Gary and Edwina,
GR
following Peirce's view--objective idealism--I see mind as primordial.
Seeing matter as primordial Peirce terms 'materialism', a view which
he rejects as "repugnant to scientific logic as to common sense
ET
To say that 'matter is effete mind' does NOT mean that Mind is
primordial' - which would be pure idealism. To me, it means that
the psychical only exists 'as' matter' and that matter only exists
as an articulation of Mind. Again - that does not suggest that
either is primordial.
Edwina's statement is close to Whitehead's _Process and Reality_.
Whitehead's actual entities, his basic elements of existence,
combine aspects of both mind and matter.
Hartshorne was the primary editor of CP vol. 6, but he adopted
Whitehead's process philosophy as a basis for his own Process
Theology. I don't know much about Hartshorne's theology, but
I note that Vincent Potter (1995) agreed with the criticisms of
Peirce's metaphysics by Hartshorne (1995).
As a Jesuit priest who wrote extensively about Peirce, Potter was
well qualified to judge Hartshorne's comments with quite a bit of
sympathy for Peirce. Yet he sympathized with Hartshorne criticisms
of Peirce's version.
Finally, the question of whether matter or mind came first is
meaningless. Time is only defined in a material universe.
Without matter, there is no before or after.
In summary, all the above theories are consistent with the
equation of Theos and Logos. I believe that Edwina's point
is consistent with Peirce, Whitehead, Hartshorne, Potter,
and others.
John
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