1413.The Production

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Concrescence

"[T]he 'production of novel togetherness' is the ultimate notion embodied in the term 'concrescence.' The ultimate notions of 'production of novelty' and of 'concrete togetherness' are inexplicable either in terms of higher universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence. The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence. The sole appeal is to intuition" (PRe: 21 f. [32]). 

"The concrescence of each individual actual entity is internally determined and is externally free.

"This category can be condensed into the formula, that in each concrescence whatever is determinable is determined, but that there is always a remainder for the decision of the subject-superject of that concrescence. This subject-superject is the universe in that synthesis, and beyond it there is nonentity. This final decision is the reaction of the unity of the whole to its own internal determination. This reaction is the final modification of emotion, appreciation, and purpose. But the decision of the whole arises out of the determination of the parts, so as to be strictly relevant to it" (27 f. [41 f]). 

"[H]owever far the sphere of efficient causation be pushed in the determination of components of a concrescence—its data, its emotions, its appreciations, its purposes, its phases of subjective aim—beyond the determination of these components there always remains the final reaction of the self-creative unity of the universe. This final reaction completes the self-creative act by putting the decisive stamp of creative emphasis upon the determinations of efficient cause.... [T]he final accumulation of all such decisions—the decisions of God's nature and the decisions of all occasions—constitutes that special element in the flux of forms in history, which is 'given' and incapable of rationalization beyond the fact that within it every component which is determinable is internally determined. 

"The doctrine is, that each concrescence is to be referred to a definite free initiation and a definite fee conclusion. The initial fact is macrocosmic, in the sense of having equal relevance to all occasions; the final fact is microcosmic, in the sense of being peculiar to that occasion. Neither fact is capable of rationalization, in the sense of tracing the antecedents which determine it. The initial fact is the primordial appetition, and the final fact is the decision of emphasis, finally creative of the 'satisfaction'" (47 f. [75 f.]). 

"[T]wo kinds of fluency [are] required for the description of the fluent world. One kind is the fluency inherent in the constitution of the particular existent. This kind I have called 'concrescence.' The other kind is the fluency whereby the perishing of the process, on the completion of the particular existent, constitutes that existent as an original element in the constitutions of other particular existents elicited by repetitions of process. This kind I have called 'transition.' Concrescence moves towards its final cause, which is its subjective aim; transition is the vehicle of the efficient cause, which is the immortal past" (210 [320]). 

"'Concrescence' is the name for the process in which the universe of many things acquires an individual unity in a determinate relegation of each item of the 'many' to its subordination in the constitution of the novel 'one.'

"The most general term 'thing'—or, equivalently, 'entity'—means nothing else than to be one of the 'many' which find their niches in each instance of concrescence. Each instance of concrescence is itself the novel individual 'thing' in question. There are not 'the concrescence' and 'the novel thing': when we analyze the novel thing we find nothing else than this ultimate entry into the concrete, in abstraction from which there is mere nonentity....

"An instance of concrescence is termed an 'actual entity'—or, equivalently, an 'actual occasion'" (211 [321]). 

"An actual occasion is nothing but the unity to be ascribed to a particular instance of concrescence. This concrescence is thus nothing else than the 'real internal constitution' of the actual occasion in question. The analysis of the formal constitution of an actual entity [gives] three stages in the process of feeling: (i) the responsive phase, (ii) the supplemental stage  [sic!]  and (iii) the satisfaction.

"The satisfaction is merely the culmination marking the evaporation of all indetermination; so that, in respect to all modes of feeling and to all entities in the universe, the satisfied actual entity embodies a determinate attitude of 'yes' or 'no.' Thus the satisfaction is the attainment of the private ideal which is the final cause of the concrescence. But the process itself lies in the two former phases" (212 [323]).