The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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1. Hartshorne typically reasons that "our achievements 'add up' to something only if there is an inclusive consciousness which enjoys them, which values their having taken place" ("Beyond Enlightened Self-Interest": 311). Supporting this conclusion is his contention that "the final end must be concrete, the good of individuals, for only the individual is actual" ("A Philosophy of Democratic Defense": 162).

2. But it's clearly one thing to argue that being of value always implies being of value for something, or someone, for which things can be of value; and that if all things are somehow of value, then there must be some one thing, or one, for which they are of value—it's clearly one thing to argue this, it's something else again, to argue that the all-inclusive something, or someone, for which all things are of value is "an inclusive consciousness." On the face of it, "consciousness" cannot be a cosmic variable, since, no matter how extensively one generalizes it, it remains and must remain a local variable, applicable to some things, but not applicable to others. But even beyond that, there's no reason to infer that "the inclusive something" has to be "an inclusive experience," except in a merely symbolic or metaphorical sense of the words.

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