How Firm a Possible Foundation? Modality and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism

Donald Wayne Viney

Abstract: Central to Charles Hartshorne’s dipolar theism is his theory of modality as grounded in the temporal structure of process. Jay Wesley Richards argues in The Untamed God (2003) that Hartshorne’s modal theory abandons the elementary principle ab esse ad posse, that it makes nonsense of our counter­ factual discourse, and that it can only be expressed by Lewis’ S4, although for certain purposes Hartshorne needs the stronger S5. Richards fails to realize that Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is common to every possible world­state and necessity as it pertains to the unalterability of the past. Richards also uncritically accepts the concept of possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt on the coherence of this idea. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s modal theory, Richards’ arguments against it are unsuccessful.

Jay Wesley Richards defends what he calls “theological essentialism.” 1 He argues that “Christians should affirm that God has an essence, which includes his perfections and essential properties, and should attribute to God essential and contingent properties”

(17).2 The idea of God having contingent properties places Richards’ position in the vicinity of Charles Hartshorne’s dipolar theism. While Richards appreciates Hartshorne’s contributions to theological essentialism, he wishes to distance himself from those aspects of Hartshorne’s views that are unacceptable to Christians, at least Christians who reject process theology. Specifically, his goal is to drive a wedge between Hartshorne’s claims that, on the one hand, (a) God has both necessary and contingent properties (the

1 Unless otherwise noted, references in parentheses are to Jay Wesley Richards, The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Simplicity and Immutability (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003). See bibliography for the key to references of Hartshorne’s works.

2 Richards makes no attempt to avoid exclusive language for deity. In the last two decades of his life Hartshorne became sensitive to this issue and I will follow his example (cf. OO 56­58). 2 view Richards accepts), and on the other hand, (b) it is necessary that God have some world or other, and (c) God includes the world, the doctrine of panentheism (views that

Richards rejects). 3

Richards too often interprets Hartshorne’s arguments for (a) as arguments for (b) or (c). This is simply careless exegesis and represents no real differences between the two philosophers. 4 Richards’ deepest differences from Hartshorne concern ideas about modality and possible worlds. According to Richards, Hartshorne’s modal theory suffers from the crippling defects that it abandons the elementary principle ab esse ad posse, makes nonsense of our counter­factual discourse, and can only be expressed by Lewis’

S4, although for certain purposes Hartshorne needs the stronger S5. Richards fails to realize that Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is common to every possible world­state and necessity as it pertains to the unalterability of the past. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s modal theory, Richards’ arguments against it are unsuccessful. Finally, Richards uncritically accepts the concept of possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt on the coherence of this idea. Possible worlds provide anything but a firm foundation on which to make sense of either theological essentialism or panentheism.

3 Richards’ general strategy has parallels with William Alston’s attempt to find a middle way between Aquinas and Hartshorne. For Alston’s arguments and Hartshorne’s rebuttal see Existence and Actuality: Conversatoins with Charles Hartshorne, edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and Franklin I. Gamwell (University of Chicago Press, 1984).

4 Hartshorne’s arguments for (a) can be found, among other places, at CSPM 9 and at DR 13­14. Richards calls the argument at CSPM 9 one of the “less compelling arguments” that Hartshorne gives for panentheism (182). Concerning DR 13­14, he says, “Hartshorne seems to assume that this [argument] entails panentheism” (170). In neither passage does Hartshorne conclude to, or give the slightest impression that he is concluding to, panentheism. A clear statement of Hartshorne’s main argument for panentheism is at DR 19. Richards cites W. Norris Clarke’s rebuttal to this argument but ignores Hartshorne’s reply to Clarke, published in the same volume as Clarke’s essay (177). 3

I begin with a brief exposition of Hartshorne’s views of modality and indicate some of the confusions about those views under which Richards labors. To better highlight the contrast between Hartshorne and Richards and to place their views in genuine dialogue with one another, I move to a critical discussion of Richards’ ideas about possible worlds. In closing I revisit Hartshorne’s ideas about the nature of possibility, especially as they relate to Peirce and Whitehead. I hope to dispel the concern that Hartshorne abandons the elementary principle of modal logic, ab esse ad posse. The question of how Hartshorne’s modal theory relates to Lewis’s S5 remains open and depends upon whether a continuum of possibility is sufficient for an S5 possible world semantics.

Hartshorne on Modality

Richards believes that Hartshorne’s views on modality make his acceptance of panentheism “virtually inevitable” (184). Thus, as part of his strategy to separate the core of theological essentialism (the proposition labeled a, above) from the other elements of

Hartshorne’s dipolar theism (propositions b and c), Richards launches an attack on

Hartshorne’s ideas about modality. Hartshorne never claimed to have worked out the semantic technicalities for his modal theory. He considered this as unfinished business for process thinkers. 5 Nevertheless, he developed his own ideas about modality in dialogue with Aristotle, Plato, Leibniz, Peirce, Whitehead, Von Wright, and Quine.

Hartshorne ties modality to the asymmetrical structure of temporal process as we routinely experience it. We experience the present, Hartshorne observes, as arising out of a settled past that opens onto a future that is not precisely settled as to all of its details.

Expressions like “water under the bridge” and “don’t cry over spilled milk” capture the

5 Lewis Edwin Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court), p. 659. 4 idea that one’s attitude to the past, not the past itself, is an object of choice. One’s decisions, however, are some of the building blocks of what one day will be the past. No matter how significant or insignificant our lives may be, the world is forever different than it would otherwise have been because of the decisions that we make. In Hartshorne’s preferred language, the past is fully determinate, the future is partly indeterminate, and the present is the process of determination. That the future is partially, but not wholly, indeterminate is central to Hartshorne’s concept of temporal becoming. The future is not experienced as an existential vacuum but as a structured stage for our activity. The structure is provided not only by the laws of nature but also by previous decisions, both our own and those of other creatures. For example, a mountain climber reaching for a hand­hold must do so in accordance with gravity; moreover, her ability to gain the hold, or even to recognize it as secure, may depend upon her own prior training.

Hartshorne’s metaphysics of creative synthesis is grounded in, and is a generalization from, these observations. 6 Hartshorne agrees with Whitehead in conceiving the most concrete elements of reality not as enduring substances with spatial and temporal parts but as ephemeral centers of activity from which the spatially and temporally extended objects of our ordinary experience come to be. A tree, for example, is composed of countless of these dynamic singulars, as Hartshorne sometimes calls them. Thus, the tree, like the elements of which it is composed, must be conceived as a process. Dynamic singulars undergo a two­fold process: first, each one arises as an appropriation, a creative synthesis, of the past; second, once its activity is completed, it

6 Richards speaks of Hartshorne’s “a priori definition of ‘creativity’” (183). Hartshorne’s definition of creativity is hardly a priori in the sense Richards intends, for Hartshorne explicitly appeals to the widespread and massive data of experience in formulating and defending it (CSPM, chapter 1). 5 becomes material to be appropriated by subsequent dynamic singulars. 7 Because each dynamic singular is a tiny act of creation, this two­fold process is not deterministic.

Nevertheless, there is an inherent stability or regularity to the two­fold process, for these creative acts are necessarily contextual and developmental. Joseph Bracken has forcefully reminded process thinkers that no dynamic singular exists apart from the surrounding nexūs and societies of other entities. 8 What a dynamic singular can become depends upon the matrix and the level of organization of past entities from which it arises. A thought can arise from a fully functioning human brain, but not from a Cyprus.

Hartshorne finds the creative appropriation of the past most clearly exemplified in human experience, but he considers specifically human experience as but one of an infinite number of forms that experience can take. Hartshorne argues that psychological variables have an “unlimited breadth and flexibility” both below and above the human level (BH 119). For example, a mother bird is aware of her chicks even though she lacks the self­awareness that is characteristic of humans. She need not be human in order to remember the location of her nest, to hear the chirps of her young, or to anticipate the danger represented by a prowling cat. Memory provides Hartshorne, as it did for

Whitehead, the primary analogue of how the past informs and is incorporated by the present. Memory of X is an experience that includes X as an essential component. Thus,

Hartshorne argues that a present experience is internally related to its past but externally related to its future. As one listens to a melody, preceding notes are internally related to

7 Whitehead refers to dynamic singulars as actual entities and his names for the two kinds of process are concrescence and transition.

8 Joseph A. Bracken, The One in the Many: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the God­World Relationship (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001). I believe that Whiteheadeans are in greater need of Bracken’s reminder and emendations than Hartshorneans. Arguably, the privileging of actual entities over societies is enshrined in Whitehead’s doctrine of God as a single actual entity. Hartshorne, on the other hand, conceives God as a personally ordered cosmic society. 6 the memory of them since, without those notes, it would not be the memory that it is; but one’s anticipation of the notes that follow could be the anticipation that it is even if what is anticipated does not occur, as when a melody stops suddenly without warning. 9

Because of Hartshorne’s insistence on the reality of temporal becoming it is tempting to interpret him as advocating what McTaggert called an “A­series,” where a moving present, a now, renders events as past or as future relative to its position.

Richards seems to think that Hartshorne endorses the A­series idea but that he adds to it a notion of creativity (184, note 38). This is incorrect. Hartshorne distinguishes his view from McTaggart’s. 10 McTaggert said that if one subtracts the determinations of the A­ series, one is left with a C­series, an ordered array of events without any temporal determinations. 11 On Hartshorne’s view, if one subtracts the determinations of the A­ series one is left with no events—nothing at all. According to Hartshorne, creativity is

“additions to the definiteness of reality” (CSPM 3). It follows that the determinations of the B­series (events ordered as earlier and later) are relations that come into existence in the course of the temporal flux. For example, John F. Kennedy’s assassination is not an eternal occurrence but a specific event at a specific time; once it became past, it defined a

9 Richards accuses Hartshorne of defining internal and external relations in an idiosyncratic way, in terms of dependence and independence rather than in terms of essential and accidental properties (189). I see only a terminological difference since Hartshorne usually draws his examples from momentary experiences. As Hartshorne says, Jones would have been Jones had a certain insect not flown in his field of vision at a certain moment. In that case, however, his experience at that moment would not have been that experience—that is to say, the insect is essential to it, or put differently, it depends upon the insect (IO 155). For further evidence against Richards’ complaint see T. L. S. Sprigge, “relations, the nature of” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 756­ 57. Sprigge mentions Hartshorne twice without the slightest hint that he talks past other major contributors to the debate.

10 Hartshorne, “Time” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Vergilius Ferm (Secaucus, N.J.: Popular Books, 1955), pp. 787­788.

11 J. M. E. McTaggert, Philosophical Studies (New York: Longmans, Green & Company, 1934), p. 116. 7

“before” in terms of which other events would be “after” (for example, the memories of many of those who lived at that time have of it). However, as McTaggert describes them, neither the A­series nor the B­series have anything to do with the coming to be of events.

On the contrary, his view implies that, contrary to Hartshorne, there are future events that become present and then become past as the cursor of the “now” moves over them. On

Hartshorne’s view, “future event” and “future actuality” are contradictions in terms.

The structure of temporal becoming provides Hartshorne with the basic clues about the nature of modality. Two components of his theory of modality are: (i) there is no absolute division between de re and de dicto modalities, and (ii) modalities are temporal (CSPM 133). Hartshorne was fond of quoting Peirce’s statement that time is a species of objective modality (CAP 79).1 2 For Hartshorne, however, time is not merely a species of objective modality, it provides the semantic anchor for all discourse about possibility and necessity. Thus, (ii,a) possibility and futurity are inextricably linked.

Nothing is possible that was not once, or one day will be, a possibility in the future. On

Hartshorne’s view, if something is (was, or will be) possibly actual then it is (was, or will be) actually possible. Necessity (ii,b), on this view, is what is common to all temporal possibilities. Hartshorne interprets the modal principle that a necessary proposition is implied by every proposition as an illustration of this (IO 121). A third component of

Hartshorne’s theory is that, (iii) possibility, apart from its most general features, forms a continuum and not set of discrete points. We shall return to this issue in our closing statement. Finally, Hartshorne holds that (iv) modal status is necessary (IO 142; LP 51,

12 Peirce writes, “That Time is a particular variety of objective Modality is too obvious for argumentation. The Past consists of the sum of faits accomplis, and this Accomplishment is the Existential Mode of Time.” See “Issues of Pragmaticism,” in Philip P. Wiener (ed.), Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance) (New York: Dover, 1958), p. 220. 8

55). This claim, more than any other, commits Hartshorne to a modal system as rich as

Lewis’s S5, for only in that system is it true that both “◊p ⊃ ◊p” and “p ⊃ p.”

It should now be clear why Norman Martin is correct to suggest that Hartshorne’s theory of modality depends upon taking the concept of creative synthesis seriously. 13

Modal truths and falsehoods have an essential reference to temporal process. Moreover, because temporal process is, on Hartshorne’s view, cumulative, it is a consequence of his theory to recognize what medieval philosophers called the accidental necessity of the past. The past, once having occurred, cannot be changed. As Thomas Aquinas said, not even God could restore virginity to a person who had lost it. 14 This is clearly a different meaning of necessity than the primary meaning of necessity (ii,b) of that which is common to all temporal possibilities. Having lost one’s virginity is not common to all temporal possibilities unless determinism is the case. (Determinism, as William James saw, makes of every genuine possibility a necessity.) Hartshorne characterizes the difference between these kinds of necessities, following Von Wright, as necessity upon tautological conditions (q is necessary on condition that p or not­p) and necessity upon some contingent condition (q is necessary assuming p) (LP 53). The accidental necessity of the past is an example of necessity upon some contingent condition.

The foregoing analysis reveals the falsity of Richards’ claim that Hartshorne unintentionally makes past events logically necessary. According to Richards,

13 Norman M. Martin, “Taking Creativity Seriously: Some Observations on the Logical Structure of Hartshorne’s Philosophy,” in Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, pp. 339­53.

14 Anton C. Pegis (ed.), Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, volume one (New York: Random House, 1945), p. 265. (Summa Theologiae I, Q. 25, a. 4.) 9

[If] something can become impossible, then certain things (namely, the negation

of such impossibilities) can become necessarily true. This contradicts

[Hartshorne’s] claim that necessary truths are eternal, that they are always true

(186).

Richards here assumes that Hartshorne can recognize only one meaning of necessity. We have just seen, however, that on Hartshorne’s view there is necessity in the sense of what is common to all temporal possibilities and there is the necessity that the past, once fixed, cannot be changed. Past events remain non­necessary in the second sense because they are not common to all possibilities. 15 Thus, Hartshorne’s modal view allows for a sense of necessity at a specified time—again, however, this is not unrestricted necessity, or necessity upon tautological conditions.

Richards’ failure to appreciate this distinction may also be responsible for his claim that Hartshorne’s view does not allow one to distinguish what has always been the case and what is necessarily the case. Richards says, “Again, if logical modality is just temporality, then it is impossible to distinguish between something being the case at every past time t and something being necessarily true” (187). This is surely false on the meaning that Hartshorne gives to unrestricted necessity. In any event, it would make impossible the creative advance on which Hartshorne proposes to base his philosophy.

Consider God’s memory of the universe up to the time that my wife and I were married,

May 25, 1985. On Hartshorne’s view, until that date, God had existed for infinite time

15 Richards is friendly to the idea that S4 may give an analysis of temporal modalities (185). However, he also says that, with temporal modality, ~◊~e (it is not possible that not­e) does not equal e (it is necessary that e) (186, note 45). One cannot have it both ways, for the interdefinability of modal operators is common to all of the Lewis systems. That is to say, ~◊~p = (df.) □p, and ~~p = (df.) ◊p. 10 with no memory of our marriage. It does not follow that our marriage was impossible.

Thus, what was true at every past time was not something that was necessary.

Possible Worlds and Possible World­States

Arguably, Richards’ deepest differences from Hartshorne appear not in the two chapters he devotes to the exposition and critique of Hartshorne’s theism but in the chapter in which he explains his modal theory and where Hartshorne’s name does not appear. This chapter provides the platform from which Richards launches his critique.

His supposedly clear account of modality is set in contrast with Hartshorne’s allegedly confused ideas about modality. Unhappily, Richards never considers the objections that

Hartshorne would raise to his theory. Thus, the question of the coherence of Richards’ theory is never raised. It is to this question that we now turn.

Richards follows Alvin Plantinga in explaining talk of logical possibilities in terms of possible worlds. A possible world is a maximally consistent state of affairs.

According to Plantinga, “a state of affairs S is maximal if for every state of affairs S′, S includes S′ or S precludes S′.” 16 This definition makes clear that understanding possible worlds presupposes understanding states of affairs. For Richards, the concept of a state of affairs is primitive, but he tries to give some of idea of it by saying that one arrives at states of affairs by nominalizing declarative sentences. As examples of states of affairs he gives: Socrates teaching Plato in Athens and Jay’s writing a book in 2002.1 7 A state of affairs is said to be a “fact” if it “obtains.” A proposition is a meaning, expressed in a declarative sentence, about states of affairs. If the state of affairs is either actual or

16 Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 45.

17 I follow Richards’ practice of using italics rather than quotation marks to indicate states of affairs. 11 necessary then the proposition that expresses it is true, otherwise it is false (54­55). Here is a diagram of what Richards seems to have in mind:

obtains (actually or fact true necessarily) State proposition of affairs (meaning) does not false not obtain a fact

Exactly how does this work? Perhaps Richards is thinking in these terms.

Consider the true proposition:

(1) Jay wrote a book in 2002.

This proposition expresses the state of affairs of Jay’s writing a book in 2002. Clearly, the proposition expresses something else as well. It expresses the fact that Jay’s writing of the book is in the past, as indicated by the past tense “wrote.” One way to solve this problem is to characterize the state of affairs as past; instead of saying Jay’s writing a book in 2002, say Jay’s having written a book in 2002. However, the more standard way to circumvent the problem is to introduce a tenseless copula into the proposition. Thus, instead of (1), one says:

(2) Jay is writing a book in 2002.

The phrase “is writing” is to be understood not as a reference to the present but as a tenseless expression. Once again, however, something is lost in translation, namely a temporal component. Although (1) and (2) refer to the same event, they do not have the same meaning. (1) means that Jay’s writing of the book is in the past but (2) does not have this sense—indeed, it is specifically designed to avoid this sense. On Richards’ 12 view, as we have seen, propositions are meanings. It follows that (1) and (2) are not the same proposition.

One might try to address this problem by introducing other propositions that express the tensed fact of Jay’s having written a book in 2002. For example:

(3) In the actual world it is 2006.

Since (2) is a true statement, it refers to the actual world. Thus, (3) coupled with (2) entail

(1) (let us assume some elementary truths about arithmetic and the marking of calendar time). The problem, however, is that the “is” in (3) is either a tenseless copula or it has its usual sense of marking the present. If it is a tenseless copula then (3) and (2) do not entail

(1), for one may only infer that Jay’s writing a book in 2002 is past relative to 2006. That is to say, understood tenselessly, (3) does not state a fact about the present but a fact about a particular moment that may or may not be present. It is nothing more than the tautology:

(3′) In the actual world it is 2006 when it is 2006.

On the other hand, if (3) is taken in its natural sense as saying that it is indeed 2006, then it expresses a transient state of affairs. The point of introducing the tenseless copula was to capture the “obtaining” of states of affairs. But temporal states of affairs don’t simply

“obtain,” they come and go and that is why we have tensed verbs. As I write this sentence it is 2006 and so (3) is true, but (3) will become false when the calendar turns to 2007. It is natural to assume that the state of affairs of Jay’s writing a book in 2002 does not cease to “obtain” once 2002 passes. Indeed, the more perspicuous way of referring to this state of affairs is to speak of Jay’s having written a book in 2002. In other words, the state of 13 affairs to which (1) refers is itself temporal in the sense that it came to be in time. It did not always “obtain” nor does it “obtain” tenselessly.

Richards apparently doesn’t take these issues to be very problematic for his view.

He says:

The account is complicated slightly by the fact that states of affairs are often

tensed, so that a state of affairs may obtain at one time and not obtain at another

time. Such states of affairs are expressed, obviously enough as tensed expressions.

Jay’s writing a book about God on October 19, 2002 is a nontransient state of

affairs, if it ever obtains. Jay’s writing a book about God, however, obtains at

some times but not at others. It is therefore a transient state of affairs. To keep

things simple, think of possible worlds as maximal sets of nontransient states of

affairs (56).

It is truly breathtaking for Richards to speak of tense (and by implication, time), as a slight complication. He gives no argument for thinking that Jay’s writing a book about

God on October 19, 2002 is a nontransient state of affairs. How does the state of affairs that is named by Jay’s writing a book about God become nontransient by attaching a date to it? If the criterion for being transient is, as Richards’ suggests, that a state of affairs

“obtains at some times but not at others” then the one state of affairs seems as transient as the other. As Hartshorne says, “the notion that dates can be assigned from eternity is one of the fairy tales—or controversial assumptions—that haunt the subject.” 18 Richards gives no argument for this “controversial assumption,” although he suggests that for simplicity’s sake we should construe states of affairs as nontransient. One is reminded of

18 Charles Hartshorne, “The Meaning of ‘Is Going to Be’,” Mind 74 (January 1965), p. 51. 14

Whitehead’s dictum, “Seek simplicity and distrust it.” 19 In any event, this is not a particularly helpful suggestion in the present context since it is nothing more than special pleading for making talk about possible worlds easier to accept.

Our conclusion concerning Richards’ views on modality is that transient states of affairs cannot be expressed by propositions that employ a tenseless copula and propositions that employ a tenseless copula can express only nontransient states of affairs. Thus, if “possible worlds are maximal sets of nontransient states of affairs” then no possible world contains transient states of affairs. This would not be such a disturbing conclusion except that, on Richards’ view, the actual world is one of the possible worlds.

He says:

Possible worlds that are not actual are ways things could have been; they are

states of affairs other than the one that obtains. The actual world, the one that

obtains, is also a possible world, given the eternal verity that anything that is

actual is possible. It is the one that is actual (55). 20

Richards’ argument seems simple. Whatever is actual, is possible. The actual world is actual. Therefore, the actual world is a possible world. This is a simple argument but it is invalid, for it equivocates on the meaning of possibility. Nothing is said in the major premise about possible worlds in the technical sense that Richards gives this term. The actual world is surely possible in some sense, but it may not be in the sense that Richards prefers. In order to formulate a valid argument, this assumption must be made explicit.

Something like the following would work.

19 A. N. Whitehead, The Concept of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 163.

20 Here are Plantinga’s words, “Of course the actual world is one of the possible worlds.” The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 45. 15

1. Whatever is actual is possible.

2. The actual world is a maximal set of nontransient states of affairs.

3. Therefore, a maximal set of nontransient states of affairs is possible.

4. A maximal set of nontransient states of affairs is a possible world.

5. Therefore, the actual world is a possible world.

This argument gets Richards’ the desired conclusion, but it reveals that he must characterize the actual world in a way that lends itself to his possible world semantics.

Indeed, the argument can be simplified. The second and fourth premises entail the final conclusion. We have seen, however, that the second premise is problematic. The actual world is composed partly of transient states of affairs and Richards gives no reason to suppose otherwise.

The contrast with Hartshorne’s account could not be more clear. For Hartshorne, the actual world is a cumulative process where transient states of affairs come to be. As we have seen, on Hartshorne’s view, the past has a necessity about it that is distinct from logical necessity. Once it has come to exist, an event cannot cease to be part of the past.

Thus, “transient state of affairs” is an imprecise expression for Hartshorne’s view, but at least it captures the idea that the states of affairs in question do not “obtain” in a timeless way.

Hartshorne’s view of modality gives actuality priority over possibility by identifying the actual with what is definite and the possible with what is indefinite. For

Hartshorne, following Henri Bergson, possibility is a continuum that can be “cut” in infinitely many ways. Here is what Hartshorne says: 16

Is not the actual world but one among possible worlds? Is not the possible more

complex than the actual? By no means . . . the possible is always less definite than

the actual. There is no such thing as a possible particular. Not even God can fully

define a world without creating it. Possibilities are irreducibly non­particular

(CSPM 122).

Hartshorne prefers to speak of possible world­states rather than possible worlds (AW 23,

CAP 54 and 224, CSPM 20 and 25, WM 98, and especially, IO 38). Hartshorne’s way of speaking is closer to the rough and ready sense that is usually given to the expression

“possible world.” A possible world is a way the world could be. Which world?

Presumably, the actual one, otherwise the definition is circular (i.e. a possible world is a way a possible world could be). Thus, a possible world is a way the actual world could be. If the actual world is also a possible world, as Richards says, then, by substitution, the actual world is also a way the world could be. But what could that mean apart from reference to a previous actual world in terms of which the present actual world is compared? On Hartshorne’s view, any stretch of actuality can be considered a possible world­state in reference to the actual world that preceded it.

It makes no sense, on Hartshorne’s account, to speak of multiple possible worlds, as Leibniz conceived them, lined up in eternity awaiting actualization by a divine fiat.

One problem is that this view of possible worlds commits one to the existence of merely possible persons. 21 In linguistic terms, a merely possible person is one that is defined in terms of its qualitative properties, as fictional characters are defined. Hartshorne argues:

21 I have shown how this point serves as a Hartshornean objection to Molinism. See George W. Shields and Donald W. Viney, “The Logic of Future Contingents” in George W. Shields, ed., Process and Analysis: Whitehead, Hartshorne, and the Analytic Tradition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), see especially pp. 225­233. 17

Mr. Micawber is a quasi­individual, with some of the aesthetic properties of an

individual, but not an individual in the strict sense. He is a class, specific enough

to simulate an individual for the purposes of the aesthetic illusion of “make­

believe” (MVG 308).

No merely possible person can be an actual person since there would be no way to distinguish between referring to the person and listing the person’s qualities. In the actual world one may refer to a person with a mistaken description. For example, long before

Columbus it was known that the earth is a globe. Nevertheless, one does not fail to refer to Columbus by calling him the man who discovered that the world is round. There is no possibility, however, of referring to persons in a possible world with mistaken descriptions because there is nothing more to their reality than the descriptions that uniquely pick them out. Thus, Hartshorne concludes, “No nondivine individual whatever can be exhausted in a concept or definition” (NT 130).

It will be noted that Hartshorne denies that any nondivive individual can be individuated by concepts alone. Why the restriction to nondivine individuals? This is the result of Hartshorne’s panentheism (a result of it, not an argument for it). According to panentheism, God is the one all­inclusive individual. In Hartshorne’s language, “God is the one individual conceivable a priori” (DR 31). Since “all­inclusive” is a uniquely identifying expression—there could not be more than one individual that includes all—

God can be individuated by concepts alone. 22

22 Hartshorne distinguishes the capacity of concepts to individuate from their capacity to particularize or concretize. A concept individuates if the concept could not, in principle, refer to any other individual. ‘Man’ does not individuate Socrates for there could be other men. A concept particularizes if it exhausts the qualitative aspects of an individual. In Hartshorne’s view, God alone can be individuated by concepts, but no individual can be particularized by concepts. 18

Ab esse ad posse

Let us turn to another of Richards’ arguments against Hartshorne’s theory, namely, that it “makes nonsense of counterfactual discourse” by violating the axiom, ab esse ad posse (whatever is, is possible)—in modern symbolism, (p ⊃ ◊p). Richards believes that Hartshorne’s theory of modality does not allow us to say truly that Richards’ birth on July 12, 1967 was possible prior to that day (185). If there cannot be merely possible individuals, as Hartshorne argues, does it follow that Richards’ birth was not a possibility? If so, then Hartshorne must pay a heavy price by giving up the elementary modal principle that p is possible if p is the case.

Hartshorne often noted that, on the question of the nature of possibility, he was closer to Peirce than to Whitehead. Peirce conceived of “possible objects” as existing along a continuum. In a discussion of Thirdness and Generality, Peirce says:

Take any two possible objects that might be called suns and, however, much alike

they may be, any multitude whatsoever of intermediate suns are alternately

possible, and therefore as before these intermediate possible suns transcend all

multitude. In short the idea of a general involves the idea of possible variations

which no multitude of existent things could exhaust but leave between any two

not merely many possibilities, but possibilities absolutely beyond all multitude. 23

Hartshorne summarizes Peirce’s (and his own) view by saying, “The parts of possibility are only possible parts, lacking distinct ‘identity’.” 24 Hartshorne’s early work on the affective continuum made use of this idea. A continuum, by definition, has no least

23 Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, volume 5, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1934): 67­68.

24 Hartshorne, “Categories, Transcendentals, and Creative Experiencing,” The Monist, 66/3 (July 1983), p. 330. Hartshorne shortens Peirce’s formula by saying that possibility is “a multitude beyond all multitude.” 19 element but is infinitely divisible. On this theory, a shade of blue is one way of making a slice from the color continuum. If we judge two objects to be the same shade of blue it is not because we observe an identity of color but because we can discern no difference in their color. Hartshorne asks whether any empirical meaning can be given to absolute qualitative sameness. Observationally, sameness of color is not a transitive relation— gradations in color can be too subtle for any non­divine awareness to detect.2 5 Thus, for

Hartshorne, similarity is not always a question of partial identity; similarity is as ultimate as identity (CSPM 59).

The idea of possibility as a continuum differs from Whitehead’s concept of eternal objects as “forms of definiteness” that define what a thing is. According to

Whitehead, an eternal object is any entity, “whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to any definite actual entities of the temporal world.”

Having no necessary reference to particular actual entities eternal objects are pure potentials and none are novel. 26 Examples of eternal objects include colors, sounds, scents, and geometrical characters. Thus, Whitehead can speak of a color as eternal, haunting time like a spirit.2 7

25 Hartshorne, “Are There Absolutely Specific Universals?” Journal of Philosophy 68, 3 (1971), p. 76. Hartshorne work on the affective continuum is most fully articulated and defended in his first book, The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation (University of Chicago Press 1934).

26 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected edition edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: Free Press, 1978), quotes from pp. 25, 22, and 44. Whitehead’s definition of “eternal object” entails that not every general term is an eternal object. For example, “being like such and such an actual occasion” cannot be an eternal object since it has a necessary reference to a particular occasion. Since “being like such and such an actual occasion” is a possibility, it follows that not every possibility is eternal, even on Whitehead’s view. This example is similar to Hartshorne’s “lover of Shakespeare.” This is a universal for it can be true of more than one individual; yet, it is emergent since it can have instances only subsequent to Shakespeare’s existence. See CSPM, p. 58.

27 A. N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Free Press 1967 [1925]), pp. 103 and 87. 20

Hartshorne once asked Whitehead how the qualitative continuum could be constituted out of definite eternal objects if, as Whitehead believed, the extensive continuum could not be constituted out of points. “Isn’t a definite color a specification of a segment of this continuum rather than the continuum a composition of its parts?”

Whitehead replied, “That is a subtle argument requiring further reflection.” 28 In

Whitehead’s view, a definite shade of blue is possible prior to its being exemplified in a particular occasion. In Hartshorne’s view, the definite shade of blue is in the occasion and is one of infinite ways of making the blue segment of the continuum determinate. For

Hartshorne, “the distinction between possible and actual is that between the relatively indefinite and the relatively definite, the determinable and the determinate” (WP 32).

Hartshorne did not object to all eternal objects. Among the objects that he admitted as eternal are metaphysical universals (like Peirce’s Firstness, Secondness, and

Thirdness), the infinity of whole numbers, and cosmological invariances like Planck’s

Constant (CSPM 59, 65).2 9 For Hartshorne, the ultimate backdrop of pure possibility for all actualization are these eternal objects—that is, possibilities of the utmost generality— together with the affective continuum. With these ideas, Hartshorne came nearer to a processive view of universals than did Whitehead. Despite these differences, there is a family resemblance in their ideas. As the togetherness of eternal objects comprise what

Whitehead called the primordial nature of God, so eternal objects of the utmost generality

28 Anon. Report on Hartshorne’s “My Enthusiastic but Partial Agreement with Whitehead,” presented at the Eleventh Congreso Ineramericano de Filosofia, Guadalajara, Mexico, November 15, 1985, Center for Process Studies Newsletter, 9, 4, p. 7. For a variation on the same story see Hartshorne’s, “Categories, Transcendentals, and Creative Experiencing,” p. 330.

29 Hahn, The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, p. 645. In the technical vocabulary of Whitehead, it is eternal objects of the subjective species to which Hartshorne objects, but he has no objection to eternal objects of the objective species. For this distinction see Whitehead’s Process and Reality, p. 291. 21 and the affective continuum comprise what Hartshorne called the eternal aspect of deity. 30

This brief comparison of Peirce, Whitehead, and Hartshorne helps to address

Richards’ criticism. If possibility, or at least certain kinds of possibilities, are emergent then can one say, for example, that a particular shade of green existed as a fully definite possibility prior to the appearance of the leaf with this color? The answer is no. Does this contradict the elementary modal truth, (p ⊃ ◊p)? Again, the answer is no. The contradiction appears only if one reads into the modal operator more than it says. On

Hartshorne’s Peircean view, a leaf exhibiting some “cut” of the green color spectrum was a possibility prior to the actual green leaf. However, the modal operator does not dictate that the particular “cut” that is made of that spectrum must be construed as a discrete eternal object as Whitehead (and perhaps Richards) would think.

A similar analysis applies to Richards’ example of the possibility of his birth.

Prior to Richards’ birth he was a fetus whose birth was possible—presumably there was a range of days on which that fetus could have been born. Nothing in Hartshorne’s view makes this impossible. Was Richards’ birth possible prior to when his parents conceived him? That is a more subtle question since there was, at that time, no “it” that could be

30 Richards continually conflates this distinction between the views of Whitehead and Hartshorne. For Whitehead, God is a single actual entity with a mental pole (primordial nature) and a physical pole (consequent nature). For Hartshorne, God is a society with an abstract character and concrete states. The abstract character of God includes what Whitehead calls the primordial and consequent natures. Hartshorne noted that the consequent nature of God must be considered a necessary, but abstract, feature of God (WP 75­77). It is God’s characteristic of prehending non­divine entities, the existence of each of which is contingent. If the abstract must be rooted in the concrete as both Whitehead and Hartshorne believe then the consequent nature of God, no less than the primordial nature, must be grounded in a divine actuality. This actuality, because it has contingent properties, must itself be contingent. Thus, in God there is a distinction between the individuality of deity, which is the necessary divine essence (primordial and consequent natures), and the embodiment of this individuality in concrete states. For more on these issues see Hartshorne’s “Peirce, Whitehead, und di sechzehn Ansichten über Gott,” Die Gifford Lectures und ihre Deutung: Materialien zu Whiteheads ›Prozeß und Realität‹, Band 2, Herausgegeben von Michael Hampe und Helmut Maaßen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp), pp. 194­216. 22 identified as the “Richards­to­be.” There was, however, the possibility of Richards’ parents having a child. However, the continuum of possibilities represented by “having a child” could have been “cut” in many ways besides the one that resulted in the actual individual Jay Wesley Richards. The question is not whether Richards’ birth was somehow possible. Rather, the question is whether, prior to Richards’ birth and indeed, antecedent to the creation of the world (on Richards’ view of creation ex nihilo), there exists a possible person that could be actualized as Jay Wesley Richards? That is what

Richards’ view requires and it is what Hartshorne’s view denies. The appeal to the principle that what is actual is (in some sense) possible does not decide the issue.

Concluding Reflections: Semantics and Metaphysics of Possible Worlds

Hartshorne’s views on modality are, in important respects, parallel to those of

Saul Kripke. Kripke famously said that possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered.

According to Kripke, “A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it.” To use a Kripke­like example, one can stipulate alternative histories in which Richard Nixon did not resign from the Presidency in 1974. However, stipulating these alternative histories presupposes that there was a Nixon to whom we refer. “The man who resigned from the Presidency in 1974” is true of Nixon but that man could have had other properties and someone else might have had the property of resigning from the

Presidency in 1974. Kripke apparently maintains, as Hartshorne does, that merely possible individuals are fictions onto which actual persons cannot be mapped. One does not stipulate a merely possible world, one in which individuals are uniquely identified by descriptions; rather, one begins with individuals and imagines the course of history going 23 in different ways.3 1 Thus, Kripke, like Hartshorne, believes that expressions like

“counter­factual situation” or “possible state (or history) of the world” is less misleading than the expression “possible world.” 32

The model for “possible worlds” or “possible world­states” that Hartshorne and

Kripke propose does not begin with “states of affairs,” as does Richards (following

Plantinga), but with the actual world and the ways in which it could be different. In practice, Richards does not begin with “states of affairs” either. He must choose all of his examples of states of affairs from actual states of affairs and, like Hartshorne or Kripke, construct various possibilities from those. Indeed, all of his examples are, and must be, drawn from the past.3 3 Richards concedes that his account is “complicated slightly” by the fact that states of affairs are tensed. But he assumes that there is no problem of speaking of states of affairs as “nontransient,” as though states of affairs were strung like beads along a string, with some labeled “past” and others labeled “future” according to the bead we happen to be admiring in the now. This image is, perhaps, understandable given Richards’ view of God as a person with detailed information about the future course of events; the human limitation of being unable to consider future states of affairs does not apply to Richards’ God. But as Hartshorne never tired of pointing out, the assumption of God’s detailed knowledge of future events presupposes rather than gives

31 George L. Goodwin notes that, according to Kripke, “a proper name designates the same object across possible worlds, whereas descriptions designate different objects from possible world to possible world.” See Goodwin, The Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1978), p. 102.

32 Saul A. Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972), see pages 44 and 48.

33 This is a point that George Shields and I emphasize in “The Logic of Future Contingents,” p. 229. 24 support to, the concept of an eternally given array of events (like McTaggart’s B­series or

C­series).

What modal system best expresses Hartshorne’s views? Hartshorne wrote, “It seems true that modal logic as I use it is at least close to C. I. Lewis’s logic of strict implication S4. In some contexts S5 comes in.” 34 Hartshorne’s talk of world­states and his idea of emergent possibilities, means that not everything we call a possibility is

“accessible” from every other possibility as is true in Kripke’s semantics for S5.

However, S5 “comes in,” as Hartshorne says, in his view that modal status is necessary, also in Hartshorne’s concept of unrestricted necessity or what is true of all possible world­states. In George Shields’ illuminating metaphor, “S5 is unanchored in temporal conditions” and is therefore suited to talk of God’s abstract essence. 35 We have also seen, however, that there are different meanings of necessity. Thus, there is no reason to expect that a single modal operator can express all that we want to say about necessity without introducing a “complication” like tense. By parity of reasoning, possibilities needn’t all be eternal as Richards believes. Finally, talk of possible worlds should not be used to finesse the question of the nature of possibility. Are possibilities best conceived as

“forms of definiteness,” following Whitehead (and perhaps Richards), or does possibility form a continuum, as Peirce and Hartshorne maintain? If possible worlds are stipulated and anchored in the actual world, then they can be as fine­grained as one’s “stipulation” requires without going to the extreme of maximally consistent non­transient states of

34 Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, p. 657.

35 From an e­mail to me dated June 6, 2006 discussing one of Shields’ unpublished papers, “Hubbeling’s Dilemma.” 25 affairs. This is a baroque extravagance that is as practically unattainable as it is theoretically (not to mention theologically) dubious.

Key to Hartshorne’s works

AW Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysics of Religion (Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 1976).

BH Beyond Humanism: Essays in the Philosophy of Nature (Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1975 [1937])

CAP Creativity in American Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984).

CSPM Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1970).

DR The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1948).

IO Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers: An Evaluation of Western Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983).

LP The Logic of Perfection (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1962).

MVG Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willet, Clark & Company, 1941).

NT A Natural Theology for Our Time (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1967).

OO Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984).

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

WP Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935­1970 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972).