Misreading Relational Ontology I: 6 How Not to Read Relational Ontology (A Field Guide to Ontological Category Errors)

Relational ontology is deceptively simple to misread. Misreadings rarely occur because the ideas are obscure; they occur because readers import categories that the ontology does not recognise. This post is a field guide: a set of diagnostic checks to detect category errors before they cascade.

1. Watch for substance thinking.

Ask: Is the reader treating systems, folds, or potentials as pre-existing, independent entities? If yes, this is a classic category error. In relational ontology, entities are perspectival instantiations, not discrete objects. Confusing actualisation with intrinsic substance turns relational ontology into something it is explicitly not.

2. Check for subjectivity slippage.

Does the text equate “perspectival” with “subjective,” “experiential,” or “mental”? If yes, this is another misreading. Perspectival instantiation is formal, not cognitive. Assuming otherwise imports psychology into an ontological frame where it does not belong.

3. External/internal framing.

Does the reader ask which elements are “inside” or “outside” the system? That question assumes boundaries relational ontology does not recognise. Any attempt to locate absolute interiors or exteriors is a misframing.

4. Human-centrism and social bias.

Do explanations privilege human perception, language, or culture? Humans may be folds, but they are not the creators of the lattice. Substituting anthropocentric categories for relational ones is a persistent error.

5. Conflating epistemology with ontology.

Does the reader treat relational actualisation as dependent on knowing, measuring, or perceiving it? Relational ontology describes how possibilities instantiate, not how they are known. Mistaking the two is a subtle but devastating error.

6. Reductionist temptations.

Do attempts to “explain” the ontology slice away relational complexity into isolated components? Reductionism misreads relational ontology by default—it treats relations as secondary to substance, collapsing dynamic lattices into static diagrams.

Using this field guide, one can pre-empt misreadings rather than reactively correct them. Each misreading stems from a category substitution, and each substitution can be detected with a simple question: Which categories have been imported, and do they belong to relational ontology?

In short: relational ontology is rigorous precisely because it is category-conscious. Misreadings arise when readers fail to track which categories are legitimate. Spot the substitution early, and the ontology’s structure remains uncorrupted.

Next: why reductionists will misunderstand relational ontology by default, and how to recognise the error before it propagates.