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Wiki MarkupThat creativity is given and definitely imaginable only as psychical, I readily grant. But I dispute Hartshorne's claim that it "is given and definitely conceivable only as psychical" (10IO: 36; italics added).

Creativity can perfectly well be definitely conceived as "concrescence/'," the process of "growing together" whereby alone there are "concretes" (= things "grown together"), be they singulars (i.e., events or individuals) or aggregates. By this process, in Whitehead's words, "\[t\]he many become one, and are increased by onetPRcone" (_PRc_: 21). "Also," Whitehead says, "there are two senses of the one -- namely, the sense of the one which is all, and the sense of the one among the many" (MT: 150).

Allowing that "concrescence" and "concretes" imply "concreteness," which in turn implies "abstractness," as the transcendental property common to all "abstracts," ordinary and extraordinary (= transcendental), one has all the fundamental concepts of metaphysics in the strict sense of the word. Reality as such is creativity = concrescence, and therefore comprises concretes and abstracts (including the transcendental abstracts "concrescence," "concreteness," and "abstractness"), and because, as Whitehead rightly says, "there are two senses of the one," also the divine (= "the one which is all") and the nondivine "the one among the many").

Summer 1996