By Schubert Ogden
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3. When Hartshorne says that "many concepts are categorially universal \[_sic_\] besides unity, power, goodness, beauty," it appears that the criterion of a transcendental is "categorial universality," in the sense of applying to God as well as every other being. But, then, the distinction between "category" and "transcendental" is seriously blurred -- to the point where it's not any longer clear why Hartshorne begins his discussion of categories by making it. Moreover, the virtue of Scotus's distinction between convertible and disjunctive transcendentals is that it takes account of the "many concepts" that are transcendental besides unity, power, goodness, and beauty. |
4. Hartshorne evidently refers to what he calls "the category of existence" when he says that "divine genetic identity is the unsurpassable form under this transcendental" (331). Even if one supposes that the antecedent of "this transcendental" is "genetic identity" rather than "existence," still existence is strictly correlative with genetic identity even as actuality is strictly correlative with strict identity. But, then, one and the same thing -– "existence as suchu such" (328) -– is said to be<both be both a "category" and a "transcendental," again hopelessly blurring the distinction as originally defined.
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