Relationalism

The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to show that within contemporary philosophy of perception, it has become far from clear what proponents of the Content View mean when they claim that experience has accuracy conditions and, therefore, accuracy evaluable content. Two very different interpretations can be discerned here, one which holds that content has accuracy conditions and one which explicitly identifies content with such conditions. On the other hand, the paper wants to argue that neither of these versions succeeds in showing why we should attribute either accuracy conditions or accuracy evaluable content to perceptual experience. To this end, I will present an elaborated argument (which focuses on the moon illusion) to show why we have as yet no reason to think that perceptual experience has accuracy conditions and, therefore, accuracy evaluable content. Instead, it will be argued that perceptual experience is best thought of as accuracy maker, not as something which can itself be representationally accurate or inaccurate.

[published in Routledge's "Philosophy and Method in the Social Sciences" series]

This study starts from a simple premise:  human practices are a fundamental constituent — arguably “the” fundamental constituent — of social reality.  It then poses the following question:  What would social scientists’ research look like if they took this insight quite seriously?

That, of course, would depend on what practices are in fact like:  what their generic features are, how they are constituted, how they might be identified and characterised and explained, how they function in concrete contexts, how they might change across time and space.  These are the kinds of questions that this book tries to tackle, insisting that their answers hold important implications for the effective practice of social science.

The book thus attempts to build a philosophical infrastructure for the empirical study of practices in the social sciences and humanities.  At the same time, it also tries to explore the implications of this ontology of human practices for issues in social theory and in the philosophy of the social sciences.  The book thus stands at the intersection of the philosophy of social science, social theory, and the social sciences.

There are productive material connections beyond mere internal or external relations. The concept of connection enables a creative reinterpretation of certain historical questions and, accordingly, the essay stresses the importance of the concepts of connection, nexus, and fusion in many philosophies, from Aristotle to Deleuze.

Taking the phenomenon of empire as its starting point, this article seeks to provide a framework for addressing the question of how and why international systems change over time. Synthesizing elements from network-relational analysis and practice theory, I argue that international systems are best thought of as being composed of multiple partially overlapping and interrelated hierarchical networks. These networks are made up of social ties-as in classic network analysis-but also of specific repertoires of practice. Systemic transformations happen through the reconfiguration of networks, both through shifts in social ties and through changes in their practices. Empire provides a particularly illuminating window into the topic of systemic change, in part because a major driver of historical transformations has been the expansion of empires and their encounters with other heterogeneous polities across the globe, and in part because a focus on imperial interactions highlights the limitations of existing unit-centric perspectives. Drawing on examples from the nineteenth century, I illustrate the usefulness of the framework by showing how different regionally anchored systems came into contact with the expanding spheres of Western empires and how such points of interaction contributed to the development of an increasingly global international system.

In the summer of 2013 at the Tibetan Center in Poolesville, Maryland the great Lama YangThang Rinpoche gave instruction on the practice of the great compassion, or as he described the practice, as being the practice of Absolute Compassion. The instruction was to extend the light of awareness into the world and into the cosmos. Extending the light of awareness into the present moment of a person, extending the light of awareness into the past time of the person and extending the light of awareness into the future time of the person. This truly is the great practice of the great compassion and everyone can practice this extension of the light of awareness. This very proactive praxis brings forth the light within us and fills us with the light of the field of awareness. It is great to practice this vast practice. Of course it takes a boldness of intention and passion of heart. Extending the light of our innermost awareness into the present of those we love, and into the past of those we love, and then extending the light into their future of those we love is self-liberating. The light of awareness illuminates experience, metabolizes experience, opens us into un-bound awareness, undoes fixated-ness, and brings forth luminous intensity. The light of awareness is pure potentiality. The same practice can be used with those whom we hate or dislike or whom disgust us. This practice of extending the light of awareness deepens our own experience of becoming aware of awareness. As we practice extending the light of awareness, awareness itself completely opens up for us and deepens our experience in depth and breath. In time we begin to experience the true secret of this praxis. Timeless awareness begins to be experienced by us and sustained by us. Timeless awareness is the

Examining Christos Yannaras’ work has not been the easiest of tasks for non-Greek speaking researchers, mainly because of (a) the absence of translations for the whole spectrum of his contributions –most English translations are quite recent- and (b) the focus on the theological aspects of his work and not on the philosophical ones, due to the research interests of western researchers.

In this paper, I will attempt to summarise Yannaras’ work with help from his recent philosophical autobiography; namely the ‘Six Philosophical Paintings’ (Ἕξι φιλοσοφικὲς ζωγραφιές). Thus, I will try to (a) explain the understanding of apophaticism not as a ‘negative theology’ but as an all-encompassing communal epistemology (a communal justification of apophatic knowledge) which leads to a consistent ‘critical ontology’; (b) to sketch the acknowledgement of the person (πρόσωπον) and of radical relationalism (σχέσις in the sense of ἔρως) as leading to a ‘relational ontology’, an ontology of the person; and (c) to trace the path to this stance towards philosophy and theology as the historical experience of the orthodox East.

Other contributions of Christos Yannaras e.g. the contrasting distinction between ‘ecclesia’ and religion, the freedom of morality, a ‘political theology’ etc. are hereby seen as stemming from the above prioritisation.

In this work, the author elaborates on his position on philosophy and ontology. Even as he defended, critical ontology/metaphysics, he dismisses any kind of speculative ontology/metaphysics as epistemologically untenable. Furthermore, in this work, the author puts together for the first time his relationalist theory of being, called ontic (ontological) relationalism.

The history of Pauline research has uncovered, as well as created, several dualisms, false dichotomies and cul-de-sacs that have played and still play a role in various interpretations of Paul. Susan Eastman's Paul and the Person (2017) sets out to reframe Paul's anthropology by opening a discursive window between Pauline scholarship and recent work in developmental psychology and neuroscience. In this article I discuss how Eastman manages to achieve this goal – by looking at her monograph from the perspective of five interpretative dichotomies: individual vs communal, Stoic vs Platonic and material vs immaterial, cognition vs emotion, relational vs ontological transformation, and human vs divine agency.

In this conclusion, which reflects critically on this approach and its wider consequences, I argue that  diplomats are estranged from IR theory and vice versa - because IR scholars generally subscribe to substantialism, whereas diplomats tend to think in terms of relations. In fact, a deeper understanding of these relations is a key theoretical take-away point of this book. More specifically, I argue that relationalism - as a meta-theoretical approach - not only helps us understand the diplomatic production of world politics, relationalism also reflects a particular ontology, which differs fundamentally from the worldview that most
IR scholars subscribe to. As I suggest, most IR scholars depart from the social phenomenon they want to study, for example, states, diplomats, soldiers, organizations, treaties, companies, and women. Assuming a priori the existence of these phenomena (e.g. states or individuals) and ascribing certain characteristics to them, they develop substantive theories.
Consequently, diplomacy is reduced to the mechanics of states bumping into each other or a system of reciprocal signaling. However, most diplomats know, in an embodied but often unarticulated
sense, that world politics is deeply relational. Their job is to make those relations "work," and they are convinced that important knowledge can be gained by consulting and meeting with foreign powers, that is, "the other." As such, they subscribe to a relational thinking (shared to some extent by diplomatic scholars). Relationalism takes as its point of departure the idea that social phenomena making up world politics always develop in relation to other social phenomena.
Thus, for example, states are not born into' this world as fully developed states that then "exist"; states are made in continuous relations with other states and non-state actors. The development, consolidation, weakening (or even disappearance) of states can only be understood in terms of continuous processes that play out in relation to other social processes. These ontological and epistemological differences between much of IR scholarship and diplomatic knowledge and practice are important for how we understand (and construct) world politics, including war, international cooperation, and responses to human and natural catastrophes.

Der Beitrag sucht die Verwandtschaft einer Theoriefigur bei Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias und Pierre Bourdieu nachzuzeichnen, die den Zusammenhang der Formierung und Formatierung von Subjekten mit langfristigen historischen Prozessen der Staaten(um)bildung betrifft. Zu diesem Zweck werden zunächst komplementäre Motive dieser drei Autoren versammelt, die jeweils spezifische Schwerpunktsetzungen markieren: die Disziplinierung gelehriger Körper bei Foucault, die Modellierung des Affekthaushalts bei Norbert Elias und Durchsetzung eines „Staatsdenkens“ bei Pierre Bourdieu. In einem darauffolgenden Schritt werden zwei Vorschläge gemacht, wie sich diese unterschiedlichen Akzentuierungen (erstens historisch und zweitens systematisch) wechselseitig befruchten könnten und sinnvoll zu einem Modell der politischen Transformation von Subjektivierungsweisen integrieren ließen. Abschließend wird die Frage nach tieferliegenden Ursachen für die beobachtete Wahlverwandtschaft der drei Ansätze aufgeworfen: Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass eine solche Ursache in einem gemeinsam geteilten Anschluss an Max Weber gesucht werden kann, der mit der Betonung motivationaler Prägungen in spezifischen historischen Strukturen schon früh einen Relationalismus von Akteurs- und Ordnungsebene entworfen hatte.

Riassunto: Il saggio analizza una serie di prese di posizione antropologiche – quelle di Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, Clifford, Appadurai, Latour, Viveiros de Castro, Descola in particolare – che  hanno  al  centro  il  rapporto  natura/cultura.  Esso  mostra  la ricchezza di visioni e strategie insite in queste posizioni, quanto le loro complesse e  spesso  inavvertite  correlazioni.  Il  saggio  mostra  come  i raddoppiamentidella natura e  della cultura, così come i  tentativi  di trovare scappatoie all’opposizione, assumano significato  in relazione alla semiotica e possano  ispirare  nuovi modelli per  pensare  la  cultura.  In  particolare  il  lavoro  antropologico  ci  darà  modo  di individuare nel semioticoquella dimensione relazionale che sta al fondo tanto della natura  quanto  della  cultura,  che  attraversa l’umano e il non umano, che ci sfida come semiotici a ripensare il valore e la forma del nostro stesso relazionalismo.

Parole-chiave: semiotica; antropologia; cultura; relazionalismo; ontologia.

***
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS OF ANTHROPOLOGY: THE NATURE, THE CULTURE, THE SEMIOTIC

Abstract: The essay analyzes a series of anthropological positions – in particular the ones of Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, Clifford, Appadurai, Latour, Viveiros de Castro, Descola – that cope with the relationship between nature and culture. It highlights the wealth of visions and strategies of these positions as well as their complex and often unnoticed correlations. The essay will show how the doublings of nature and culture, as well as the attempts to find loopholes to the opposition, take on significance in relation to semiotics and can inspire new models to think culture. In particular, anthropological work will give us the opportunity to identify in the semiotic that relational dimension that lies at the bottom of both nature and culture, which crosses the human and the non-human and challenges us as semioticians to rethink the value and form of our own relationalism.

Keywords: semiotics; anthropology; culture; relationalism; ontology.

***
Il link all'intero numero di Estudos Semióticos dedicato al rapporto fra "Semiotica e cultura":
https://www.revistas.usp.br/esse/issue/view/12043

In this work, the author tried to give an ontological foundation and framework for relationalism, by interpreting the meaning of being in terms of the particular (individual) in its relationality. This work may provide some insight into how we can look at not only metaphysics but epistemology and ethics as well from a relationalist point of view.

(From the introduction by the editors:) Volker Rabens untersucht in seinem Beitrag „Sein und Werden in Beziehungen. Grundzüge relationaler Theologie bei Paulus und Johannes“, wie in diesen Textcorpora Relationen beschrieben werden, die Sein und (Verändert-)Werden des Menschen bestimmen. Rabens arbeitet heraus, „dass Relationalität in der paulinischen und johanneischen Literatur jeweils eigene Metaphorik und Ausdrucksformen gefunden hat, aber dass selbst auf der sprachlichen Ebene eine große Konvergenz festzustellen ist (z.B. in der Familien-Metaphorik).“ In seinem Aufsatz geht er im Anschluss an den Beitrag von Wilfried Härle auch ausführlich auf mögliche Missverständnisse gegenüber relationalen Ansätzen ein und profiliert diese so in Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer Kritik.

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dynamics in light of quantum physics.

Access here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattembower/

Despite extensive discussion of naïve realism in the wider philosophical literature, those influenced by the phenomenological movement who work in the philosophy of perception have hardly weighed in on the matter.  It is thus interesting to discover that Edmund Husserl’s close philosophical interlocutor and friend, the early twentieth-century phenomenologist Johannes Daubert, held the naive realist view.  I present Daubert’s views on the fundamental nature of perceptual experience and show how they differ radically from those of Husserl’s.  I argue, in conclusion, that Daubert’s views are superior to those of Husserl’s specifically in the way that they deal with the phenomenon of perceptual constancy.

Carlo Rovelli's relational interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that a system's states or the values of its physical quantities as normally conceived only exist relative to a cut between a system and an observer or measuring instrument. Furthermore, on Rovelli's account, the appearance of determinate observations from pure quantum superpositions happens only relative to the interaction of the system and observer. Jeffrey Barrett ([1999]) has pointed out that certain relational interpretations suffer from what we might call the ‘determinacy problem', but Barrett misclassifies Rovelli's interpretation by lumping it in with Mermin's view, as Rovelli's view is quite different and has resources to escape the particular criticisms that Barrett makes of Mermin's view. Rovelli's interpretation still leaves us with a paradox having to do with the determinacy of measurement outcomes, which can be accepted only if we are willing to give up on certain elements of the ‘absolute’ view of the world.

The difficulties of Bourdieu's thought require that we distinguish its affirmative, thetic or engaged features (constructivist, critical, competitive or agonistic, relational or anti-substantialist) from those derived from his anti-Manichean, anti-dualist or anti-dichotomist concerns, bent to a combination or conciliation of opposites. Bourdieu pursues compromises, blends disparate viewpoints, and steers a middle course between contrary forces. An urge to counterpoint characterizes his work, and he tries to get around the conceptual dichotomies that have set down fault-lines in the social sciences (above all, historical specificity against rationalist universalism, and objectivist " structuralism " against subjectivist " phenomenology "). Yet some affirmative aspects of Bourdieu's thought interfere with his anti-Manichean resolve, which results in a theoretical diplopia or " double vision " .

Relationalism claims that the phenomenal character of perception is constituted by the obtaining of a non-representational psychological relation to mind-independent objects. Although relationalism provides what seems to be the most straightforward and intuitive account of how experience strikes us introspectively, it is very often believed that the argument from hallucination shows that the view is untenable. The aim of this thesis is to defend relationalism against the argument from hallucination. The argument claims that the phenomenal character of hallucination and perception deserves the same account, and that relationalism cannot be true for hallucinations, therefore relationalism must be rejected. This argument relies on the Indiscriminability Principle (IND), the claim that two experiences that are introspectively indiscriminable from each other have the same phenomenal character. Before assessing the plausibility of this principle, I first consider and dismiss versions of the argument which wouldn’t depend on IND.
Although widely accepted, no satisfactory support for IND has been presented yet. In this thesis I argue that defending IND requires that we understand the notion of ‘indiscriminability’ employed in IND in an impersonal sense. I then identify what underwrites IND: the intuition that, in virtue of its superficiality, the nature of a phenomenal character must be accessible through introspection, together with the claim that it is not possible to deny IND without denying the superficiality of phenomenal characters too.
I argue that the relationalist can deny IND while preserving the superficiality of phenomenal characters. This can be done by adopting a negative view of hallucination and an account of introspection whereby the phenomenal character doesn’t exist independently of one’s introspective awareness of it and where having introspective access to our experience depends on our perceptual access to the world.

Details
This book is an anthropology book, not a social and cultural anthropology book, but an existential anthropology book. It presents a critique of the theories and methods of the social sciences, which Albert Piette reproaches for side-stepping human beings, their modes of being and more generally the fact of existing. The book also offers an original combination of methods for exploring the details of existence: the particularities of each person in a group, the succession of situations in a day, and the subtlety of moments of presence. It gives rise to new theoretical propositions on what constitutes the specificity of human existence and social life.

For contents and first pages (probelesen)  : see http://www.duncker-humblot.de/index.php/leseprobe?file=LP03428546770

El presente artículo trata de lo transindividual, un concepto fundamental en la teoría de la individuación elaborada por Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989), y de su vinculación con ciertas proposiciones de Karl Marx que tratan del individuo y la sociedad. Entre ambos autores existe una relación directa, evidenciada en cada uno de los textos donde Simondon hace mención a Marx y al marxismo en general. Pero también existe una relación indirecta, para nada evidente, que surge menos de lo que Simondon dice acerca de Marx que de lo que ciertos pensadores contemporáneos dicen sobre uno y otro. Aquí intento dar cuenta de ambos tipos de relaciones. Asimismo, me propongo introducir y comentar algunos pasajes de Marx que compiten en radicalidad y audacia con los que escribiera Simondon un siglo más tarde, y en los cuales quiero apoyar mi hipótesis de lectura, a saber, que Marx es un pensador de lo transindividual avant la lettre.

In this article, which focuses on different concepts of state-building and legitimacy as used in the mainstream International Relations (IR) literature, I suggest that recent debates may be categorized in a two-by-two matrix. The axes concern the choice between a normative or a sociological perspective on the one hand, and a focus on state institutions or on society on the other. The article identifies an empiricist-sociological approach. Still, the almost exclusive reliance on an ontology of entities and their attributes hampers foci on relations as constituting both “insides” and “outsides” in state-building, and on legitimacy as important in its own right as ongoing public contestations. In a concluding section, I explore the purchase of a relational sociology for future studies of legitimacy in state-building.

Review of Conceptualizing Relational Sociology, edited by Christopher Powell and François Depelteau, Palgrave MacMillan, 240pp., 2013 and Applying Relational Sociology, edited by François Depelteau and Christopher Powell, Palgrave MacMillan, 229pp., 2013.

In recent years, it has become popular again to endorse relationalism about perception. According to this view, perceptions are essentially relational experiences and thus differ in nature from non-relational hallucinations. In this article, I assume that relationalism is true. The issue that I am generally interested in is rather which version of relationalism we should endorse, given that perceptions are relational. The standard answer to this question is Acquaintance Relationalism, the view that perceptions are relational in so far as they acquaint us with objects in our environment. But my contention is that this view cannot account for two important aspects of perfect hallucinations, namely their property of being introspectively indistinguishable from perceptions and their property of having the same motivational force as veridical perceptions. Which alternative form of relationism should be endorsed instead (if any) is then an issue to be discussed at another ocassion.

Two thinkers with radically different backgrounds and no other connection to each other or information about each other, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Dr. Christos Yannaras in Athens, Greece, and Professor of Philosophy Dr. Joseph Kaipayil in Bangalore, India, both articulate a ‘Critical Ontology’ and a ‘Relational Ontology’ with striking similarities as well as substantial differences; one of the most interesting aspects of this parallel philosophical production is the observation of both philosophers that a ‘relational ontology’ cannot but be a ‘critical ontology’, and vice versa. In this article I will attempt to briefly present the relevant theories of both philosophers and to highlight the common points and differing aspects that call for a direct dialogue between them.

The paper provides a critical discussion of the Super-Humean view of spacetime (Huggett's regularity account) and the " minimalist ontology " in terms of Leibnizian relations and primitive matter points, recently developed by Esfeld et al. It investigates, in particular, the empirical adequacy of the proposed metaphysics, arguing that Super-Humeanism cannot provide a plausible account of space and time without committing to bona fide geometric structure in the fundamental relations. Against this backdrop, I propose a moderate version of Super-Humeanism and discuss its possible application to Euclidean space and General Relativity.

This book is a theoretical essay that lays foundations on which to build an anthropology directly focusing on human units. In the first chapter, the author attempts to show that the evolutionary specificity of humans constitutes an argument in favour of this perspective. the consciousness of existing in time and nuanced modalities of presence call for a detailed observation of humans. the second chapter is a critique of the abundant use of the notion of relations in social anthropology. this critique is necessary because of the extent to which the various theoretical and methodological uses of relations absorb and lose existences and their details. the third chapter concerns non-humans, another major theme of contemporary anthropology. Albert Piette sees a certain debasement of the notion of existence and proposes a realist ontology, considering what does and does not exist, from the examples of divinities, animals and collective institutions. It is not a matter of being satisfied with an analysis of ontologies or local meta-physics, but also showing what really is in a situation, and not just from the point of view of people and their discourse. this analysis leads to a classification of beings and to a consideration of the importance of minimality in human existence.

Qualia are often defined as purely intrinsic raw phenomenal feels. This means that they do not have relational properties. I argue that even if this kind of qualia exist, one cannot justifiably include them in one's ontology. The case against qualia presented here is based on epistemological relationalism, the view that it is possible to obtain knowledge or information only of relations.

This book addresses both, Science and Technology Studies and Environmental Sociology, problematising the role of the human, breathing, agent who is required to put Ecological Modernisation into practice. This type of agent has been undertheorised by Ecological Modernisation Theory. Ingmar Lippert offers a conceptualisation of such an agent by drawing on relationalist takes on structure and agency, i.e. actor-network theory and Pierre Bourdieu's school of thought. For Ecological Modernisation Theory remaining hegemonic, as his book suggests in its first part, it is apt to focus on the agency and constraints in the ``doing'' environmental management. By way of a case study in the construction of a glass recycling network in part two, Ingmar Lippert tells a critical story exploring a Bourdieusian conceptualisation of field and habitus applied on the agent of ecological modernisation in their hybridity.

As a first pass, substantivalism about spacetime is the view that that space and time exist as fundamental entities, independently from and in addition to the matterorfields that populate them. Relationalism about spacetime states that space and time are (ultimately) emergent from or dependent upon other physical entities; such that facts about space and time are exhausted or fixed by the arrangement of matter. I very briefly elaborate on these competing views by situating them in their historical context. I then, in very sketchy terms, try to show that no clear distinction between the two views survives in modern physics. I suggest the dispute becomes a matter of linguistic convention.

English: Sociology gives different theoretical answers to the challenges of a globalized society. In recent times, also Bourdieu´s conceptual instruments have been used increasingly. Bourdieu´s approach, however, faces the problem that his notion of society, in its classical form, is based on the assumption of nationally limited fields and spaces, and ultimately equates society with the "nation-state". In this article, we argue that Bourdieu´s strong analytical emphasis on the state is to be abandoned and that the resulting theoretical gap is to be filled with a more abstract concept. To this end, we first critically reflect his version of the nation-state as a "field of power" and present theoretical deficits therein as well as the implied challenges for an analysis of global issues. By deriving a "global field of power", an approach is proposed that is capable of theoretically integrating different research perspectives and results on transnational fields. Moreover, this modification allows us to relocate the nation-state as a historical and analytical special case of the formation of social order. We conclude with an outlook on the analytical potential of such a generalized field theory.

German: Die Soziologie gibt auf die Herausforderungen globaler Vergesellschaftung unterschiedliche theoretische Antworten; in jüngerer Zeit wird dabei zunehmend auch auf das begriffliche Instrumentarium Bourdieus zurückgegriffen. Dieser Zugangsweise steht jedoch das Problem gegenüber, dass das Bourdieu´sche Gesellschaftsverständnis in seiner klassischen Form auf der Annahme national begrenzter Felder und Räume fast und damit letztlich "Gesellschaft" mit "Nationalstaat" gleichsetzt. In diesem Beitrag argumentieren wir, dass die bei Bourdieu angelegte Zentralsetzung des Staates aufzugeben und die hieraus resultierende theoretische Leerstelle mit einem abstrakteren Ersatzkonzept zu schließen ist. Zu diesem Zweck reflektieren wir zunächst kritisch Bourdieus Fassung des Nationalstaats als ›Feld der Macht‹ und legen ihre theoretischen Defizite und die daraus folgenden Herausforderungen für eine Analyse globaler Problemstellungen dar. Mit dem ›globalen Feld der Macht‹ wird dann ein theoriekonsistenter Gegenentwurf vorgeschlagen, der geeignet ist, unterschiedliche Forschungsrichtungen und -ergebnisse zu transnationalen Feldern theoretisch zu integrieren. Diese Modifikation erlaubt es darüber hinaus, den Nationalstaat als einen historischen und analytischen Spezialfall sozialer Ordnungsbildung zu diskutieren. Wir schließen mit einem Ausblick auf das analytische Potenzial einer solchermaßen generalisierten Feldtheorie.

In recent years, the "relational turn" in International Relations (IR) theory has attracted extensive attention. However, the limitations of the substantialist ontology of mainstream (Western) IR theory means that it encounters difficulties and dilemmas in interpreting the evolving international system. Against the background of the rapid development of globalization and regional integration, the reality of world politics is constantly changing, and increasingly shows obvious characteristics of interconnection and high interdependence. In this context, there is insufficient research comparing the Western and non-Western versions of the "relational turn". Relational ontology may be able to provide a bridge between Chinese Confucian philosophy, Western philosophy, Western sociology, and mainstream western IR theories capable of generating productive synergies. However, there are major theoretical and cultural obstacles to be overcome if a reconciliation of the Western and Chinese versions of relationalism is to be achieved.

Epistemological disjunctivists make two strong claims about perceptual experience's epistemic value: (1) experience guarantees the knowledgeable character of perceptual beliefs; (2) experience's epistemic value is "reflectively accessible". In this paper I develop a form of disjunctivism grounded in a presentational view of experience, on which the epistemic benefits of experience consist in the way perception presents the subject with aspects of her environment. I show that presentational disjunctivism has both dialectical and philosophically fundamental advantages over more traditional expositions. Dialectically, presentational disjunctivism resolves a puzzle disjunctivists face in their posture vis-à-vis skeptical scenarios. More systematically, presentational disjunctivism provides an especially compelling view of disjunctivism as an internalist view of perceptual consciousness by explaining the way perceptual presence manifests the subject's rationality in a distinct way.

This book is an attempt to understand the human being, using the method of critical ontology. The human person, as an embodied conscious being, stands in triple relationality with the world around them, maintains the author. I-exist, I-know and I-act are respectively the ontic, epistemic, and ethic relationality of our being.

This article starts from Sørensen and Torfing’s (2004) notion that the field of network governance is ‘somewhat eclectic and confusing’ and that it lacks a sound ontological foundation. I will argue that the lack of a proper conceptualization of intermediate-scale entities such as inter- personal networks, organizations or social movements in network govern- ance hampers the introduction of post-liberal concepts of democracy into network governance. In the second part of the article I introduce DeLanda’s theory of social complexity, which is a development of DeuleuzoGuattarian Assemblage Theory. I propose it as an ontological foundation for network governance research. Assemblage theory connects to concepts of minor and major politics. In the third part of the article I present a concept of ‘minor governance’ in order to revisit demo- cratic network governance.
Keywords assemblage theory, Deleuze, minor politics, network governance

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.