Difference, Relations, and Properties

What is true in the relation of difference is true about other relations. The nature of any term, unless that term is itself a relation, is attributes or properties in the non-technical sense. The nature of an apple means its roundness, redness, juiciness, and so on. So a change in any properties would be a change in the apple's nature.

Now a relation is not a property. But when a term has a relation to anything else, it also has a property because of that relation, a relational property, and that property belongs to its nature just as much as any other property.

If Ann is the mother of Beth, then you are asserting the relational property of being the mother of Beth. And this property is not itself a relation in the sense in which the relation of motherhood is. Hence, even though a relation is not a property, it gives rise to a property. And these properties are a part of the nature of what has those properties. The properties of being 'above the beast of the field', 'a little lower than the angels', and 'the mother of Beth', belong to Ann as part of her nature.

But the relations could not be diffferent without the properties being different. And the properties could not be different without their terms being different. For the properties are part of the terms. Therefore, if all relations were different, their terms would also be different. Consequently, all relations are internal.

32.03

The Difference Difference Makes

The internal relation of each object to each other object is a condition implicit in the being of anything. For something to exist, it must be this rather than that, and the 'rather than that' belongs to its essence just as much as the 'this'.

Something is in this relation to other things from its own nature and because otherness is stated in it, as is its own movement. Its being comprehends negation, through which alone it now has its affirmative existence. . . . It is something by not being other things. (Hegel, Science of Logic)

Everything is related to everything else at least by the relation of difference. Otherwise, a thing would not be the thing it is, since it would then be no different from anything other than itself.

But a relation that cannot be theoretically changed without changing the thing itself is what is meant by an internal relation. Consequently, everything is related internally to everything else.

Common sense is not used to moving among such abstract considerations. It might say that difference is not a relation. The reply would be a definition of relation that includes difference but answered to people's common notion of relation. But we are cut off from this reply, since 'relation' is indefinable.

But the indefinability of a term does not mean that there is anything either arbitrary or indefinite in our thought of it. And difference does fall within the common meaning of relation. Likeness and difference go together in our thought as having the same sort of existence. But likeness is a relation. If difference were not a relation, what else could it be? To call it a substance, or a quality, or an event, or a way of behaving, or anything except a relation is forced and unnatural. Consequently, difference is either a relation or some unique form of being, which it is not.

It might be replied that it's arbitrary to take it's not being something else as part of what a thing is.

It may be objected that it is paradoxical and wilful to treat it as part of the nature of a table that it is not a phoenix or not a prime number, and to place such characteristics on a level with its characteristic of being a table, or even with its negative characteristic of not being a chair. And from any practical point of view it is more important to believe about any substance which is in fact a table, that it has the characteristics of being a table, or of not being a chair, than that it possesses the characteristics of not being a phoenix or a prime number.

And even apart from all practical considerations, we shall gain more knowledge about the nature of the substance by realizing that it possesses the first two characteristics than we shall by realizing that it has the other two characteristics. But the last two characteristics are characteristics of the substance as the first two characteristics are.

For any person who asserts that the table is not a prime number would be saying something that is true. The assertion may be unimportant, foolish, a waste of time. But it is not fales, and it must be true. And it cannot be true unless it is made true by the nature of that thing about which the assertion is made. (G. E. Moore, Philosophical Studies)

Consequently, if something is as characterized by not being x as it is characterized by being y, then a change in its relations of difference would mean a change in itself. Therefore, it is internally related to everything else in the universe.

32.02. . . 4b77

Necessary Internal Relations

WHY believe reality is intelligible?

The total is intelligible only if it's a system, all-inclusive, and perfectly integrated.

And perfect integration assumes that no two parts can each be different from the other without each entailing a difference in the other. Hence, perfect integration is possible only if all the parts are internally related by difference.

And without the constant influence of the implicit ideal of thought in the scientific search for connection beyond apparent irrelevance, that belief would probably have been dismissed a long time ago as fanaticism or even atheism.

Proof of the rationality of things is not logically possible, since it would assume that same supposedly independent rationality whose applicability is in question in trying to prove it.

But the question is not whether logic is applicable to some unexperienced object. It's whether our known world of persons and things can be understood or intelligibly construed.

If the known world of things and persons cannot be understood or intelligibly construed, then thinking is useless from the start, since the conditions of understanding could not possibly, in that case, be fulfilled. The question "Why?" would simply have no answer when it is asked about various arrangements in the system.

Even uncertainty about the answer would leave us permanently ignorant, not just about whether we can know reality, but whether there is any knowledge about reality.

Science and theory assume we can know reality. And at each successive step in thought when I ask why, I assume there's an intelligible answer, whether I find it or not.

But the desirability of something does not prove it exists. Any evidence that the world I'm trying to construe is a set of internally related parts must come from other more basic sources.

32.01

Mind and Metasystem

Reflection is always trying to solve a problem.

To solve the problem, you have to know what the problem really is. But to know what the problem is, you have to know what questioning is. A question is a system of ideas that is trying to fix a problem in its own structure. Questioning clarifies the problem to figure out how to solve it.

Once the system of ideas is as complete as we can make it, we can construct theories. The more complete the system, the better, easier, and faster the solutions.

Wording the question well is part of the process of answering it. Very few can or do truly think. Many minds wander from the subject in hopeless reverie or they just get bored. They can't think about ideas. They may be tired or distracted or just not interested. Or they may be over-emotional. They might be insane, or just plain wierd. These things we pass by. They distort and disrupt by breaking in from the outside.

They have an importance, and some thinking is at the mercy of those factors. But thinking can can never surrender itself completely to the control of the subject-matter and it can be objectively logical, even though it can be influenced by instincts, desires, and feelings. If that were not the case, one could not know that influencing-factors fact itself.

If all thinking is governed by non-logical factors, then that statement itself is also governed by those non-logical factors, and that statement has no more claim on our acceptance than any other non-logical factor.

If we can't solve a problem, it's because of a lack of knowledge, creativity, or the will to inquire.

21.01

Concrete Necessity and Human Insight

Of course we have not proved our view of the goal of thought. There can be no question of proof where the nature of proof itself is in question. All we can say is: Here is the standard and ideal that we actually use in thinking.

When we understand, it's always through a system. As our understanding grows more complete, it's always through a system of greater unity.

If the ideal seems unconvincing and artificial, consider its alternatives. Do they formulate better or worse what we mean by understanding? When we read a famous book called Ethics Geometically Demonstrated, most of us feel we are getting insight.

In the end this illumination is merely following associations.

But that explanation of understanding cannot itself be verified.

If we deny all degrees to necessity, and confine it to a set of the barest abstractions, not much insight remains. The genuineness of insight does not depend on ensuing changes in practice. Perhaps in a poem, a piece of music, or some religious experience an insight is gained that one hesitates to call understanding, because understanding has become so identified as something abstractly intellectual. But such insight is understanding, unique, limited in degree, but still with rights of its own. And to reject it as understanding on the ground of its concreteness is absurd.

If I accept the ideal of concrete necessity, these varying insights are legitimized, ordered, and appraised. If I accept any other, some insights must be excluded.

32.24

Happy Birthday

May your joys today be many
And all your cares be few,
And all the years that lie ahead
Be perfect just for you.

Happy Birthday

Best Method

The criteria of the ultimate is the ultimate.