trial is merely to allow such answers and their negatives to be adequately considered" (Ibid.: 62 f.).

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