Relationalism: An Overview of My Thought (original) (raw)

Radical Relationism: A Proposal

Conceptualizing Relational Sociology, 2013

Different relational sociologists have different phenomena in mind when they use the word "relation." For some, relations are concrete network ties between individuals or groups, while for others relations are something more abstract, such as relative positions in a field. For some authors, relations are the elementary unit of analysis for all sociology, while for others relations are one type of emergent social structure among others. In this chapter, I present the rudiments of a radically relational sociological epistemology, based on but extrapolating beyond relational elements in the works of By "radically relational" I mean an epistemology that contains no residual dualist elements and therefore treats all social phenomena, including individuals themselves, as constituted through relations. 1 This epistemology assumes naturalism and monist materialism but adopts an agnostic stance toward realism. It also applies reflexively to itself. In keeping with this agnosticism, I present the key points of this framework as guidelines for epistemic practice rather than as statements about what it is.

A New Problem for Relationalism

In this paper, I raise a new problem for relationalism, the view, roughly, that experience is a relation between subjects and mind-independent items from a point of view. Drawing on my reconstruction of the view developed by Bill Fish, I show that his view is in principle ill-poised to accommodate certain varieties of doxastic variation: specifically, certain effects beliefs may have on the phenomenal character of experience. I briefly show that a similar problem besets Bill Brewer’s position and suggest that the problem in fact generalizes – every relationalist position faces, but cannot solve it. This is due to the fact that the effects I highlight undermine what relationalists think is experience’s central function: again, to relate us to mind-independent objects. Near the end, I sketch an alternative view which succeeds in accommodating all kinds of doxastic variability, leaves the central function of experience unimpaired, but eschews the conception of that function that relationalists provide.

Inquiring Relational Approach: Beyond the Limits of Substantialism

International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS), 2017

Acknowledging how disciplinary boundaries helped us to generate definitions throughout the history, today demands a new understanding of the world which is more about the relations rather than divisions. How to understand and acknowledge these relations and what outcomes are to be held by blurring the disciplinary boundaries have become significant in current studies. The approach, in fact, should not be considered only as the method but cogitated as a pivotal part of a research. This study is a critical inquiry on substantialist approach in general, with an aim to discuss `so-called` relational approaches. Comprehending the concept of “relational “and how to actualize a relational approach are crucial for a research, in which a relation might appear as an illusion rather than a connection. The problematique appears when the relations are defined beyond a relational context as if these relations happen outside of fundamentals- which is suggested to be named as “pseudo- relational” through this article. As an example, if we assume that there is a limit separating the fundamentals x and y from each other, both x and y stand as the reason of the other one`s becoming. If relation is defined as a distinctive entity besides x and y, it would only appear as relational while it is essentially substantialist. In other words, when the relation between x and y is considered as a third entity, relation stands in a sort of eclecticism. That sort of inquiries are interpreted as relational, however, they should be addressed as substantialist or outlined as “pseudo-relational”. Hence, what is meant by pseudo-transactional or pseudo-relational is a sort of illusion in which a thing is not what it really is. Within this point of view, this paper is to inquire transactional (relational) approach versus to substantialist one, referring to critical theories in regard to a trans-disciplinary understanding.

On perspectives, theories, models, and friends: A reply to the relationalists

Psychoanalytic Psychology, 1996

Marshall's remonstration about the need to clarify what exactly the category relational refers to. In this regard, Jessica Benjamin seems to have agreed with a fundamental point of our article: that the drive/relational dichotomy, the original great divide of the Mitchell-Greenberg contribution, is highly problematic. What, then, is relational psychoanalysis? A theory? A perspective? An affinity group? Is it, as Benjamin suggested, a theoretical tendency? If relational denotes something other than a theory commensurate with other theories, how much can we say about it? Stephen Mitchell, in discussing the role of the body in relational psychoanalysis, seems to have located the central difference between Freudian and relational psychoanalysis in their respective attitudes toward postmodern philosophical thinking. In contemporary psychoanalysis, postmodernism is most clearly represented by the social-constructivist point of view and is a legitimate springboard for developing new psychoanalytic theory. We must Requests for reprints should be sent to Arnold D.

The Reality of Relations

The Metaphysics of Relations, 2016

On the one hand, E. J. Lowe, Peter Simons, and John Heil argue for an ontology according to which there are no fundamental relations. 1 There are objects (substances), these objects have intrinsic properties, and all the relations among these objects are internal relations in that they supervene on their intrinsic properties. Internal relations thus are no addition to what there is. On the other hand, James Ladyman argues for an ontology according to which relations in the sense of structures are fundamental. 2 This difference in content goes together with a difference in methodology: Lowe and Heil pursue a traditional metaphysics based on a priori reflection. Although this metaphysics is supposed to match natural science, the metaphysics is not developed by means of considering our best physical theories. Ladyman, by contrast, seeks to naturalize metaphysics: metaphysical claims are justifiable only insofar as they can be extracted from our best fundamental physical theories and provide for an ontology of these theories. This paper takes a middle ground, both as regards the content as well as the method of metaphysics. As far as the methodology is concerned, it seeks to make a case for a natural philosophy that treats physics and metaphysics as one whole, being inseparable, without it being possible to accord priority to the one over the other. Thus, metaphysical claims can neither be directly read off from the formalism of physical theories, nor can they be based on a priori reasoning. As far as the ontology is concerned, the paper argues that the challenge to a metaphysics 1

The Tractability of the Debate on Relationalism

in Purpose and Procedure in Philosophy of Perception, 2021

The debate between relationalism and representationalism in the philosophy of perception seems to have come to a standstill where opponents radically disagree on methodological principles or fundamental assumptions. According to Fish (this volume) this is because, not unlike Kuhnian scientific paradigms, the debate displays some elements of incommensurability. This diagnosis makes advancing the debate impossible. I argue that what is hindering progress is not a clash of research programmes, but a series of misunderstandings that can be avoided by disentangling the different questions each theory is invested in and by making explicit the hidden assumptions at play in the debate. One such central assumption is what I call the Superficiality Constraint.