I see what you mean, but I’m not talking about relations between multiple objects in space.
Even when a single object is present, to perceive it as something (rather than something else) still seems to involve a form of distinction.
So the point is not about nearby objects, but about how identification works at all.
When you are seeing an apple, do you have to relate the apple to the apple itself? That sounds unnecessary. Why not just see an apple as apple, and orange as orange? Simple, accurate and time saving?
I’m not suggesting that we have to explicitly relate the apple to itself.
My point is that in seeing something as an apple, there already seems to be an implicit distinction at work — even if we don’t notice it.
So it’s not about adding something extra, but about what may already be involved in that “simple” perception.
OK, so what is the involvement in the perception? It is your turn to explain the involvement in detail.
Good question — I’ll try to make it more concrete.
What I have in mind is not a relation between objects, but a minimal structure of identification.
To perceive something as an apple already seems to involve distinguishing it from what it is not — not necessarily from something present, but from other possible ways it could be taken.
So the “involvement” I’m pointing to is this: in order for something to appear as this, it must implicitly exclude other possibilities, even if those possibilities are not actually present.
That’s a very careful and balanced way of putting it, and I agree that we probably can’t rule out the logical possibility of something existing in complete isolation.
But I wonder whether the issue is not just about possibility, but about intelligibility.
Even if such an isolated existence were possible, I’m not sure we could make sense of it or describe it without already introducing some form of distinction or relation.
IMV, the more we look into the “meaning” of a term, like the name of an object, the more we find ourselves unpacking that terms with the help of yet more terms and more objects.
In old cartoons, cat chase mice and dogs chase cats. To “be” a cat is to be chased by dogs. To be a dog is to chase cats.
In short, we end up with an “ontological holism.”
That’s a really helpful way of putting it, especially the point about meaning unfolding through other terms.
I think that connects quite closely with what I’ve been trying to get at — not just that meaning is relational, but that even the identification of something as something seems to depend on a wider network of distinctions.
So in that sense, it’s not only that objects relate to each other, but that they only show up as identifiable at all within that broader structure.
“Ontological holism” feels like a good way to frame that.
We are definitely on the same page. Identity itself is relational. I associate this approach with Hegel, especially as interpreted by Brandom.
Yes, to be an apple is to not-be a banana. We “enforce” this through our “logical norms.” We “enact” these norms. If we refuse to be tempted by the dominant subjectivism of post-Cartesian philosophy, we can even see these enacted norms as “out there” and as part of the structure of the world itself, which pre-theoretically manifests itself as “significant” or “articulated.” In other words, the world is a “state of affairs.” It is ( largely ) puttable-into-sentences.
You don’t need to think about banana, when seeing an apple. Apple exists itself without having to be related to anything. Your imagination seems to be forcing the relation.
I’m glad to hear that — and I find that formulation very helpful.
The idea that identity itself is relational resonates strongly with what I’ve been trying to articulate.
I’ve been approaching it from the thought that something can only appear as something through a process of differentiation — that is, by being distinguished from what it is not.
So in that sense, identity wouldn’t be something given first, but something that emerges within a network of distinctions.
I’m not very familiar with Brandom’s reading of Hegel yet, but that connection definitely gives me something to explore further.
I agree that we don’t tend to notice this in the moment. For context, we can think of discursive selves as responsible agents “tracked for coherence” in “the forum.” Brandom discusses a “regime of scorekeeping.”
If you tell me you ate only an apple for lunch, fine. But if you tell me 5 minutes later that you ate only a banana for lunch, I might have some follow-up questions. What you say does not cohere. The sign apple “excludes” the sign banana in this context, which is a matter of communal norms.
But of course both are fruits. So if tell me that you had only a piece of fruit for lunch, and then later specify a banana, no problem. “Specification” might even be defined by the “no-problem-ness” in contexts like this one. We’d enact ( a recognition of ) the similarity.
I can relate to this.
In some cases, we might say “what was that noise ?” So “that noise” is a kind of blurry initial identity. We use indexicals, for instance. We might even say “what was that ?” Then (as you suggest) we might rule out possibilities. This negation “carves out” a more specific “category” for the object.
Another point: The shape in the woods can’t be a fox and a raccoon. This, IMV, is just a matter of norms. We can imagine a culture that uses both sounds for the same animal. But “we” don’t do things like that.
I would say, following Hegel I think, that these norms are “out there” in that the world “manifests itself” as articulated in the context of these norms. So they aren’t “inside minds.”
That’s really interesting — I wonder if what you call “norms” might be closely related to what I’ve been calling “relations,” but at a more articulated, social level.
In my case, I’ve been thinking of relations more as the minimal structure that makes identification possible at all — something like differentiation itself.
Whereas norms seem to govern how those distinctions are stabilized, shared, and applied within a community.
You don’t need bananas when you are seeing an apple to know it is an apple. Bringing in banana or any other object in relation to the apple, when you are seeing an apple seems to be your intentional act of complicating the claim.
It is a superfluous repetition or unnecessary overlapping of perceptual claim which is not needed for the simple identification.
In logic, the existential quantifier “∃” says that there is at least one thing that satisfies some predicate: ∃(x)(fx) just means that some individual in the domain of discourse is a member of the group “f”.
“∃” is not a predicate, but quantifies over predicates.
Arguably, to be in the domain is to stand in a relation to the model.
So, to some extent, the intuition in the OP may be correct.
Yet, in order for things to stand in a relation, there must be things.
This is close to the difference between the logical atomism of Russell and of the Tractatus, with Russell on the side of things and Wittgenstein on the side of relations.
The latter Wittgenstein moved beyond such things. Again, the chess analogy might help. It’s as if one were to ask which is more fundamental, the board or the pieces?
It might appear that the pieces are defined by how they move on the board, making the board fundamental. But then, the board is limited and defined by how the pieces are positioned; it is no more than the location of the pieces at the start of the game.
While existence might not be thinkable without relations, relations are not thinkable without things.
That’s how the game works. You need both pieces and board.
If this is the impression you formed about the western thought, I think this is misinterpretation.
That’s a very helpful way of putting it, especially the idea that both “things” and “relations” seem to require each other.
If I try to make my intuition a bit more explicit, I’m thinking in terms of something like:
Identifiable(x) ↔ ∃y (y ≠ x)
That is, for something to be identifiable as something, it seems to require the possibility of distinction — even if that distinction is not explicitly represented in perception.
In that sense, I’m not sure that “things” are fundamental in themselves. Rather, what we call a “thing” might already be a kind of stabilized pattern within a relational (or differentiating) structure.
So I wonder whether the mutual dependence you describe points not to two separate primitives, but to a single underlying structure that appears as both “things” and “relations” depending on how we describe it.
What you’re describing resonates with something I’ve been thinking about from a slightly different angle.
My interest in relational ontology actually comes from the thought that what we see in human life — that the self is formed through relations, not in isolation — might not just be a social phenomenon, but a more general structural feature.
So rather than projecting ontology onto society, I’m wondering whether both ontology and social reality might reflect the same underlying relational structure at different levels.