The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

scanned pdf

That Hartshorne has, in fact, now abandoned his earlier concept of analogy as a third, more or less "problematic" type of predicate, distinct from both obviously "formal" and obviously "material" types, is confirmed not only by the frequent references in his recent writings to the mind-body and interpersonal "analogies," but also by his distinction between "categorial characterizations of deity" and "analogical ones, such as 'living,' 'good,' 'beautiful,' 'happy,' 'spiritual,' 'rational or conscious,' 'loving,' and the like" (ZF: 84).

Clearly, none of what he here distinguishes as "analogical characterizations of deity" would satisfy his own earlier criterion of what is properly "analogical." On the contrary, all of them are clear cases of what he then distinguished as merely "symbolic," or "metaphorical"—every bit as clear, indeed, as the cases he himself conceded to be "symbolic, not analogical, as applied to God" (EA: 41).

20 January 1998

  • No labels