903. Hartshorne argues in one place . . .

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Hartshorne argues in one place: "A wholly absolute supreme being is a contradiction in terms, since relativity is as truly good as nonrelativity [and therefore as capable of a "strong or eminent," i.e., "supreme," sense], each in its proper role, the latter as abstract factor, the former as the principle of concreteness" (DR: 150).

Arresting in this argument is the designation of "relativity" as "the principle of concreteness." Precisely!

The principle of concreteness is not "experience," or "feeling," not even "experience in a generic sense." It is "relativity," which is to say, "internal relatedness," and, more exactly still, specific and definite internal relatedness to other concretes, as distinct from generic and indefinite internal relatedness to certain (more or less abstract) kinds of concretes (cf. 68 f.: "[P]articulars cannot be related prospectively to particulars. . . . [R]elations of causal entailment do . . . run toward the future, but only as relations whose terms are kinds of particulars rather than particulars. Causal prediction concerns statistical frequencies and approximate characters, not particular events in their exact particularity.").

16 March 2006