Methodological Considerations in Hartshorne’s Event Ontology

Abstract

Hartshorne holds that the overcoming of the inconsistencies and contradictions that arise out of a metaphysics of substance can only be achieved by means of a shift from the concept of substance as the basic unit of reality to the notion of event. Event as the basic descriptum, in his view, opens the way for an adequate understanding of the nature of an entity in terms of both its aspects of continuity and change, individuality and relatedness. It is dipolar; that is to say, it incorporates both domains of stability and flux, uniqueness and sociality. Event ontology accomplishes this by recognizing the reality of both spheres while at the same time asserting the primacy of our experience of becoming and relationality.