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In H's view, then, "the real issue concerning metaphysics" is this "distinction between existence and actuality, or the indefinite 'somehow instantiated' and the particular how of instantiation; and also the related distinction between ultimate abstractions (such as concreteness as such) and more specific abstractions that are only contingently instantiated in that their being instantiated imposes limitations on the instantiation of other specific abstractions" (Ibid.: 297 f.), . Whereas the instantiation of "concreteness" excludes nothing -- "except nothing—except bare nothing itself, and that is only a word that has lost its meaning," the instantiation of more specific abstractions excludes the instantiation of yet other abstractions comparably specific. As Bergson argued, "nothing" has only relative uses. Therefore, to exclude nothing is not to exclude at all. On the other hand, contingency is competitiveness, mutual exclusiveness between possibilities equally positive.

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As for Wittgenstein's claim that "all necessary propositions say the same thing -- that thing—that is, nothing," Hartshorne insists on adding the word "contingent." Thus in his view, while all strictly necessary propositions (using only extreme abstractions) say the same thing, namely, that some extremely general ideas are necessarily actualized somehow, "they all imply the metaphysical essence of reality, what will be and must have been, no matter what, or in all possible cases" (Ibid.: 298).