Charles Hartshorne
Author of Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes
About the Author
Charles Hartshorne was educated at Harvard University, where he coedited with Paul Weiss the first six volumes of The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (1931--36) and became associated with Alfred North Whitehead. He has taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Emory University, and show more the University of Texas-Austin. Hartshorne is the undisputed leader in the development of process philosophy and theology since the death of Whitehead. A consummate metaphysician, Hartshorne has resurrected the ontological argument for the existence of God, reframing it in terms of contemporary modal logic. He has espoused a doctrine of panpsychism, according to which mind (with feeling) permeates all things, and has defended the compatibility of this doctrine with contemporary physics. A pantheist, Hartshorne has proposed a complex theory of God, which views divinity as a relative, processional kind of being, with an abstract eternal nature and a concrete nature subject to change and suffering. He has presented his process theology in his widely read book The Divine Relativity. In addition to his labors as teacher and philosophical author, Hartshorne is an avid birdwatcher and has written a prizewinning book, Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Charles Hartshorne
Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song (A Midland Book) (1973) 38 copies, 1 review
Existence and Actuality: Conversations With Charles Hartshorne (Chicago Original Paperback) (1984) — Editor — 21 copies
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1897-06-05
- Date of death
- 2000-10-09
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Haverford College, Harvard University (BA, MA, PhD), University of Freiburg, University of Marburg
- Occupations
- theologian
philosopher - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Kittaning, Pennsylvania, USA
- Place of death
- Austin, Texas, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
A fascinating study of world-wide bird song. Hartshorne exhaustively summarizes bird song, and determines that "good" singing (what sounds good to human ears) tends to correlate to birds that are both territorial and visually inconspicuous, and he relates this to evolutionary theory. He quantifies highly developed or "superior" songs, ranks the top bird songs from around the world, and relates singing ability to the physiology of the syrinx. Utterly fascinating from beginning to end, and show more well-written besides. While this study is now half a century old, Hartshorne's analysis of bird song remains of interest today, given the emergence of zoomusicology as a field of study -- indeed, the zoomusicologists could benefit from some of Hartshorne's analytical rigor. show less
Where would UU theology be without Hartshorne? And the UU ornithologists, too!
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 29
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 910
- Popularity
- #28,189
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 59
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 1