Being as relation, not isolated substance

Determination requires difference

I argue that a difference incapable of making any difference under any conceivable conditions is an empty designation. I therefore understand entities not as self-enclosed bearers of properties but as determinate through constraints that select and exclude alternatives.

This is the core of what I call Relational Critical Realism: reality exceeds present observation, but what is determinately real cannot be wholly without relational consequences.

Two levels of ontological position

I distinguish two levels of ontological position. The primary position concerns the minimal fact that something is: nothingness is not a second, competing entity. The determinative position concerns differences between entities within Being, where relations are operative.

With this distinction, I aim to avoid treating nothingness as a thing while also accounting for the internal articulation of reality.

Relation to structural realism

I acknowledge a strong affinity with the ontic structural realism of Ladyman, Ross, and French. My central disagreement concerns whether a network of physical relations can be fully determinate without a manifest pole. I do not claim to have simply refuted structural realism; I identify a dispute over whether determinacy is primitive or requires an operative register of manifestation.