masthead
logo-min

Charles Hartshorne: A Biographical Essay 
by John B. Cobb Jr.

Charles Hartshorne, June 5, 1897-October 9, 2000-- philosopher, was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite Haughton and Francis Cope Hartshorne, clergyman. He entered Haverford College in 1915, leaving to join the Army Medical Corps for two years.He completed his college work at Harvard and took the Ph.D. in philosophy there. Among his teachers were R. B. Perry, W. E. Hocking, C.I. Lewis, H. M. Sheffer, and J. H. Woods. His dissertation was on "The Unity of All Things."

Awarded a Sheldon Fellowship, Hartshorne studied for two years in Europe, mostly in Germany. Among the lectures he attended were some by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.

On his return to Harvard, he spent three years as Instructor and Research Fellow. He and Paul Weiss edited the papers of Charles Sanders Peirce in six volumes (Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge and Harvard University Press, 1931-1935). He found in Peirce a highly congenial spirit, and he appropriated many of Peirce's concepts and arguments.

During one of these years he was assistant to Alfred North Whitehead, whose thought was also highly congenial to the vision he had been shaping on his own. He learned much from Whitehead, and one major contribution he made throughout his career was introducing students to Whitehead and expounding his ideas.

In 1928 Hartshorne accepted a position in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Chicago, where, except for a Fulbright appointment in Australia, he taught until 1955. Soon after moving to Chicago he married Dorothy Cooper. Dorothy Hartshorne played an important role as editor and bibliographer of his writings. They had one child, Emily.

During his years at Chicago, Hartshorne had a somewhat lonely role in the Department of Philosophy. Much of the time this was dominated by Richard McKeon. In any case, Hartshorne's commitment to the construction of a now metaphysics and philosophy of religion was out of step with the general mood.

His influence at Chicago was from theologians as much as from philosophers. In due course, with little change in his teaching, he received a joint appointment in the Divinity School. He did much to shape what came to be called "process theology."

Despite his personally irenic spirit, much of his work was polemical. Hartshorne argued on two fronts. Against classical theism he insisted that its views were neither coherent nor religiously satisfactory. He taught that the idea of divine perfection embodied in the tradition affirmed only one side of what is truly involved in perfection, that is, the element of immutability and absoluteness. But true perfection includes perfect relatedness and thus change. What remains changeless is God's perfect responsiveness to all that is changing.

Hartshorne opposed the classical doctrine of omnipotence. In its clearest form this implied that all events, just as they occur, are determined by God. This tradition cannot affirm creaturely freedom or avoid depicting God as directly responsible for allsin and evil without inconsistency. Hartshorne taught, in contrast, that God creates the conditions that provide the optimum balance of order and freedom. Within the limits set by God, creatures determine the details of what happens. Much that occurs takes place by chance interactions of diverse decision-making creature. This, too, expresses the divine perfection.

The other front on which Hartshorne argued was against the widespread loss of confidence in reason. This expressed itself in the dominant philosophical community as an abandonment of metaphysics and of constructive philosophy generally. In theology it led to fideism. Hartshorne showed that traditional arguments for the existence of God could be formulated cogently when the idea of God for which they argued was a coherent one. He gave special attention to the ontological argument in this regard. He insisted that the existence of empirical or contingent matter, that either God necessarily exists or it is necessarily true that God does not exist.

These ideas were set forth in a series of books: Beyond Humanism: Essays in the New Philosophy of Nature (Chicago: Willet, Clark & Company, 1937), Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willet, Clark & Company, 1941), The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), and Reality as a Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion (Glencoe: The Free Press and Boston: Beacon Press, 1953). These books established Hartshorne as a major challenge to the dominant currents in both philosophy and theology and as the center of a small but vigorous movement.

Partly because of tensions in the Department of Philosophy at Chicago, Hartshorne accepted an invitation to teach philosophy at Emory University. As he approached Emory's mandatory retirement age, he moved to the University of Texas, whose retirement policy was more flexible. He taught there until 1978.

During these years he continued to be a prolific writer. Creative Synthesis and Scientific Method (LaSalle: Open Court, 1970) concentrates less on his doctrine of God and thus offers a more balanced view of his position on a wide range of issues. His productivity has continued even past his retirement at Texas, including extensive assessment of the great thinkers of the past. Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers:an Evaluation of Western Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983) is especially significant in this regard.

Although Hartshorne's fame rests chiefly on his philosophy, he has also brought his philosophical views to bear in two scientific fields.

Indeed, his first book was an original development of the theory that all the senses constitute a singleaffective continuum. His thesis may still prove useful to physiological psychologists. (The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934.)

He maintained from his youth an interest in birds, and on his extensive travels he recorded numerous birdsongs. He taught that birds have a subjective life and are motivated by enjoyment of singing. He compiled extensive data supporting this theory and published Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.)

 Bibliography

A collection of Hartshorne papers, published and unpublished, is maintained at the Library of the Center for Process Studies, located at the School of Theology at Claremont, Claremont, California.

Major Works Not Listed Above:

  • Philosophers Speak of God. (With William L. Reese) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965.

  • The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics. La Salle: Open Court, 1965.

  • Anselms Discovery. La Salle: Open Court, 1965.

  • A Natural Theology for our Time. La Salle: Open Court, 1967.

  • Whitehead's Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-1970. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.

  • Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

  • Creativity in American Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.

  • Wisdom as Moderation: A Philosophy of the Middle Way. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.

Hartshorne has published an autobiography. The Darkness and the Light: A Philosopher Reflects Upon His Fortunate Career amid Those Who Made It Possible. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Volume XX of "The Library of Living Philosophers" is devoted to Hartshorne. The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (La Salle: Open Court, 1991). In addition to an autobiography, it includes twenty-nine critical essays, Hartshorne's replies, and a nearly exhaustive bibliography of his writings to date.

There is a bibliography of published works dealing with Hartshorne's thought by Dorothy Hartshorne, covering the years 1929-73, published in Process Studies, Fall, 1973, and a bibliography of dissertations about Hartshorne by Dean Fowler, in Process Studies, Winter, 1973.

Essential Books by Charles Hartshorne in Chronological Order 
(Sent to us by Hartshorne himself.)

  • The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation
  • Philosophers Speak of God. With William Reese. An Anthology with commentary.
  • A Natural Theology for Our Time.
  • The Divine Relativity.
  • Born to Sing.
  • Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes.
  • Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers.
  • Creativity in American Philosophy.
  • Wisdom as Moderation.
  • The Darkness and the Light. Autobiography.
  • The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne. Library of Living Philosophers. Vol. XX.
  • The Zero Fallacy. 

Other Resources on the Internet

State University of New York Press Books:

>> Charles Hartshorne's Psychicalism

>> Brief excerpts from Whitehead and Hartshorne