Relational Ontology of Carlo Revelli

Discussion

Eric Schaetzle:

" “In “Helgoland” Rovelli explains his “relational” interpretation, in which an electron, say, has properties only when it interacts with something else. When it’s not interacting, the electron is devoid of physical properties: no position, no velocity, no trajectory. Even more radical is Rovelli’s claim that the electron’s properties are real only for the object it’s interacting with and not for other objects. “The world fractures into a play of points of view that do not admit of a univocal, global vision,” Rovelli writes. Or, as he puts it, “Facts are relative.” It’s a dramatic denunciation of physics as a discipline that provides an objective, third-person description of reality. Rovelli invokes Nagarjuna, a second-century Buddhist thinker, when saying that “every perspective exists only in interdependence with something else, there is never an ultimate reality.””

In one of the final subsections of the book, with the heading "The world seen from within", Rovelli states this perspectivism most clearly: "If the world consists of relations, then every description of the world is from inside it, they are all in the first person. The externally observed world does not exist; what exists are only internal, partial perspectives on the world that reflect one another. The world is this reciprocal reflection of perspectives." (182) This brings to mind the "ethic of reciprocity" that is a central to moral systems around the world. It should not be difficult to see that before we can love our neighbor, we must be able to reflect upon their perspective. The anonymous text that is usually called the Prayer of St. Francis includes the lines "Seek not so much to be understood as to understand." The emphasis is clearly placed on seeing the world through the perspective of others, whether these are family members (past, present, and future) or more distantly related members of Creation (Francis is known for his love of nature). In prayers, meditation, and writing, understanding and exchanging perspectival positions between ourselves and others is one of the objectives. While Rovelli does not speculate on such cultural implications."

(https://pedon.blogspot.com/2021/06/relationalism.html)

More information

• The Relationalism of Wang Yangming