Abstract

Process philosophy arose from a felt unease with the atemporalist ontologies which prevailed until the end of the Nineteenth Century. Process philosophy sees the present as mediating the past and the future. The continuisms of Bergson and Samuel Alexander, the first process ontologies, have no modus for mediation. Whitehead supplies this modus: "concrescence" reconciles/adjusts the past. This dissertation deals with the systematic difficulties of Whitehead's "concrescence". Whitehead assumes a fundamental distinction between character and characterizing. "Character" is the fixed, eternal aspect of being; "characterizing" is concrescence--the mediating adjusting of past characterizations. Scrutiny of Whitehead's notion of concrescence discloses an Indeterminacy Gap: the multiple determinations of the past are juxtaposed with the initial aim from God. To "close" this gap, the multiple determinations of the past are passively/actively adjusted. This reciprocal adjusting of the past is suspense/simplification: suspense is the "hesitation" of adjusting; simplification is the activity of adjusting. All components are "included"; but reciprocal adjusting determines an emphasis on this "all". The "substantialist anxieties" of Cobb, Pols, and Nobo are examined and criticized. Cobb's "perfect specificity" of the initial aim destroys Whitehead's intent. Pols' essentialist reductionism overlooked the centrality of concrescence as characterizing. Nobo's two stage occasion misinterprets Whitehead's objectification, initial aim. In spite of their continuist systems, both Bergson and Alexander employ suspense and simplification when confronting concrete problems. Conclusion: viable process thought requires suspense/simplification. To mediate, the present must suspend the determinations of the past, so as to contribute its simplified emphasis of the past to the future