Perfection and modality: Charles Hartshorne's ontological proof

✍ Scribed by Tomis Kapitan

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1976
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 319 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7047
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00138048

✦ Synopsis

Hartshorne presents a rather tantalizing version of the ontological proof in a formalism embodying the techniques of quantified modal logic. The derivation is unmistakenly valid, although it rests upon, what some may regard as, philosophically controversial premises. It is not my intention here, however, to question the truth of these premises, but rather to demonstrate that the basis from which Hartshorne attempts to justify these premises is capable of generating a somewhat embarrassing result, at least from the perspective of Hartshorne's overall metaphysics. What I hope to show is that there are grounds for concluding that Hartshorne's argumentation commits him to the claim that every actual event (fact, state-of-affairs, true proposition, or actuality) is necessary. 1 1. The formalized version of Hartshorne's main proof is as follows: 2