Nothing exists entirely by itself.
Everything becomes through relation.
Why does relation appear so fundamental?
For much of Western philosophy, relation was often understood as something existing between already complete entities. Things or substances first existed; only afterwards did they enter into relationships with one another. A process-relational metaphysics invites us to consider a different possibility:
What if relation is not secondary to reality but one of its most fundamental conditions? What if enduring realities emerge through relation rather than merely participating in it after they already exist?
This possibility marks an important turning point in the development of an open relational process metaphysics. If relation belongs to the constitutive structure of reality itself, then becoming is no longer simply change occurring within reality. Becoming describes the dynamic activity through which relational reality continually develops and transforms. Likewise, embodiment is no longer understood merely as the possession of material form. It becomes the temporary achievement of relational coherence—the emergence of relatively stable realities capable of persistence, identity, meaning, and participation within an ever-unfolding world.
This essay therefore begins a new stage in our exploration. Rather than surveying competing philosophical systems, we begin developing the conceptual grammar of an open relational process metaphysics itself. Three ideas will guide the essays that follow:
Relation constitutes the conditions of becoming.Becoming opens possibilities for coherence.Coherence enables relatively stable embodiment.Embodiment opens toward further participation.
Together these principles do not constitute a finished philosophical system. They simply offer a way of asking whether reality may be more faithfully understood as an open, relational, and continually creative process of becoming.
The journey therefore continues - not by abandoning the philosophical traditions that have brought us this far, but by allowing their enduring insights to converge within a broader and more coherent understanding of the reality we all inhabit.
Relation is not what connects reality.
Relation is how reality exists.- R. E. Slater
Some begin with matter. Others begin with mind. Still others begin with God, consciousness, energy, information, substance, or process. Each starting point shapes everything that follows, for the first principles of a philosophy inevitably determine the questions it is able - or unable - to ask.
The tradition we have inherited has often begun with things. Whether understood as substances, objects, individuals, or discrete entities, reality has frequently been imagined as composed of independently existing beings that subsequently enter into relationships with one another. Relation, within this framework, becomes secondary. Things exist first; relations connect them afterward.
An open relational process metaphysics proposes a different point of departure.
Rather than asking how independent entities become related, it asks whether relation itself is the primary condition through which entities emerge at all. This is not merely a reversal of philosophical priorities. It is a reconsideration of what it means for anything to exist. If nothing exists entirely by itself, then relation cannot simply be an accidental property added to already complete realities. Relation belongs to the very possibility of existence.
This shift carries profound implications. Identity is no longer understood as something possessed prior to relationship. Rather, identity gradually emerges through the histories of relation that give rise to relatively enduring forms of coherence and embodiment. To exist is therefore not merely to be an isolated thing, but to participate within a continually unfolding web of relationships through which existence itself becomes possible.
This insight has appeared repeatedly throughout the history of philosophy, although often under different names. Eastern traditions spoke of dependent origination, harmony, and the interdependence of all things. Process philosophers emphasized becoming, prehension, and creative advance. Contemporary discussions explore systems, emergence, ecological networks, and relational ontology. Although their vocabularies differ, they increasingly converge upon a similar intuition: relation is not simply one characteristic of reality. It belongs to the way reality continually comes into being.
The question before us, then, is no longer whether relations exist. Few would deny that they do. The deeper question is whether relation belongs to the constitutive structure of reality itself - whether it belongs not merely to our description of reality but to the very conditions through which reality exists and becomes.
It is this possibility that the present essay explores.
Before there are enduring things,
there are relations from which enduring things emerge.- R. E. Slater
These traditions remain among the greatest accomplishments of human thought. They supplied the conceptual foundations for centuries of philosophical, theological, and scientific reflection. Yet they also shared a common starting point. They generally assumed that enduring realities existed prior to the relationships into which they entered. Relation explained interaction; it did not explain existence itself.
Comparatively, a process-relational metaphysics asks whether this order of explanation might be reconsidered.
What if relation is not something that follows existence but one of the conditions through which existence continually arises? What if enduring realities are not the metaphysical beginning of the story but the relatively stable achievements of countless relational histories? Such questions do not deny the importance of substance. They ask whether substance itself requires a deeper explanation.
This possibility does not diminish Aristotle's concern for persistence. Rather, it enriches it. A mountain, a forest, an organism, a person, or a civilization all exhibit remarkable continuity across time. Yet none exists independently of the innumerable relationships through which it continually maintains its coherence. Stability, in this sense, is not the absence of becoming but one of becoming's most remarkable achievements.
Seen from this perspective, relation and substance cease to function as competing metaphysical principles. Relational becoming helps explain how realities emerge, develop, and remain capable of transformation. Substance describes the relatively enduring embodiments through which those relational achievements become historically present. Each therefore illuminates a different aspect of the same reality within a process-relational metaphysic.
The philosophical question is no longer whether substance exists. Clearly it does. The deeper question becomes whether substance is metaphysically fundamental or whether it represents the enduring embodiment of a more fundamental relational constitution continually expressed through becoming. If the latter proves persuasive, then relation does not replace substance. Rather, relational becoming helps explain how enduring substances arise, persist, and remain capable of transformation.
The implications of this shift extend far beyond metaphysics alone. If relation is primary, then identity, freedom, community, creativity, meaning, and even knowledge itself must all be reconsidered within a fundamentally relational horizon. The remainder of this essay begins exploring those implications.
Relation constitutes.Becoming generates.Coherence stabilizes.Embodiment persists and participates.
- R. E. Slater
If relation belongs to the constitutive structure of reality, then reality cannot be understood as a collection of already completed entities interacting from positions of independent existence. Becoming is intrinsically relational. It is the generative dynamism through which relational reality continually develops, differentiates, and gives rise to new forms.
This marks one of the most significant departures from classical metaphysical thinking. Traditionally, becoming was often regarded as something occurring to substances already in existence. A process-relational metaphysics reconsiders this order of explanation. Becoming is no longer understood merely as an accidental modification of independent things. Rather, becoming describes the continual generative activity through which relational reality explores possibilities for increasingly coherent forms of existence.
This does not imply perpetual instability or ceaseless flux. On the contrary, relational becoming continually opens possibilities for coherence. Through countless interactions, patterns emerge. Some persist. Others disappear. Still others organize into increasingly stable embodiments capable of sustaining their own histories through time. Reality therefore exhibits remarkable continuity precisely because relational becoming is capable of achieving enduring forms rather than producing endless fragmentation.
Seen in this light, becoming is neither the opposite of being nor the denial of permanence. Becoming is the creative movement through which relatively stable forms continually arise, endure for a season, and participate in further histories of relation. Every embodiment represents both an achievement of previous becoming and the beginning of future becoming.
One may therefore summarize the process-relational movement of reality in a simple progression:
Relation → Becoming → Coherence → Embodiment
Relation constitutes the conditions of becoming.
Becoming generates and explores new possibilities.
Coherence stabilizes relational patterns.
Embodiment gives those coherent achievements relatively enduring form.
Embodiments then participate in further relations, opening new possibilities for becoming.
The movement is therefore not circular but developmental. Each embodiment enriches the field of future relations from which new possibilities emerge. Reality does not merely repeat itself. It continually enlarges the possibilities through which future becoming may occur. Here we may recall the Heraclitean image: “You cannot step into the same river twice.”
This relational understanding of becoming also helps explain why contemporary philosophy increasingly finds itself speaking the language of emergence, living systems, ecological interdependence, network complexity, and relational participation across scales. Although these conversations arise from diverse disciplines, they repeatedly converge upon a common insight:
Reality appears capable of generating novelty through relational becoming itself. Becoming is therefore not an interruption of reality but one of the principal ways reality continually expresses its creative character.
Relational becoming opens possibilities for coherence.Where coherence emerges, enduring worlds become possible.
- R. E. Slater
The answer appears to lie not in becoming alone but in the emergence of coherence.
Coherence is neither imposed from outside reality nor guaranteed by every relational encounter. Rather, coherence emerges whenever relationships become sufficiently integrated to sustain themselves through time. Most relations remain transient. Some dissolve almost immediately. Others achieve increasing stability, allowing new levels of organization to arise. It is this gradual emergence of coherence that makes enduring embodiments possible.
An open relational process metaphysics therefore understands coherence as one of the great achievements of becoming. Becoming continually generates possibilities. Coherence emerges as relational patterns become sufficiently integrated to persist rather than dissipate. Reality is therefore neither random nor rigidly predetermined. It remains genuinely open while continually exhibiting an astonishing capacity for self-organization.
Seen in this light, embodiment no longer appears as an isolated metaphysical event. Every embodiment represents the temporary stabilization of coherent relational activity. Mountains, ecosystems, organisms, languages, cultures, institutions, and persons all embody histories of relational coherence that have successfully endured through countless moments of becoming.
This perspective also helps explain why dissolution occupies an equally important place within reality. Not every relation achieves coherence. Many possibilities remain unrealized. Others flourish only briefly before giving way to new configurations of relation and becoming. Dissolution is therefore not the opposite of reality's creativity but one of the ways through which reality continually remains open to novelty, adaptation, and further emergence.
The movement may therefore be expressed as:
Relation → Becoming → Coherence → Embodiment
Relation constitutes the conditions of possibility.
Becoming generates and explores new possibilities.
Coherence stabilizes relational patterns.
Embodiment gives those coherent achievements enduring historical presence.
Every embodiment then participates in new relations through which the entire movement begins again.
Reality thus unfolds neither as perpetual chaos nor as fixed permanence. Reality continually generates, tests, stabilizes, and transforms its own possibilities through the dynamic interplay of relation, becoming, coherence, and embodiment. Stable worlds are not exceptions to becoming. They are among its most remarkable achievements.
Nothing exists alone.
Therefore nothing becomes alone.- R. E. Slater
The first consequence concerns individuality itself. A relational metaphysics does not deny the existence of individuation. Rather, it understands individuals as coherent embodiments whose histories have emerged through innumerable relationships. Individuality therefore becomes more rather than less significant, for every enduring individual represents a distinctive achievement of relational becoming.
A second consequence concerns creativity. If relational becoming continually generates new possibilities, then novelty need not appear as an inexplicable interruption imposed upon reality. Creativity belongs to reality's ordinary manner of unfolding. Every coherent embodiment enlarges the horizon of future possibilities by contributing something genuinely new to the ongoing history of the universe.
A third consequence concerns knowledge. Human understanding can no longer be imagined simply as the detached observation of an independent world by isolated minds. Knowing begins to appear as a form of relational participation, for we ourselves belong to the reality we seek to understand. Philosophy therefore becomes less the construction of closed abstract systems than the continual refinement of our correspondence with the world we inhabit.
A fourth consequence concerns freedom. If relational becoming is genuinely open to novelty, then the future need not be completely predetermined by the past. Every new becoming inherits conditions from what has preceded it while opening possibilities that may not be exhausted by that inheritance. Freedom may therefore emerge not as independence from relation, but as an increasingly complex capacity arising within relationally organized forms of becoming. Openness, on this account, belongs not to relation alone but to the possibilities continually generated within an unfinished reality.
Finally, relation transforms our understanding of participation. Every coherent embodiment contributes to realities larger than itself while simultaneously being shaped by them. Persons participate in communities. Communities participate in cultures. Organisms participate in ecosystems. Civilizations participate in history. Reality continually unfolds through these nested patterns of mutual participation, each enlarging the possibilities of the others.
The implications of relation therefore extend far beyond one philosophical school or another. They suggest a different way of understanding existence itself. Reality appears less as an assemblage of isolated substances than as an open field of relational becoming in which coherence, embodiment, and participation continually open new possibilities for the future.
For this reason, relation should not be understood merely as one category among many. It increasingly appears as one of the most fundamental constitutive conditions through which reality becomes capable of history, creativity, persistence, identity, meaning, and continually renewed possibility.
Conclusion - The Primacy of Relation
Ontology gives the vocabulary.
Metaphysics gives the grammar.
Interpretation gives the meaning.
Theology gives the orientation.
Ethics gives the response.
Participation gives the life.
The purpose of this essay has not been to argue that relational process is the only reality, nor to deny the importance of enduring beings, stable identities, or coherent worlds. Rather, it has proposed that relation is one of the most fundamental conditions through which these realities continually arise.
This proposal also brings this present Reality & Metaphysics series into direct conversation with the earlier ontological investigations of the Embodied Relational Reality (ERR) series. There we sought to describe the constitutive architecture through which relational reality becomes embodied, coherent, persistent, and identifiable. Here, as we work through Open Relational Process Metaphysics of Becoming (ORPMOB), we begin asking how that relational reality dynamically unfolds through becoming.
The two projects therefore address complementary questions and investigations:
Ontology describes the constitutive architecture of reality.
Metaphysics explores the generative dynamics through which relational reality continually becomes.
Together they suggest a common movement:
Relation → Becoming → Coherence → Embodiment → Persistence → Identity → Meaning → Direction → Possibility
Within this developing philosophical grammar, relation names the constitutive condition of reality. Becoming describes its generative dynamism. Coherence marks the achievement of sufficiently integrated relational organization, while embodiment gives that coherence relatively stable form. From these may arise persistence and identity, followed at increasingly complex levels by richer forms of meaning, direction, and possibility. Together these categories begin to describe how relational reality may develop from fundamental constitution toward increasingly complex forms of organization and participation.
The remaining essays will explore each of these categories in greater depth. Having established the primacy of relation, we now turn to becoming itself - not merely as change, but as the continual generative activity through which relational reality unfolds.
For if relation is constitutive of reality,
then becoming is its dynamic expression.
Likewise, Edgar Morin may quietly become more important than we first realized. His work on complexity, organization, and relational thought often feels remarkably congenial to our emphasis on coherence and emergence. As ORPMOB matures, Morin may become one of its most fruitful contemporary conversation partners - not replacing Whitehead, but helping extend the process tradition into today's discussions of complex, organized, and evolving systems.
Overall, the bibliography has the right balance. Whitehead remains the central historical conversation partner, while the surrounding works demonstrate that the primacy of relation is no longer confined to one school of philosophy but has become part of a much broader contemporary intellectual landscape. That seems entirely fitting for Essay 13.
