1416. Particulars

SCANNED PDF

Concrescence is the process by which concretes or particulars keep being made, not unilaterally by deity, but by each and every concrete or particular self-determining its response to concretes or particulars already made, including God so far as already self-determined.

Any instance of actuality must have antecedent instances as materials for its own concrescence and will in turn be similarly used by subsequent instances.

God is Concrescence Itself, analogously to the way in which, in traditional philosophies of being, God is Being Itself. True, God's concrescence is not the only concrescence, because God is not the only concrete, and each and every concrete other than God is and must be the result of its own concrescence. Even so, all concrescence is either God's own or else a datum for God's own. In Whitehead's terms, it is either a divine "subjective form," or a divine "objective form," either a divine contribution made to, or a contribution divinely received from, all nondivine concrescences. So God is, in this way, Concrescence Itself, because God is the Concrete with absolutely universal functions: universal action upon all other concrescences, universal reception of the action of all other concretes.

Perhaps the only proper way to refer to any instance of concrescence, or any concrete, is by the hyphenated phrase, "concrescence-concrete," formed analogously to Whitehead's own term, "subject-superject."

n.d.; rev. 30 July 2002