Charles Hartshorne’s Thesis of Ontic Priority of Event over Substance

Abstract

In the article I reconstruct and analyse basic presuppositions of Hartshorne’s metaphysics leading to the thesis that events are more basic (in ontological sense of the word) entities than substances. Hartshorne defines the ontic priority in terms of determinateness and maintains that substances are less determinate that events and in fact they are universals. In the third part of the paper I give a short commentary of such a view from the standpoint of Roman Ingarden’s version of substantialism. I try to defend, among others, the following theses:
1. Hartshorne wrongly recognizes the ontic structure of state of affairs and consequently of the event. He misunderstands the function of properties claiming that they complete the substance like an additional element with which it forms a more concrete compound object.
2. He mistakenly interprets the potentiality of substance and suggests it depends on mysterious “places of indeterminateness” inherent in substance.
3. Hartshorne wrongly holds that relations “substance — event” and “genus — species” are of the same type and have the same character. The reason of this mistake is Harsthorne’s belief that there are no accidental properties (ultraessentialism).