Relational Oblivion and Return: A Diagnostic Reconstruction of Western Philosophy (Part One)
Introduction: The Diagnosis of Silence and the Task of Genealogy
One: A Forgotten "Between"
Western philosophy has pursued "being" for over two thousand years, yet has almost never asked with equal passion about "the between." This is not an accidental oversight, nor some marginal phenomenon of intellectual history — it is a profound, structural silence, a systematic forgetting that runs through the heartland of metaphysics. When we trace back to the source of Western philosophy, in Parmenides' fragments, we already encounter that decisive image: Being is compared to "the volume of a well-rounded sphere, equal from the center in all directions" (DK28 B8). Within this sphere, there are no gaps, no intervals, no "between" of any kind — it is pure, continuous, self-identical fullness. From this moment onward, a paradigm of thought was inscribed into the unconscious of Western philosophy: to ask about Being is to ask about that unchanging, self-sufficient "substance" with clear boundaries; and the bonds connecting substances — relations — are注定 merely a derivative, secondary, even illusory category.
The solidification of this habit of thought is not merely an internal problem of philosophy. It profoundly shaped Westerners' basic mode of understanding self, others, and world. When we habitually imagine the "self" as a substance prior to all relations, possessing an inner essence, we have difficulty understanding how the self is continuously reshaped in interaction with others, society, and the world. When we habitually view "things" as independent质点 with fixed attributes, we have difficulty apprehending those dynamic, mutually permeating, eternally fluxing phenomena. When we confront contemporary technology's total quantification of relations — "friends" in social networks, "preference associations" in algorithmic recommendations, "behavior networks" in credit scores — we can往往 respond only with silence or submission, because we lack a theoretical language capable of deeply understanding the essence of relations. Theory's aphasia regarding relations and practice's total manipulation of relations constitute a fundamental paradox of contemporary thought.
The task of this essay is, through a diagnostic examination of intellectual history, to reveal how this silence was layer by layer reinforced across the long sweep of history from Parmenides to Merleau-Ponty, and to ask: where are the intellectual resources for breaking this silence? How might a path toward "relational dynamics" be possible?
Before展开 the argument, a strict definition must be given of this essay's core concept — "relations." The "relations" discussed here are not the external connections between propositions in logic (such as "if p then q"), not the mappings between sets in mathematics (such as functional relations), and certainly not "relations" in the everyday language sense of interpersonal connections (such as "kinship relations"). This essay is concerned with relations in the ontological sense: that is, "the between" itself as a fundamental dimension of being, possessing its own reality independent of substances. Such relations entail the mutual permeation and mutual constitution of A and B, such that A and B's identity can only be understood within their relation. A classic illustration is the parent-child relation: the identity of "father" is not a substantial attribute existing prior to the father-child relation — as if a person were first "a father" and then entered into relation with a child;恰恰相反, precisely in dynamic interaction with the child, the identity "father" is generated and sustained. Without the child, there is no father; without this relation itself, the relata (father, child) cannot acquire their existential determination. What this essay asks is precisely this generative, constitutive relation — why has it been long marginalized in the Western philosophical tradition? What does its forgetting mean? What possibilities of thought will its return bring?
Two: Methodological Reflection — Diagnosis, Genealogy, and Origin Narrative
It must be immediately clarified that this essay's methodological positioning harbors an internal tension. On the one hand, this essay attempts to present a "genealogical" examination — tracing the origin, evolution, and consolidation of a paradigm of thought. On the other hand, this essay's narrative inevitably carries a certain coloring of "origin narrative": treating Parmenides as a "original sin"-like beginning, and understanding subsequent philosophical history as the unfolding and reinforcement of this original sin. This mode of narrative is precisely what Michel Foucault criticized in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" — genealogy should oppose "seeking 'origins,'" oppose "the meta-historical deployment of ideal meanings and endless teleologies," and should instead be "gray, meticulous, and patient documentary work."
This essay frankly acknowledges this tension but does not attempt to dissolve it. The reason: this essay's goal is not to provide a value-neutral history of philosophy, but to conduct a diagnostic examination of intellectual history. Diagnosis means it is not descriptive but critical; it does not aim to present the past "as it was," but starting from contemporary concerns, to reveal those dimensions within the tradition that have been suppressed, forgotten, or marginalized, and to ask about the deep logic of this suppression. Therefore, this essay's narrative structure — treating Parmenides as the beginning of substance-centrism — is not a claim about "historical truth," but a theoretical strategy: by focusing on those moments most decisive in the foundational process of substance metaphysics, revealing how this paradigm step by step excluded relations' ontological status. Whether Parmenides himself "intentionally" forgot relations is unimportant; what matters is that his thought provided later generations with a framework of thought within which relations' secondary status became almost a "self-evident truth."
More precisely, what this essay undertakes is a philosophical archaeology: excavating those strata of thought covered over by mainstream narratives, revealing how another dimension — "the between," "relations," "intertwining" — was continuously suppressed and forgotten beneath the shadow of grand concepts like "being," "substance," and "subject." The purpose of this archaeology is not nostalgia, not mourning, but clearing the ground for a new possibility of thought. This essay is the first volume of a five-volume Relational Dynamics; its core task is precisely, by revealing substance-centrism's limitations, to pave the way for an ontology where "relations precede substances."
Three: The Structure and Path of the Argument
To accomplish this task, this essay's argument will be divided into three main parts:
Part One: The Foundational Silence — From Parmenides to Leibniz. This part will trace the establishment and consolidation of substance-centrism at the source of Western philosophy and in the early modern period. We will see how, from Parmenides' equation of "Being" with the unchanging "One," to Aristotle's classification of relations as the fourth of ten categories, to scholastic philosophy's definition of relations as "the weakest accident," a hierarchical ontological order was step by step established. Modern philosophy, though undergoing an epistemological turn, did not shake substance-centrism's basic presuppositions; instead, they were pushed to their logical extreme in Descartes' "I think," Kant's "transcendental categories," and Leibniz's "windowless monads."
Part Two: The Dawn of Turning and Its Limits — Phenomenology's Recall of Relations. This part will focus on the twentieth-century phenomenological movement's rediscovery of the question of relations. Husserl's exploration of "intersubjectivity," Heidegger's analysis of "Being-with," Sartre's解剖 of "the Look," and especially Merleau-Ponty's revelation of "flesh" and "reversibility" constitute the breakthroughs closest to relational ontology in Western philosophical history. Yet we will see that all these breakthroughs were limited by their respective theoretical frameworks — Husserl held fast to the priority of the "transcendental ego," Heidegger in his later turn abandoned concrete analysis of "Being-with," Sartre simplified relations into conflict, and Merleau-Ponty's unfinished posthumous work left大量 tasks待 completion.
Part Three: The Roots of Silence and the Return of Relations. Building on the diagnostic foundation of the first two parts' intellectual history, this part will ask: what has driven Western philosophy's two-thousand-year sustained forgetting of relations? This essay's diagnosis: it stems from a deep ontological anxiety about "identity," "certainty," and "self-sufficiency" — a fear of difference, flux, and mutual dependence. This anxiety has not only left its mark in philosophical history, but has reached new heights in contemporary technology's algorithmic manipulation of relations. Finally, this essay will propose "relational dynamics" as the theoretical program of response, articulating its threefold grounding — ontological, mathematical, and engineering — basic directions.
The age of silence is ending. Let us begin from the beginning.
Chapter One: The Metaphysical Foundation of Substance-Centrism
Section One: Parmenides' Ban — Being, the One, and the Illegality of the "Between"
One: The Way of Truth and the Way of Opinion
There are many beginnings in Western philosophical history, but if we seek the most decisive moment — an instant that laid the foundation for two thousand years of subsequent paradigm of thought — then Parmenides' (Parmenides of Elea, circa 515–450 BCE) fragments are undoubtedly the foremost candidate. In fragment DK28 B2 of On Nature, Parmenides, through the goddess's voice, pointed out to the youth two paths:
"Come now, I will tell you — and you, when you have heard the story, bring it safely away — which are the only ways of inquiry that are to be thought of: one, that it is and that it is not not to be, is the path of persuasion (for it attends upon truth); the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be, that I tell you is a path wholly unlearnable, for you could not know what is not — that cannot be done — nor indicate it." (DK28 B2)
This distinction看似 simple, yet constitutes Western philosophy's most basic ontological framework: an uncrossable chasm between Being and non-Being. The Way of Truth guides thought toward the certainty that "what is, is"; the Way of Opinion is the domain where mortals — those "two-headed" (dikranoi) mortals — wander, believing that Being and non-Being, identity and difference, can simultaneously coexist.
At the core of the Way of Truth, the goddess further elaborated the attributes of Being. Fragment DK28 B8 is the most concentrated discussion:
"It is ungenerated and also imperishable; whole, of a single kind, and unshaken, and complete. Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is now, all together, one, continuous.… It is indivisible, since it is all alike; it is not more here and less there, which would prevent it from holding together, but it is all full of what is. Therefore it is all continuous; for what is draws near to what is." (DK28 B8, 3-6, 22-25)
The word "continuous" (syneches) here deserves special attention. Parmenides used "continuous" to describe Being, but his continuity is not dynamic mutual permeation — like the绵延 of flowing water — but a static, indivisible fullness. He then used a famous comparison:
"But since there is a furthest limit, it is completed on every side, like the bulk of a ball well-rounded on every side, equally balanced from the center in all directions; for it is not greater or lesser here or there." (DK28 B8, 42-45)
Within this sphere, there are no gaps, no "between," no intervals or mediations of any kind. Being is Being — it is pure, self-identical, undifferentiated fullness.
Two: The Illegality of the "Between" — Why Relations Must Be Excluded
Why must Parmenides so resolutely exclude the "between"? The answer: any form of "relation" necessarily involves difference and differentiation. If A enters into relation with B, this means A in some sense "leads toward" or "depends on" B, implying A's own non-self-sufficiency — A contains a shadow of non-A. In Parmenides' logic, such "containing non-Being" is unacceptable.
Let us examine this logic more carefully. Parmenides declared in fragment DK28 B4:
"Look at things which though far off firmly abide in the mind's sight; for you will not cut off what is from holding to what is, as it disperses itself in all directions." (DK28 B4)
The key word here is "cut off" (apotmēxein). Any division, any cutting, any attempt to introduce intervals within Being, is a破坏 of Being's unity. A relation as "mediation" is precisely such a cutting — it draws a gap between A and B. For Parmenides, this gap can only be "void" (to mē eon), and void is non-Being. Therefore, any ontology acknowledging relations means acknowledging the reality of non-Being — which is impossible in Parmenides' system.
We can see the concrete展开 of this logic in Parmenides' critique of the "Way of Opinion." Mortals are "two-headed" because they believe Being and non-Being can be mixed. They use words like "becoming," "perishing," "change," "motion" — words that all presuppose the existence of relations. When people say "A comes from B," they acknowledge a causal relation between A and B; when they say "A is larger than B," they acknowledge a comparative relation between A and B. Parmenides' response: these statements are merely mortals' "opinions," not truth. Because true Being has no distinction of large and small, no change of past and future — it simply "is."
A crucial question arises here: did Parmenides himself directly discuss the concept of "relation"? The answer: no. In his fragments, we find no term for "relation" (Greek skhesis or pros ti). This means that what this essay calls "the forgetting of relations" manifests in Parmenides as a phenomenon more primordial than "forgetting" — the concept of relation itself had not yet entered the horizon of philosophical discourse. What Parmenides did was not explicitly discussing relations and then否定 them, but establishing a paradigm of thought in which only "what is" qualifies as an object of thought, while "between what is" is excluded from the legitimate domain of thought because it necessarily引入 difference and non-Being.
This exclusion is fundamental. It means that, at the foundational moment of Western philosophy, a particular ontological commitment was made: Being is "the One," is "the Same," is "the Continuous." Anything threatening this commitment — difference, motion, change, relations — must be banished to the realm of opinion. The Way of Truth is solitary: it acknowledges only that unique, undifferentiated, self-identical Being.
Three: A Thought Experiment — If Relations Were Primary?
To more clearly grasp the problem of the Parmenidean paradigm, let us conduct a thought experiment: if Parmenides had treated "relations" rather than "the One" as primary Being, what would happen to his system?
First, the "completeness" of Being could not be maintained. If relations were primary, then every being's boundaries would have to be determined only in relation to others. A "sphere" is "spherical" because of its relation to external space, to possible observers. Without such relations, the attribute "spherical" is meaningless. Parmenides' sphere analogy恰恰 exposes his dilemma: he used a spatial image (sphere) to describe Being, but space itself presupposes relations — the relation between center and边缘, between various directions, between inside and outside. Without these relations, the sphere is no longer a sphere but merely undefined abstraction.
Second, the absolute dichotomy between "Being" and "non-Being" would collapse. If relations were primary, then the relation between A and B neither entirely belongs to A nor entirely belongs to B — it is a third term emerging "between" A and B. This third term cannot be simply categorized as "Being" or "non-Being." It is not substance, yet it has real effects; it is not nothing, for it connects existents. The parent-child relation again illustrates: the father-child relation is neither the father's private attribute nor the child's private attribute, but a dynamic field occurring between the two, transcending both yet constituting both. Parmenides' binary framework — either Being or non-Being — cannot accommodate the reality of this "between."
Finally, the mission of thought would fundamentally transform. In Parmenides' framework, thought's task is to penetrate the illusion of phenomena and arrive at that unchanging, self-identical Being. But if relations are primary, thought's task is no longer "seeing through" relations to arrive at substances, but "tracking" the generation, evolution, and intertwining of relations. Truth is no longer static identity but dynamic inter-property. Parmenides' goddess says "thinking and Being are the same" (DK28 B3); in relational ontology, this statement needs revision: "thinking and relations are co-structural."
Parmenides did not take this path. He chose "the One," chose "the Same," chose "the Continuous" — choices all建立在 the exclusion of "the between." Subsequent Western philosophy would largely延续 this choice.
Four: The Two Faces of Parmenides' Legacy
Parmenides' influence on later thought is profound and complex. On the one hand, his concept of "Being" provided the most basic reference point for the entire Western metaphysical tradition. Plato's "Forms," Aristotle's "substance," Plotinus' "the One," medieval theology's "God," modern philosophy's "subject" — these core concepts all延续 in some way Parmenides' pursuit of "the One," "the Same," "the Constant." Every metaphysics attempts to name that ultimate, unchanging, self-sufficient reality whose basic attributes were already clearly outlined in Parmenides' fragments.
On the other hand, Parmenides' exclusion of relations, motion, and change left later generations with a persistent problem. From Plato onward, philosophers were attempting to "save the phenomena" — acknowledging the Parmenidean ideal of Being while seeking a philosophical定位 for this ever-changing, relation-filled empirical world. Plato's solution was to区分 the world of Forms from the sensible world, relegating relations and change to the latter. Aristotle's solution introduced the distinction between "potentiality and actuality" and the categorial system of "substance and accidents." But whatever the solution, they all shared Parmenides' basic presupposition: true Being — the highest reality — is self-sufficient, unchanging, and transcends relations. Relations, at most, belong to a lower level of Being.
This presupposition constitutes the core of what this essay calls "substance-centrism." In subsequent sections, we will trace how this presupposition received systematic expression in Aristotle's categorial theory, how it was精致化 in scholastic philosophy, and how it was pushed to its extreme in modern philosophy. But贯穿 these intellectual variations, always is Parmenides' basic ban established two and a half millennia ago: true Being needs no other; true Being has no "between."
Section Two: Aristotle's Categorization — Relations as "the Weakest Accident"
One: The Order of the Categories — The Position of Relations
If Parmenides entirely抹除 relations — the concept itself never entering the philosophical horizon — then Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was the thinker who, through subtle categorization, firmly imprisoned relations under the shadow of substance. Aristotle's Categories (Kategoriai) is the first work in Western philosophical history to systematically discuss the category of "relations." Yet it is precisely this work that established relations' secondary status in the ontological hierarchy.
In Chapter 4 of the Categories, Aristotle listed ten categories:
"Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance (ousia), or quantity (poson), or qualification (poion), or a relative (pros ti), or where (pou), or when (pote), or being-in-a-position (keisthai), or having (echein), or doing (poiein), or being-affected (paschein)." (Categories, 1b25-27)
The ordering of these ten categories is not accidental. Substance ranks first, because it is the most basic Being — in Chapter 5 of the Categories, Aristotle explicitly states: "Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject." (Categories, 2a11-13) Quantity and qualification follow closely, because though they are accidents, they still directly belong to substance — an object's size (quantity) and color (qualification) are more "proximate" to itself than its relation to another object. Relations are listed fourth, above place and time, but below quantity and qualification. This ordering itself carries ontological implications: relations are not the most peripheral accident, but neither are they the most central determination. They occupy a middle zone — important enough not to be entirely ignored, but secondary enough not to be compared with substance, quantity, or qualification.
In Chapter 7 of the Categories, Aristotle专门 discussed relations. He gave the classic definition:
"We call relatives (pros ti) those things which are said to be what they are, of or than other things, or in some other way in relation to something else. For instance, 'larger' is said to be what it is than something else, namely than a smaller thing; 'double' is said to be what it is of something else, for it is called double of a half.… Knowledge too is a relative, for knowledge is of something learnable." (Categories, 6a36-6b3)
The crucial point: Aristotle immediately distinguished two kinds of relations: numerical relations (like double and half, larger and smaller) and relations "according to capacity and time" (like knowledge, perception). He指出 that the latter kind seems closer to essence:
"Yet some relatives seem to have a reality closer to substance, such as knowledge and perception. For without the relation of perception, the perceiver cannot be called perceiver; without the relation to the knowable, knowledge cannot be called knowledge." (Categories, 8a28-33)
This formulation reveals the subtlety of Aristotle's thought. He did not simply贬低 relations but注意到: certain relations — especially those pertaining to cognitive capacities — seem to have a constitutive role regarding the existence of the relata themselves. Without the knowable, there is no knowledge; without the perceivable, there is no perception. This "mutual dependence" hints at some ontological force of relations超越 mere "comparison" or "measurement."
Two: Deepening and Ultimate Limitation in the Metaphysics
Aristotle provided a more systematic analysis of relations in Book Δ (Book Five) Chapter 15 of the Metaphysics. He distinguished three kinds of relations (Metaphysics, 1020b26-1021b11):
The first kind is numerical relations: "such as double to half, triple to a third, and generally the multiple to the submultiple, the exceeding to the exceeded." These relations are purely quantitative; the connection between relata is external and symmetrical.
The second kind is active and passive relations: "such as the heatable to the heat-causing, the cuttable to the cutting, and generally the active to the passive." These relations involve causal action and seem closer to things' natures — because "being heatable" and "being heat-causing" are capacities and dispositions that things themselves possess.
The third kind is measurable and measuring relations: "such as the knowable to knowledge, the perceivable to perception." Aristotle considered these closest to essence, because "without the active there cannot be the passive, and without the measurable there cannot be the measuring" — but is this "impossibility" logical inconceivability or ontological mutual dependence? Aristotle's attitude here is ambiguous.
Yet this ambiguity ultimately did not develop into a breakthrough beyond substance-centrism. In Book Z (Book Seven) of the Metaphysics — the core book of the entire work — Aristotle explicitly established "what-it-is-to-be" (to ti ēn einai), i.e., essence, as primary substance. Essence is self-sufficient, not dependent on other things. In comparison, relations are always "relative to something" (pros ti), meaning their existence presupposes the existence of other things. Aristotle said in the Categories:
"Relatives sometimes have contraries, as virtue and vice are contrary… but not all relatives have contraries, for double has no contrary." (Categories, 6b15-18)
This uncertainty of relations — they may have contraries (like friendship and enmity) or may not (like double) — further demonstrates their derivative ontological status. Substance is "one," is definite; relations can be multiple, changeable, even arbitrary.
Three: The Physics Argument — Relational Change Is Not Real Change
Aristotle's most powerful limitation on relations appears in Book Five of the Physics. In discussing kinds of change, he asserted that relations themselves do not involve genuine "change" (metabolē). He gave a famous example:
"When a thing becomes larger or smaller than another, while the other has undergone no change at all, the first thing has not undergone any substantial change. For instance, if something becomes larger because another thing shrinks, it has not itself become larger; likewise, if Socrates is whiter than Plato, and Plato becomes darker through tanning, Socrates has not thereby become less white. Therefore, relational change is merely accidental change." (Physics, 225b11-13)
This argument is logically valid, but it conceals a deeper question: if relational change can occur independently of substantive change, does this mean relations possess some independent reality? Aristotle's answer is negative — in his view, this恰恰 proves relations are accidental and secondary. Because genuine change (generation, destruction, qualitative change, quantitative change) all involves alteration of substance itself; relational change can occur when substance remains entirely unchanged. Therefore, relations are not the core dimension of Being but variable, external determinations附加 upon substance.
This conclusion has far-reaching consequences. It firmly locks relations within the category of "accident," rendering them unable to touch the core of Being. Aristotle was not unaware of relations' importance — in the Nicomachean Ethics, discussing friendship (philia), he actually touched the ontological dimension of interpersonal relations: genuine friendship is not an external accident; it in some way constitutes a person's self-realization. A person without friends not only lacks some "relation"; their existence itself is in a state of deficiency. But Aristotle did not extend this insight to general ontology. If he had placed relations at the level of substance, his entire teleological universe would no longer consist of isolated substances pursuing self-perfection, but would be a network defined by dynamic interactions — this would彻底 overturn his four causes doctrine, his potentiality and actuality theory, and the entire foundation of his metaphysics.
Four: Aristotle's Legacy — A Hierarchical Ontology
Aristotle's treatment of relations provided later generations with an operative hierarchical ontological framework. In this framework:
The first level is substance (ousia) — self-sufficient, independent, serving as the substrate for all other categories.
The second level is intrinsic accidents — quantity and qualification — which exist directly within substance, describing features "of" substance "itself."
The third level is relational accidents — relations — which do not exist within substance but "point toward another." Their existence presupposes the simultaneous existence of two or more substances and some comparable or connectable attribute between them.
This hierarchical structure became the axiom of Western thought for the next thousand-plus years. It acknowledged relations' existence (thus avoiding Parmenidean total抹除) while ensuring relations' secondary status (thus维护 substance's priority). This was a refined balance — a strategy that both accommodated and驯服 relations. Through this strategy, Aristotle co-opted relations into the substance-centrist framework, making them a确定 floor within the metaphysical edifice, forever unable to shake the edifice's foundation.
Yet this co-optation carried a cost. Once relations were defined as "relative to another," they were剥夺 of any independent reality. Relations cannot exist independently of substances, cannot precede substances, cannot constitute substances. They can only be the shadow of substances — an附属, fragile dimension of Being that appears only when substances exist. This understanding of relations constitutes the basic presupposition of the entire subsequent Western philosophical tradition. Even in those思想 attempting to challenge substance-centrism (such as Hegel, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty), Aristotle's categorial framework often continues to function as a latent opponent or implicit reference system.
Section Three: Scholastic Philosophy's Refinement — Downgrading Relations Between the Sacred and the Secular
One: The Theological Challenge — The Tension between Trinitarian Doctrine and Relations' Status
Scholastic philosophy inherited and deepened Aristotle's categorial system, but simultaneously faced a unique challenge: certain core doctrines of Christian theology似乎 required给予 relations higher ontological status.
The most棘手 challenge came from the Trinitarian doctrine. According to orthodox Christian belief, God is the unity of three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). These three persons are not three independent substances (that would be Tritheism), but three "relational" distinctions within the same divine essence: the Father is "the one who generates," the Son is "the one generated," the Holy Spirit is "the one who proceeds." This means that within God, relations (the Father-Son relation, the procession relation)似乎 possess an essential, rather than accidental, status. If God is absolutely simple (without any composition), then the relation between Father and Son cannot be an accident附加 upon the divine essence — it must be a dimension of the divine essence itself.
Meanwhile, the doctrine of creation also posed a relational question. If God created the world, does a relation exist between God and the world? If so, would this relation imply God depends on the world (thus损害 God's self-sufficiency)? If not, what meaning does the word "creation" retain?
These questions forced scholastic philosophers to seek reconciliation between Aristotle's framework and Christian faith. The result of this reconciliation was further differentiation and refinement of relations, but its deep effect was further巩固 relations' secondary status within the created world.
Two: Thomas Aquinas — Divine Relations as a Special Case
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was the most systematic in处理 the question of relations. In Summa Theologiae, Part One, Question 28, he specifically discussed "relations between the divine persons." The core problem he faced: if God is absolutely simple, can relations exist within God?
Aquinas' answer: within God, relations are equivalent to the divine essence. He wrote:
"In God, relation is not an accident inhering in a subject, as in created things; in God, relation is the divine essence itself.… Therefore, in God, relation and essence are not two different realities, but the same reality, distinguished only conceptually." (Summa Theologiae, I, q.28, a.2)
This treatment sharply separated the divine domain from the created domain. In God, due to absolute simplicity and infinity, relations can possess essential status — they are no longer accidents of substance, but an internal distinction of substance itself. But in the created world, Aquinas坚持 Aristotle's position: relations are "the weakest accident" (debissimum accidens).
In Summa Theologiae, Part One, Question 28, Article 1, Aquinas distinguished "real relations" (relatio realis) from "relations of reason" (relatio rationis). A real relation requires three conditions: first, a subject (subiectum); second, a terminus (terminus); third, a foundation (fundamentum) — the attribute in the subject that makes the relation actual. For example, the subject of the "father" relation is a person, the terminus is his child, the foundation is his act of generation. Relations of reason exist only in the mind, such as "the identity of a thing with itself" — this identity is not a real relation because the same thing cannot have a real relation with itself (it lacks the terminus's differentiation).
Aquinas further指出 that in created things, the foundation of real relations is usually accidents such as quantity (like the double relation) or quality (like the similarity relation). This means that relations themselves do not possess independent reality — they are always "parasitic" on the substance's intrinsic attributes. In Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four, Chapter 24, Aquinas wrote:
"In created things, the existence of relation is 'directed outward' (esse ad), pointing toward another; while the existence of substance and accidents is 'inward' (esse in), within the subject. Therefore, the existence of relations is the weakest, because it entirely consists in指向 toward another and does not contain any perfection of its own."
This formulation reveals scholastic philosophy's basic understanding of relations: relations are the dimension of substance "pointing toward another," but this pointing itself lacks实存 — it has meaning only when指向 an already existing substance. Relations are the "centrifugal force" of Being, but centrifugal force requires a center (substance) to operate.
Three: Asymmetrical Relations of Creation — The Unidirectional Connection between God and the World
In discussing the question of creation, Aquinas pushed this relational view to an extreme expression. In Summa Theologiae, Part One, Question 45, Article 3, he proposed an asymmetrical relational view:
"There is a real relation between the creature and God, because the creature depends on God, and the creature's existence itself is a relation指向 the creator. But there is no real relation between God and the creature, only a relation of reason. For God undergoes no change through the act of creation; God's essence is entirely the same before and after creation. Therefore, from God's perspective, the relation 'creator' is not real, but merely our way of understanding God."
This asymmetry has profound theological and philosophical implications. It means: creation is not a mutual, dynamic relation, but a one-directional "giving." God is absolutely self-sufficient and does not need the world; the world needs God. Therefore, relations exist only on the dependent side — the creature has a real relation toward God, because the creature's entire existence is "created"; but God has only a relation of reason toward the creature, because God's existence is丝毫不受 affected by the act of creation.
This asymmetrical relational view further固化 the priority of the "self-sufficient substance." If even the relation between creator and creature can only be asymmetrical and one-directional, then within the created world, relations are even less likely to possess mutually constitutive force. True reality belongs to those self-sufficient beings; relations are merely asymmetric, derivative connections among these beings.
Four: Further Differentiation in Late Scholastic Philosophy — Scotus and Ockham
After Aquinas, Duns Scotus (1266–1308) and William of Ockham (1287–1347) conducted更细致 discussion of relations, with the overall趋势 further降低 relations' ontological status.
Scotus, in On the First Principle of All Things, proposed that relations can possess "formal reality" (realitas formalis), even if they cannot exist independently of substance. He试图 to争取 more space for relations within the Aristotelian framework, but his ultimate conclusion remained: relations are not "things" (res) but merely "formal aspects" or "modes" of things. Relations have no independent实存; they are merely an "order" or "arrangement" among substances.
Ockham was more radical. As a representative of nominalism, he主张 relations are "logical constructions" whose existence can be reduced to "absolute terms" (i.e., substances and attributes). In Ockham's view, saying "Socrates is whiter than Plato" merely states two independent absolute facts (Socrates' whiteness, Plato's whiteness)加上 a comparative judgment — this judgment itself is not part of the world's composition, but a construction of the mind. Therefore, relations have no reality outside the mind; they are merely our way of thinking and talking about the world. Ockham's famous "razor" principle — "do not multiply entities beyond necessity" — was applied here: since relations can be还原 to absolute terms and mental activities, there is no need to假设 a special kind of existent called "relations."
Ockham's nominalism降低 relations' ontological status to its lowest point, but恰恰 thereby暴露 the极限 of the substantivist framework. If relations are merely mental constructions, how is the world's unity possible? If there are no real connections between things, whence comes causality, order, regularity — things we take for granted? Ockham's answer was to attribute all this to God's will: the world is orderly not because there are real connections between things, but because God wills them to exist in a certain way. This theological patch has similarities with Leibniz's "pre-established harmony," as we will see later.
Five: The Paradox of Scholastic Philosophy — Ontological Downgrading Through Fine Analysis
Scholastic philosophy's treatment of relations overall presents a profound paradox: the more finely relations' logical structure is analyzed, the more relations appear "附加" rather than "original." Aquinas distinguishing real relations from relations of reason, Scotus discussing relations' formal reality, Ockham还原 relations to absolute terms — these analyses are logically精妙 and conceptually clear, but they all share an unexamined presupposition: starting from substance to seek relations' foundation.
This methodological presupposition决定了 the entire trajectory of scholastic relational theory. Because once you start from substance — once you treat substance as Being's basic unit and "self-sufficiency" as Being's highest standard — relations necessarily appear as something "附加," "derivative," "dependent." Relations cannot be primordial, because they need a subject to承载 them; relations cannot be independent, because their existence depends on the simultaneous existence of the relata; relations cannot be constitutive, because they merely连接 already existing substances rather than参与 in the generation of substances.
This methodological presupposition was never genuinely questioned. Even those theological discussions赋予 relations higher status in certain contexts (such as divine relations in the Trinity),通过 sharply separating the divine from the secular domain, avoided推广 relations' importance to general ontology. In the created world, substance-centrism's order was always unshakeable.
Scholastic philosophy's treatment of relations can thus be seen as the精致化 and extremization of Aristotle's categorial theory. It inherited Aristotle's "驯服" strategy for relations and通过 a series of refined distinctions (real/rational, symmetrical/asymmetrical, divine/secular) firmly locked relations into the marginal zone of Being. This treatment profoundly influenced modern philosophy — even in thinkers attempting to决裂 with scholastic philosophy (such as Descartes), substance-centrism's basic presuppositions延续 in a new form.
Chapter Two: Modern Philosophy's Continuation and Extremization
Section One: Descartes' Isolated Self and the Judgment-ization of Relations
One: The Cogito — An Archimedean Point Without Need of Relations
René Descartes' (1596–1650) Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, 1641) marks a fundamental turn in modern philosophy. Unlike scholastic philosophy's starting point from God and the world, Descartes began from universal doubt, seeking an unshakable foundation of certainty. This foundation is the "I think" (cogito).
In the Second Meditation, Descartes wrote:
"I think, therefore I am (Ego cogito, ergo sum) is so firm and certain that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics are incapable of shaking it, and I think I can confidently accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking." (Meditationes, II)
The key of this argument: the "I think"'s existence does not depend on any external condition. I can doubt everything — including my body, the external world, even mathematical truths — but precisely in this doubt, my act of thinking itself is indubitable. Thus, the "I think" is a self-evident existence confirmed without any relation.
Descartes' definition of substance further reinforced this tendency. In the Third Set of Replies to the Meditations, he wrote:
"Substance is a thing that needs no other thing to exist." (Meditationes, Reply to Objections III)
Strictly speaking, only God satisfies this definition — God is absolutely self-sufficient. But for created things, Descartes distinguished two kinds of substances: mind (res cogitans) and extension (res extensa). These two substances are mutually independent and互不依赖. Mind's defining attribute is thinking — it needs no extension to exist; extension's defining attribute is spatial延展 — it needs no thinking to exist. The core of this definition: to understand what a substance is, we need only examine its own attributes, without referring to other substances.
Within this ontological framework, where are relations placed? Descartes did not, like Aristotle,设立 a separate category for relations; instead, he mainly归类 relations as "judgments" or "comparisons between ideas." In Rules for the Direction of the Mind (Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, 1628), Rule 14, Descartes discussed比例 and relations. He指出 that all proportions and relations are produced by the intellect through排列 and combination of "simple natures." When we say "A is greater than B," we are not describing some primordial intertwining between A and B, but the mind making a logical judgment after simultaneously observing two isolated ideas. Relations are not attributes of things themselves, but results of the intellect's comparative activity.
In Principles of Philosophy (Principia Philosophiae, 1644), Part One, Article 48, Descartes listed "the categories of all things":
"Whatever falls within our perception is either considered as things or the modifications of things, or as eternal truths.… Among things or their modifications, some are substances, some are accidents, some are orders." (Principia, I, 48)
It is noteworthy that "order" is listed as an independent category, and "order" is essentially a kind of relation (such as prior to, subsequent to, higher than, lower than). But Descartes immediately说明 that these categories are not real attributes of things themselves, but "the ways by which we apprehend things." This epistemologizing treatment延续 Parmenides' banishment of relations from the realm of truth — except now, relations are banished to the domain of "subjective judgment" rather than "non-Being."
Two: Mind-Body Interaction — Exposure of the Substantivist Dilemma
The most famous dilemma in Descartes' system is mind-body dualism: how can two substances with entirely different essences interact? If mind has no extension and body has no thought, how can volition cause bodily movement? How can sense impressions be received by the mind?
Descartes' solution appealed to the pineal gland — a small gland located in the center of the brain, considered the site of mind-body interaction. In The Passions of the Soul (Les Passions de l'Âme, 1649), Part One, Article 31, he wrote:
"The soul is united to the whole body, but there is a particular part of the body where the soul exercises its functions more particularly than in all the others… This part of the brain is a certain very small gland situated in the middle of the brain." (Passions de l'Âme, I, 31)
Yet this solution did not truly resolve the ontological problem. The pineal gland, as a part of the body, is itself extended substance; its "interaction" with the mind is precisely the phenomenon requiring explanation, not the explanation itself. Descartes ultimately had to appeal to God's continual intervention — he暗示 in the Sixth Set of Replies to the Meditations that mind-body coordination is a "natural institution" guaranteed by God.
This theological patch恰恰暴露 substantivism's fundamental inability to explain interaction. If mind and body are two independent, self-sufficient substances, then any "relation" between them can only be an external, mysterious connection. Descartes could not explain this connection, only归因 it to God — which shares the same logical structure as Leibniz's "pre-established harmony." The problem is not that Descartes was insufficiently clever, but that his substantivist presuppositions使 any genuine, internal, constitutive relation impossible.
Three: If Starting from Relations — A Missed Turn
It is noteworthy that Descartes' philosophy contains a certain possibility of通往 relational ontology, only he未能展开 it. In the Third Meditation of the Meditations, Descartes analyzed the relation between the "I think" and the "idea of God." He指出 that "I," as a finite, imperfect being, cannot produce from itself the idea of an infinitely perfect being. Therefore, this idea must come from an actually existing infinitely perfect being — God. In this argument, the "I think" is not self-sufficient — its existence depends on its relation with God, and God's existence is显现 in the "I think"'s consciousness.
This structure hints at a mutually constitutive relation: the I think becomes aware of its own finitude through the idea of God, and God显现 himself through the I think's consciousness. If Descartes had深入沿着 this线索, he might have developed an ontology where "relation precedes relata" — the I think and God are not fully determined substances prior to relation, but are mutually revealed and mutually constituted in relation. However, Descartes did not take this path. He坚持 substance's self-sufficiency: the I think is a self-evident substance, God is a self-sufficient substance, and the "relation" between them is merely epistemological (the I think recognizes God) rather than ontological (God constitutes the I think, the I think constitutes God).
This choice was decisive. It意味着 that even at the foundational moment of modern philosophy, when "subject" replaced "substance" as the center of philosophy, substance-centrism's basic presuppositions remained intact. The subject is merely another kind of substance — a substance whose essential attribute is thinking. It is likewise imagined as self-sufficient, possessing clear boundaries, prior to all relations. Descartes' "I think" is the modern incarnation of Parmenides' "sphere of Being": a closed, self-identical point understandable without need of any other.
Section Two: Kant's Transcendental Idealist Cage — Relations as Categories of the Understanding
One: Relational Categories — From Ontology to Epistemology
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781/1787) subjected relations to a systematic "transcendental" treatment. In the table of transcendental categories, Kant placed relations as one of the four major classes of categories, containing three sub-categories:
"Categories of Relation: Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens), Causality and Dependence (cause and effect, Ursache und Wirkung), Community (reciprocity between agent and patient, Gemeinschaft oder Wechselwirkung)." (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A80/B106)
This classification itself is an important theoretical choice — Kant elevated "relations" to a status equal to "quantity," "quality," and "modality." This意味着 that relations have an indispensable role in the constitution of knowledge: without relational categories, we could not even form experience of objects.
Yet the crucial limitation: Kant maintained that these relational categories do not belong to the "thing-in-itself" (Ding an sich) but are innate forms imposed by the human cognitive subject upon the phenomenal world to make experience possible. In the "Transcendental Deduction" (B edition) of the Critique, Kant wrote:
"We cannot perceive any connection (Verbindung) in the object unless we ourselves have first put it there.… All connection, whether we are conscious of it or not, is an act of the understanding." (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B130)
This assertion is the core of Kant's transcendental idealism. Connection — i.e., relation — is not discovered in the world, but actively imposed by the understanding upon the manifold of intuition. The understanding, through categories, synthesizes and unifies the manifold of intuition into experiential objects possessing logical structure. Therefore, relations' "objective validity" is limited to the phenomenal realm: the world we experience is确实 structured, ordered, and filled with causal connections and reciprocal interactions, but this structure and order are projections of our cognitive structure, not attributes of the thing-in-itself itself.
Two: The Category of Community — The Moment Closest to Relational Ontology
Among Kant's three relational categories, "community" (Gemeinschaft) deserves especial attention, because it directly concerns "the between." In the Third Analogy of Experience (A211/B256-262), Kant discussed the principle of community:
"All substances, insofar as they can be perceived in space as simultaneous, are in thoroughgoing community (i.e., reciprocal interaction) with one another." (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A211/B256)
This principle means that things coexisting in space must be viewed as mutually influencing and mutually determining. Kant举例: without reciprocal interaction between things, we could not determine their simultaneity — because simultaneity itself is not directly perceived but inferred through things' mutual influence (such as the transmission of light). Therefore, the category of community is the a priori condition for our being able to experience "a world of coexisting, mutually related things."
This is the moment closest to "relational ontology" in Kant's philosophy. The category of community acknowledges内在 mutual relatedness between things — not external, contingent connections, but necessary conditions constituting the phenomenon "coexistence" itself. If Kant had推广 this category to the domain of the thing-in-itself, he might have moved toward an ontology acknowledging the reality of relations.
But he did not. Kant immediately interpreted the principle of community as an "a priori condition of experience," not an ontological statement. He said:
"The principle of community applies only to the phenomenal realm. We cannot say that things-in-themselves also have reciprocal interactions, because we cannot know things-in-themselves. We can only say that if we are to experience a world consisting of coexisting things, we must presuppose that these things are in thoroughgoing reciprocal interaction." (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A213/B259-260)
Thus, community — like substance/accident and causality — is a form the understanding赋予 to experience, not a characteristic of Being itself. Relations' "objectivity" is objectivity within experience, not reality transcending experience.
Three: The Silence of the Thing-in-Itself — The Suspension of the Relational Question
Kant's solution has an内在 dilemma: if relational categories belong only to our cognitive structure, how do we explain the success of scientific knowledge? Scientific knowledge — especially physics —似乎 reveals the world's own causal and communal structures, not merely "how we experience things interacting." Newton's law of universal gravitation describes a real interaction between bodies, not merely "our way of experiencing bodies interacting."
Kant's response was to distinguish "empirical reality" from "transcendental ideality." Scientific knowledge确实 possesses objective validity — but this objectivity is relative to the universality of human cognitive structure, not relative to the thing-in-itself. The law of universal gravitation describes a universal law of interaction among bodies in the phenomenal realm, but "phenomena" are themselves products processed through cognitive structure. Thus, science's success does not证明 we know the thing-in-itself, only证明 our cognitive structure is universal and necessary.
The cost of this response is enormous: it completely suspends the question of relations. If we can never know the thing-in-itself, then the statement "relations exist between things-in-themselves" can neither be verified nor falsified — it becomes a meaningless metaphysical proposition. Kant's "transcendental" treatment of relations is in some way more thorough than Parmenides' exclusion: Parmenides at least gave an affirmative doctrine of Being (Being is One, continuous, complete), while Kant使 the relational question退出 ontological discussion, restricting it within the walls of epistemology.
After Kant, "relations" became an epistemological category, not an ontological one. Philosophers can discuss how our experience is structured by relational categories, but cannot discuss the relational structure of Being itself. This "epistemological turn" further加固 substance-centrism: substance (whether as thing-in-itself or as substrate within phenomena) remains Being's basic unit, and relations merely our way of understanding substances.
Section Three: Leibniz's Dilemma — The Logical End of Substance-Centrism
One: Windowless Monads — The Extreme of Self-Sufficiency
In modern philosophy, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) occupies an extremely special position. He is one of the few philosophers who seriously addressed "how relations are possible" and试图 to construct connections among all things from pure logic. Yet his Monadology (1714) became the most thorough demonstration of substance-centrism's logical end: to guarantee substance's "absolute self-sufficiency," one must牺牲 relations' "physical reality."
Leibniz proposed his basic ontological unit — the Monad — in §§1-7 of the Monadology:
"1. The monad, which we are here to discuss, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; 'simple' means without parts. 2. There must be simple substances, since there are compounds; for a compound is nothing but an accumulation or aggregation of simples. 3. Where there are no parts, there can be neither extension, nor figure, nor divisibility. These monads are the true atoms of nature, and, in a word, the elements of all things. … 7. Monads have no windows, through which anything could come in or go out. Accidents cannot detach themselves from substances, nor wander about outside of them, as the 'sensible species' of the Scholastics once did." (Monadology, §§1-7)
"Monads have no windows" — this metaphor marks substance-centrism's logical endpoint. If substances are completely independent (needing no other thing to exist), then they must be closed, impermeable. Any external influence would损害 the monad's self-sufficiency. Therefore, no genuine, physical interaction (influxus physicus) between monads is possible.
Why did Leibniz arrive at this conclusion? The key lies in his explanation of "change." Any substance's change must have a cause. But causes cannot come from outside — because if external causes could affect a monad, then the monad would not be genuinely independent. Therefore, monad's changes must originate from its "internal principle" (principe interne). In §11 of the Monadology, Leibniz called this internal principle "appetition" (appétition) — an internal tendency to transition from one perceptual state to another:
"11. The natural changes of monads come from an internal principle, since no external cause can influence them." (Monadology, §11)
All state changes of a monad are the automatic unfolding of its own perceptual sequence, unrelated to other monads. Leibniz illustrated with an example: if the pen in my hand falls to the ground, this is not because my hand released the pen (physical causation), but because my monad's sequence reached the moment of "releasing the hand," and the pen's monad's sequence恰好 also reached the moment of "falling." These two sequences are independent and parallel; there is no causal interaction between them.
Two: Pre-established Harmony — Relations as Illusion
If there is no genuine communication between monads, how is the coordinated world we perceive formed? Leibniz introduced the concept of "pre-established harmony" (harmonie préétablie). In §§78-81 of the Monadology, he wrote:
"78. The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws; they are in accord with each other owing to the pre-established harmony between all substances, since all substances are representations of the same universe. 79. The soul acts according to the laws of final causes, through appetitions, ends, and means. The body acts according to the laws of efficient causes. And these two realms — that of final causes and that of efficient causes — are in harmony with each other. 80. Descartes acknowledged that the soul cannot impart force to the body, because the total quantity of force in matter is conserved. But he believed the soul could change the direction of the body's motion. This was because he did not know a natural law later discovered: that not only the same quantity of force, but also the same quantity of direction, is conserved in matter. Had he noticed this, he would have accepted my system of pre-established harmony. 81. According to this system, bodies act as if they had no souls (which is impossible); souls act as if they had no bodies; and both act as if each influenced the other." (Monadology, §§78-81)
The core idea of pre-established harmony: God, at creation, like the most masterful clockmaker, precisely calibrated all monads' rhythms, so that though mutually isolated, they appear as if they are相互关联. Leibniz used a famous analogy in §59 of the Monadology:
"Imagine a choir, each member confined in separate rooms, yet because they all hold the same score and begin singing simultaneously, a perfect ensemble is produced." (Monadology, §59 and related correspondence)
In this analogy, choir members neither listen to each other, nor coordinate, nor interact — yet their singing is perfectly synchronized. The sole source of this synchronization is the conductor (God)预先 distributing identical scores to everyone. Leibniz认为 this is how the world operates: coordination among monads is God's predetermined arrangement, not the result of actual communication between monads.
In this system, relations are no longer genuine bonds between substances, but a synchronization illusion代理 by God. When we say "A interacts with B," we are merely describing two independently occurring event sequences that God calibrated to be simultaneous. Relations are还原 to "order" — i.e., monads' arrangement in space and time. Leibniz in §57 of the Monadology defined space as "the order of coexistences" and time as "the order of successions." The keyword here is "order": order is a form of relation, but Leibniz interpreted this order as "God's pre-established correspondence," not as dynamic mutual constitution between substances.
Three: Diagnostic Significance of Leibniz's Dilemma — The Dead End Starting from Substance
Leibniz's dilemma possesses极高的 philosophical diagnostic value. It proves: if one坚持 the presupposition that "substances are self-sufficient and possess absolute boundaries," then genuine, dynamic, mutually permeating relations are necessarily logically impossible. Leibniz之所以 had to appeal to the theological "pre-established harmony" is precisely because he had reached the logical尽头 of substance metaphysics.
It is noteworthy that Leibniz himself was not indifferent to relations.相反, his philosophical system everywhere reflects concern for relations. His theory of "minute perceptions" acknowledged complexity within monads; his principle of "continuity"强调 there are no jumps in nature; his principle of "the identity of indiscernibles"暗示 relations' constitutive role in individuation — if two things are indistinguishable in all relations, they are the same thing. Leibniz in the New Essays on Human Understanding spent大量篇幅 discussing relations, criticizing Locke's view that "relations are the mind's comparative activity,"主张 relations possess objective foundation.
He even proposed a雏形 of "relational ontology." In §56 of the Monadology, he wrote:
"Each monad is a living mirror of the universe, representing the universe from its own point of view." (Monadology, §56)
This意味着 a monad's internal state is essentially a relational representation — a monad is what it is恰恰 because of its relations with other monads (though these relations are not causal but "expressive"). A monad's entire "perceptual" content is a mapping of its relations with other monads.
Yet Leibniz's system's fundamental limitation: he could not accept genuine, open, generative relations. Because that would意味着 substances are not self-sufficient but "have windows" — the other outside the window could enter, changing the substance's internal state. Leibniz's "windowlessness" is the last防线 substance theory erected to维护 its self-identity. His failure宣告: starting from isolated substances attempting to arrive at relations can only lead to theological patches; genuine revolution must begin from "relations as primary."
If Leibniz had acknowledged monads have windows, then his monads would no longer be substances but would dissolve into a fluctuating relational field — precisely what he, as a traditional metaphysician, feared. This fear is not without reason: acknowledging relations' primordiality意味着 abandoning the obsession with "certainty" and "independence," accepting a dynamic, open, incompletely formalizable understanding of the world. This is precisely what Leibniz — a thinker执着 on logical and mathematical precision — could not accept.
Preview of upcoming content: Part Two will focus on the twentieth-century phenomenological movement's rediscovery of the question of relations. We will see how Husserl's intersubjectivity theory, Heidegger's analysis of Being-with, Sartre's解剖 of the Look, and especially Merleau-Ponty's concepts of "flesh" and "reversability" opened a decisive path for relations' ontological return after two thousand years of substance-centrism's rule. Yet these breakthroughs were all limited by their respective theoretical frameworks, leaving大量 unfinished work. Part Three will diagnose the deep roots of the silence and, within the context of contemporary technological alienation, propose "relational dynamics" as the theoretical program of response.
Liangzhi, April 2026
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