The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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SCANNED PDF: Part 1

1. "Logical types" (= "logical-type distinctions") 

apply, in the first in­
 apply, in the first in­stance, to propositions and, presumably, concepts, only secondly, or indi­rectly, to what the propositions or concepts themselves apply to (liThe Idea of God--Literal or Analogical?:4). stance, to propositions and, presumably, concepts, only secondly, or indi­
rectly, to what the propositions or concepts themselves apply to (liThe Idea 
Thus one could speak of "ontological types II (or "ontological-type distinctions") corresponding to the logical, analogously to the way in which logical modality corresponds to and is de­rived from ontological (CSPM: 133). Thus, when Hartshorne speaks, e.g., of lithe logical-type difference between God and the mere creaturesII (CSPM: 145) he is speaking elliptically, if not carelessly. He means the ontological-type difference between God and the mere creatures with which the logical-type dif­ference between propositions about God and propositions about the mere crea­tures is correlative and from which it is derived. of God--Literal or Analogical?lI: 4). 
2. For Hartshorne, to differ "in principle excludes differing "merely in degree", but it does not exclude differing "in degree." On the contrary, to differ in principle is to differ in maximum degree, in that degree than which none could be greater. There is, in short, an infinite difference where there is a difference "in principle," but it is still a relative, rather than an absolute difference, although it is not a finite difference. An infinite differ­ence is like a finite difference in being a relative instead of an absolute difference, and therefore a difference of degree. But it is unlike a finite difference in not being merely a difference of degree but also a difference in principle. (An infinite difference is the difference between "all" and "some" whereas a finite difference is a difference between "some [more]" and "some [less]." The difference between either "all" or "some," on the one hand,  Hartshorne's a fortiori argument for psychicalism as being implied by theism (e.g., CSPM: 145) presupposes such distinctions between types of difference. For if one treats the difference between one "mind" or "feeling" and any other as a difference merely in degree, one cannot make sense out of the idea of God as infinite mind or feeling conversely. to take "mind" or "feeling" as ap­plying at least analogically to God is to undercut any reason for refusing to apply the concept to any merely finite being whatever. Clearly, the differ­ence between the infinite and the finite is greater than any difference be­tween anyone finite and another. 

3. Hartshorne is committed to holding that "the all-inclusiveness of God" can be stated formally, and, therefore, literally-namely, by saying "God is coincident with all truth and reality"-and that "all-inclusiveness, nonduality, is a formal character of deity,1I to speak about which as such is to speak literally ("The Idea of God," 5). 

4. Granted that, as Hartshorne says, "in metaphysics we are seeking ultimate or generality, beyond all contingent special cases," why should one agree with him that "every concept considered as even possibly metaphysical should be freed of limitations which do not seem inherent in its meaning" (CSPM: 90; my italics)? 

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