Abstract

Hartshorne's "neoclassical metaphysics" rests implicitly on five metaphysical axioms: discontinuity, Asymmetry, Sociality, Creativity, And dipolar divinity. The first four axioms entail ethical norms crucial to democracy: non-Reducibility of individual to community, Primacy of present achievement over potential future value, Non-Reducibility of communal to individual, The importance of risk. The fifth axiom undercuts these norms, However. The notion of God as guarantor of achieved value should be dropped from hartshorne's philosophy to make it ethically consistent