Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 12:45:46
From: Stephen Arnott <sarnott-AT-metz.une.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Notes on Relations


Further to your helpful contribution:

At 09:48 AM 1/29/99 -0800, Paul Bryant wrote:
>It seems to me that this discussion has largely left the definitions
>of internal and external relations unclarified.  In the absence of
>such clarification we run the risk of begging the question by assuming
>that internal relations are external relations from the outset.  I
>came across the following definitions of internal relations and
>external relations the other day and they strike me as nicely
>clarifying what's at stake in the debate:
>
>Internal relations:
>
>A is internally related to B if and only if in every world in which A
>exists B also exists.
>
>Despite the Kripkean possible world talk in this definition, what is
>basically stated here is that for any entity x, property A necessarily
>supervenes on property B, which is to say, is essential to x.  
>

This seems to gel precisely with the def. I give.

>External Relations:
>
>x is S-related (external or mediated) to y if and only if in all
>worlds in which xSy there is a z such that z is between x and y and
>xSz and zSy.
>
>This definition basically states that in the relation xSy there is
>necessarily another term that is not contained in the first two terms.  
>
And so on ad infinitum. This seems on first glance, quite problematic. We
have to keep the logic going all the way down. For xSz there is a z' such
that z' is between x and z and xSz' and z'Sz, and so on. In which case
there's a hell of a lotta stuff between x and y.
Having said this, it is consonant with the ontology that there is a
remainder. The individual never exhausts the process of individuation. So
in this sense we can't say that two particular affects pertinent to some
individual are internally related, because they could be otherwise, and are
related differently in other individuals. That's fine from the perspective
of the virtual. But I still return to what I take to be Whitehead's
position. The relations which an individual actualizes are definitive of
that individual, to some extent and retrospectively. From this perspective
they are internal and necessary. The affects are 'prehended' into a
specific arrangement by the organism.

>Does any of this make a difference in the whole debate? I think so. 
>Talk of internal relations implies talk of internal relations that
>belong to a THING.  Thus, such talk essentializes the being that is
>talked about.  In contrast to this, talk of external relations treats
>the singularities or Events as essences or haecceities and attempts to
>demonstrate how they fall into variable relations with each other,
>thus avoiding the path of genus/species heirachialization.
>

Yes, this is fine. It's not a question of essentializing the thing. It's
just a more or less fortuitous concrescence borrowing elements from a field
[complexe] which far exceeds its scope. The relations which define its
corporealization of these elements always do remain external to their
terms, because they never exhaust their potential agencements. But on the
reasoning you choose above, can't we say something like this:

Given a tick (by the way, it is tick with a 'k', the other being a muscular
spasm, usually in the facial area), we identify its properties (affects) A
and B. Subsequently, we only have a tick if whenever we identify A we also
identify B.
If we can _define_ a creature by its affects, there must be some necessary
connection between the two.

I don't want to defend an essentialism which insists on the internality of
relations and terms. Instead I am trying to understand Whitehead's
objection to pure externality and at the same time to recognise how he can
be an anti-essentialist and at the same time maintain internal relations as
crucial to his philosophy of organism. 


Steve