893. I find it significant that...

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I find it significant that Hartshorne can speak of the "quality" of "reality" entirely in terms of relations -- the relations experienceable from the "inside," of which any concrete singular may be conceived by analogy to be a subject, as distinct from the relations (or relations of relations) observable from the "outside," by observing its behavior.

Thus, in a discussion of "absolute" and "relative," he speaks of "a third something" that "both concepts are about. But this third something, in its wholeness or over-all quality, is to be described as relative; for 'absolute' describes only a partial or abstract aspect" ("Duality vs. Dualism and Monism": 52). Here, clearly, "relative" and "absolute" are both taken to describe the "quality" of "reality": "relative" describing its quality as a whole, "absolute" describing only a partial, or abstract, aspect of its quality.

But if "quality" can be thus understood entirely in terms of "relations," it clearly will not do to play the two terms off against one another as though the first added something to the second, requiring both terms to be used to give an adequate account. That Hartshorne occasionally argues contrary to this principle, however, seems to me quite clear. One example that immediately comes to mind is where he argues that God's knowledge differs from all other creaturely knowledge not only quantitatively -- God knowing all things, creatures knowing only some -- but also, as he says, "qualitatively" -- God knowing as only God can know all things. But, clearly, if "relative" properly describes the "wholeness or over-all quality" of a concrete singular, such an argument is groundless.

26 July 2008