Page History

...

Hartshorne speaks in one place, significantly, of "mere being or somethingness" ("God and the Meaning of Life": 166 f.). My question is, Why wouldn't it be entirely appropriate to pursue transcendental metaphysics in straightforwardly Aristotelian terms as precisely the logical analysis of "being qua being," or "somethingness _qua _ qua somethingness"?

This would be done on the understanding: (1) that "something exists" is an unconditionally necessary statement; (2) that "something" is to be analyzed in terms of two fundamental contrasts between (a) "concrete" and "abstract" and (b) "divine" (= "unsurpassable") and "nondivine" (= "surpassable"); (3) that these two contrasts in no way involve dualism, but only duality, because "concrete" and "divine" are, in their respective contrasts, the inclusive concepts, "abstract" and "nondivine," the included; and (4) that metaphysics, therefore, is properly pursued as the logical analysis of concreteness, divine as well as nondivine, because concreteness is the inclusive form of "mere being or somethingness," abstractness, its included form. 

...