Foundations of the Ontology of Emergent Complexity/Complexity, Relation, Excess/II - Relational Tension as Ontological Principle

3.1.2 – Relational Tension as Ontological Principle A cell boundary depends on exchanges it regulates; a legal category depends on documents, institutions, and acts of recognition; a tree remains distinct from soil and fungi while depending on both. These cases resist a choice between isolated things and an undifferentiated web. Material configurations do not first exist as fully self-sufficient things and only later acquire connections. Before anything else, a distinction must be made: in the physical universe, there are countless forms of material organisation that are not symbolic — from the formation of galaxies and solar systems through gravitational action to the configuration of magnetic fields. These structures result from fundamental forces and organise matter according to stable principles, but they do not operate through inscription or internal codified reorganisation. Their existence and relations do not depend on observation. A situated portion of that reality becomes concrete for an observing system when it is observed or captured; it becomes conceptually intelligible only when a symbolically capable system represents and relates what has been captured. Observation establishes the concrete without, by itself, adding the formalism through which the concrete may later be known and explained. The framework acknowledges material relations that require no symbolisation — dependence, transfer, constraint, coupling, composition, and incompatibility — and symbolic relations established by systems capable of inscription and recognition. The word relation is not reserved for the symbolic regime. What distinguishes symbolic relation is that materially instantiated symbols are related in ways that can modulate subsequent operations. Relation as Foundation Without Foundation Relations are not merely external links added to self-sufficient substances. The relata involved in a process can be partly constituted, constrained, or transformed by their relations. This constitutive relevance does not establish priority over materially organised participants: concrete relations require participants, even when those participants acquire determinate capacities only within the relation. Simondon's account of individuation provides an important parallel: the individual is not a fully constituted substance before the processes through which it becomes determinate (Simondon 2005, 35). The present framework retains this processual insight while treating every relation as materially instantiated. It does not replace the pre-individual with a universal asymmetry between symboliser and symbolised, because many individuating relations are not symbolic at all. This position must be carefully distinguished from the ontic structural realism of Ladyman and Ross, who argue that "there are no things, only structures" (Ladyman and Ross 2007, 130). While sharing the rejection of substance ontology, the OEC diverges on a decisive point: structural realism retains the concept of structure as a formal-mathematical entity — a set of relations definable independently of any material substrate. The OEC rejects this formalism. Relations, in the OEC, are materially realised dependencies, transfers, constraints, couplings, compositions, or incompatibilities. There is no relation without material realisation. Inscription is required only when a capable system discriminates and recognises a new difference within a symbolic regime; it is not a condition of material relation in general. The distinction is between a structuralism of form and a materialism of operative relation. Tension, Not Harmony Symbolic relation introduces a specific sequence. A material difference gives rise to a trace when a capable system discriminates it as a new or previously unknown configuration. In singular inscription, the system recognises the difference manifested by the trace under a protocol and constitutes the corresponding mark–symbol relation. The mark is the material configuration represented by the symbol; it does not recognise, compare, or act. A first-order symbol symbolises the discriminated difference, while a second-order symbol is created through the articulation of symbols. The system, not the mark or an isolated symbol, establishes and revises symbolic relations and can allow them to modulate further operations. Tension names an incompatibility, gradient, or unresolved constraint within a material configuration. It may be reduced, sustained, redistributed, or intensified. In a symbolic system, a discriminated difference may participate in materially active relations that make symbolic reorganisation possible. Tension alone neither establishes operative excess nor makes any response necessary; whether symbolic reorganisation occurs and what results depend on the full set of materially active relations. Material relations do not cease to exist when no symbolic reorganisation follows. This formulation opens productive philosophical dialogues. Merleau-Ponty's genetic phenomenology, particularly in Le visible et l'invisible (Merleau-Ponty 1964a, 138), treats the body as a sensitive locus constituted through its relations with the visible rather than as a static given. Foucault's L'Archéologie du savoir directs attention towards the material and institutional conditions under which statements become available and related within a discursive formation (Foucault 1972, 132). Neither account supplies the OEC's concepts of inscription, mark, or symbol; the comparison concerns the displacement of a self-sufficient subject and the material conditions of legibility. The OEC retains representation as a materially realised symbolic operation. A material configuration does not become reorganised merely because it is observed or symbolised. A capable system can discriminate a difference, inscribe it by constituting the corresponding mark–symbol relation, and subsequently reorganise symbols of either order and the relations among them. The mark remains passive in the symbolic relation, and the material configuration represented is not thereby transformed. If symbolic reorganisation produces a material configuration that the system discriminates as new or previously unknown, that event constitutes a trace and can occasion inscription. In Glissant, relation is not reducible to connection but is associated with tremor and the destabilisation of closed identity (Glissant [1990] 1997, 56). In Deleuze, relations participate in the production of difference through immanent variation rather than functioning as attributes added to completed terms (Deleuze [1968] 1994, 72). The OEC retains the challenge to self-sufficient identity while refusing to make symbolic reorganisation the model of every material relation. Material relations can constitute and transform configurations without inscription. Symbolic reorganisation is a specific emergent regime in which a capable system alters relations among materially instantiated symbols in response to differences it has discriminated and recognised. Network models can represent either pre-specified nodes or processes in which nodes and capacities change through interaction. The ontological claim is not that relation exists before every relatum, but that many identities and capacities are relational achievements. Systems differ: some persist structurally, some regulate deviations, and some reorganise relations among symbols. No one regime should be universalised. Structural equilibrium, metastability, regulation, and symbolic revisability describe different regimes of persistence. Exposure to change can matter without becoming the universal source of stability. Complexity is not itself a threshold of symbolic relation; symbolic capacity requires the additional mechanisms of discrimination, inscription, recognition, and relations among symbols. Reading Colloquium This guide accompanies the argument; it does not replace it. 1. Placement of the Text within the Architecture of the Work Section 3.1.1 distinguished measured complexity, non-linearity, emergence, and operative excess. This subsection now asks what kind of relations compose, constrain, or transform material configurations. It distinguishes material relation from symbolic relation and prepares Section 3.1.3, where continuity and stability are separated. The sequence prevents two reductions. Material relations do not depend on a symbolic observer, but symbolic relations are not merely another name for physical interaction. Each regime requires its own operations and evidence. 2. Philosophical Problem at Stake The problem is to avoid choosing between self-sufficient things and an undifferentiated web. Material participants are required for every concrete relation, yet their determinate capacities can depend on the relations through which they are composed and maintained. A second problem concerns knowledge. A material organisation exists independently of observation. A situated portion of it becomes concrete for an observing system when it is observed or captured. Conceptual intelligibility requires the further operation of a symbolically capable system. Observation does not create the real, and the concrete does not already include the formalism later used to represent and explain it. 3. Core Thesis and Conceptual Reorganisation The central thesis is that many identities and capacities are relational achievements. This gives relations constitutive relevance without priority over materially organised participants: a concrete relation requires participants, even when those participants acquire determinate capacities only within that relation. Material relations include dependencies, transfers, constraints, couplings, compositions, and incompatibilities. Symbolic relation is a specific emergent regime. It requires a capable system to discriminate a new material configuration, recognise and singularly inscribe the manifested difference, and subsequently establish relations among symbols. Inscription is therefore not a condition of material relation in general. 4. Key Concepts and Their Articulation Material relation names a materially realised dependence, transfer, constraint, coupling, composition, or incompatibility that requires no prior symbolisation. Concrete is the situated portion of the real observed or captured by a material observing system. It is not yet, for that reason alone, symbolic or theoretical. Symbolic relation exists when a capable system establishes relations among materially instantiated symbols and allows those relations to modulate later operations. Singular inscription recognises the difference manifested by a trace under a protocol and constitutes the corresponding mark–symbol relation. Later recognition proceeds through the established symbolic organisation; it does not repeat inscription or reorganise the mark. Relational tension names an incompatibility, gradient, or unresolved constraint. It must not be confused with operative excess, which is established only when, according to an explicit criterion, materially realisable relations exceed the relations realised in the present symbolic or structural form and thereby make reconfiguration possible. 5. Implications for Readers and Pedagogical Pathways For any case, readers should first identify the material participants and the dependencies or constraints that relate them. They should then ask whether observation has made a portion of the real concrete for a system and whether symbolic operations have actually occurred. The existence of a material relation does not establish inscription; the presence of tension does not establish operative excess; and a symbol never reorganises anything in isolation. A useful comparison is to analyse a magnetic field, a living boundary, and a legal category. All involve material relations. Only the latter two may involve regulation, and only a suitably organised system can establish relations among symbols. The analytical gain lies in identifying the additional operations rather than describing every relation as already symbolic. For bibliographic details, see References.