887. I agree with Hartshorne . . .

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I agree with Hartshorne that ''[t]he structure and unity of reality is not something additional to the structure and unity of experience (human or otherwise), but is the same structure and unity" ("The Divine Relativity and Absoluteness": A Reply: 56).

But I disagree with him by denying that experience itself, as distinct from its essential structure and unity, can be generalized so as to yield "experience simply as such" as a "cosmic variable" that is neither hopelessly vague nor inconsistent, but at once clear and consistent. Either "experience simply as such" turns out to be used—fallaciously and self-contradictorily—as merely a "local variable" after all, or else it is used—again, self-contradictorily—s merely a symbolic, or metaphorical, way of expressing the strictly literal concept/term, "concreteness simply as such."

The fallacy involved in the first option is the "pathetic fallacy," while the self-contradiction involved is that one and the same variable cannot be both "local" and "cosmic." The self-contradiction involved in the second option is that, given Hartshorne's own definitions of terms, the same concept/term cannot be used both "symbolically" and "analogically."

3 May 2009