ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to develop a symposium contribution on ‘Alternative Absolutes’ given at the Chicago meeting of the Western Division: it was ably if somewhat destructively criticized by Professors William Alston and David Rynin. The justification of attempts to work out a logic of Absolutes lies in the fact that there is such a logic in the thought of most persons and that this logic has been refined and extended by many major philosophers. The puzzling character of Absolutes, for many persons, particularly in accounts of mystical experience, is precisely their lack, apart from metaphor, of all essential empirical content: they seem the merest constructs of pure logic. The abiding defect of such a naturalistic Absolute lies, however, in the forced, empty, largely verbal glosses that must be put upon its immense disunities if it is to function as a satisfactory Absolute.
