1507. To think at all . . .

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To think at all is to think about both the contingent and the necessary: both the concretes produced by concrescence and the process of concrescence itself as able to produce or not produce them.

But doesn't this mean, then, that to think at all is to think about both "the ultimate," in Whitehead's sense, and the "accidents," or "instances," of the ultimate in which it alone is actual?

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The only unconditionally necessary truth is that there is concrescence as such with its two essential aspects of divine and nondivine concrescence. Being unconditionally necessary, this truth must be verified by all experience and necessarily implied by all clear and coherent thought about experience.

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Empirical observation is only one of two means of judging the consequences of premises, and so the premises themselves. The other means of such judgment is the attempt to become conscious of unconditional, a priori necessity, i.e., what is verified by all experience and necessarily presupposed by any thought about experience. 

Thus:

1. Hypothetical answers to our questions—"working hypotheses"—are proposed.

2. The experiential consequences of these answers are deduced.

3. These deduced consequences are then compared with experience-—by one or the other of two different means: (1) by empirical observation, and thus by particular sense perceptions; or (2) by non-sensuous perception of the sort required by any properly existential or transcendental knowledge, and thus by presuppositional analysis. 

15 October 2000