The Relational Mode of Thinking

How do we make sense of the world, and how does this impact our views?

The Relational Thinking of Western Philosophy

Modern Western philosophy is rooted in the works of the ancient Greeks who pioneered the method of rational and logical thinking. Developing a methodology to explore abstract concepts and facilitate the progression of societies to the point we observe today. Although it may seem obvious to us now how to form logical arguments, there was a time when this thinking mode was beyond the scope of many. Indeed, the great Western philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle are arguably some of the first humans to adopt this style of thinking. To develop this rationality they had to separate themselves from more primitive forms. As Ancient Greek civilisations had religious practices at the core of their culture, the typical mode of thinking was detached from one’s own consciousness. Priests would speak the word of God, they would not derive their own interpretation. This primitive thinking mode involved a lot of direct and specific language, there would be comprehensive descriptions of objects that lacked analysis, and the concept of the self was replaced by collective references. One of the first Ancient Greek philosophers who started the transition from this primitive mode of thinking to more rational thinking was Heraclitus. Living in the fifth century before Christ, Heraclitus pioneered alternative modes of thinking. One of his most iconic lines of thought led him to determine that fire was the source of all things. Moreover, he argued that the universe is the same for all, a rather absurd thought at the time due to the significance of religion in the culture. Heraclitus frequently appeals to the analogy to formalise his thinking. He used his imagination to build a universe of relations. His obsession with fire perhaps comes from its malleability to analogy. Therefore, we see that the first Western philosophy capitalised on relations to make sense of the world and thus it is no surprise that these ideas permeate our modern thinking. A reason why this contrastive thinking was attractive for early philosophers is up for debate. However, one could possibly make an evolutionary argument. Knowing good from bad is important for survival as we must avoid the bad things and capture the good things when they arise. It would be detrimental if we conflated these notions. Hence, having strong abilities to develop relations seems like a necessary skill for survival.

The Impact on Our Political Opinions

Frank Furedi said in an interview that we tend to form our views as the opposite of those held by people we disagree with. Clinging onto our evolutionary argument, we could say this is because we see those who disagree with us as the enemy, and thus to differentiate them we must form opposing views. Furedi claims that this is fuelling the current culture wars, where we seem to be ever more divided with the possibility of reconciliation becoming less plausible. As this style of thinking may be attributed to our primitive brain, it may be the case that this behaviour is largely unintentional by the individual, but rather an instinctive response. Consequently, it is not clear whether the large political changes we are observing are in response to this instinctive behaviour, or represent a reasoned shift in perspective. One would hope that everyone is forming their beliefs through rational thinking rather than through spite.

These opposing forces shaping the political landscape have meant that the main political ideologies are not static entities, but evolve. In The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan, several examples are provided that show the dynamic position of the right and the left ideologies. In some instances, they have represented the same views, albeit at different points in time. Despite this, we note that there has always been a right and a left. They never seem to converge. They may be closer to each other at different points in history, but as a civilisation, we are never inclined to consider them as one entity. This is perhaps due to our reliance on relational thinking. If there were not a right and a left, then we would not be able to make sense of their ideologies as there would be nothing to compare them to. How often do you categorise your political views on one side by understanding how your views are not aligned with those on the other side?

Intelligence and Emotion

Developing concepts through relational arguments is perhaps one of the key factors of our intelligence. To learn something it is not sufficient to know when you are right or when you are wrong, but you must understand how right and how wrong you are. Therefore, having the capacity to develop detailed connections leads to more effective learning. Moreover, our emotions are heavily governed by contrast. For example, a sunny day after a rainy day is more satisfying than a sunny day after consecutive sunny days. In my opinion, we cannot experience such happiness and satisfaction without experiencing their negative counterparts. Therefore, we should often seek challenges and discomfort to exemplify and encounter positive emotions.

The Power of Two

It is not clear why we seek to attribute meaning to things through relations, and specifically why these relations are between two objects. We can certainly derive meaning from three objects. A simple answer would just be that keeping track of two objects is easier than keeping track of any higher number of objects, but why is it the case that the comparison between two objects is sufficient to capture the necessary meaning? For example, why can we broadly characterise the political opinions of society as being right or left? Now it may be just that I am asking these questions in the wrong order. Perhaps as we are only capable of keeping track of two objects, we have developed a society such that sufficient meaning can be derived from the comparison between two objects. However, looking from a less anthropomorphic perspective we see that when dealing with more than two objects things get significantly more complicated. Consider, the dynamics between objects that exert a gravitational force on one another. With two objects the dynamics are well understood and can be predicted. However, as soon as we add a third object we arrive at the three-body problem, where the resulting dynamics of the system is notoriously difficult to simulate. Similarly, the double pendulum is an example of a chaotic system. Here the chaos arises due to the interaction between the force of gravity, the centripetal force of the first pendulum, and the centripetal force of the second pendulum. From these examples, it seems as though there is a natural tendency for the interaction between two objects to be meaningful and stable, but with the interaction between more objects being chaotic. Therefore, we may argue that our relational mode of thinking is a natural consequence of the structure of the universe.