Human thought is habituated to ask, when confronted with any entity, “What is it?” This question assumes that objects exist independently, with intrinsic essence or identity waiting to be uncovered.
From a relational perspective, however, this assumption is profoundly misleading.
The Question’s Hidden Presupposition
Asking “What is it?” presupposes that the thing in question is a metaphysical primitive: a stable, bounded, and independently existing entity. It assumes that the role of thought or observation is to discover that essence.
Yet we have already seen that individuation is perspectival, objects are stabilised relational cuts, and persistence does not imply identity. The world does not provide these essences; they are the product of relational stabilisation under particular constraints.
Quantum, Biological, and Social Examples
Quantum physics: A particle’s properties are indeterminate until measurement. Asking what a particle “is” independent of observation misfires; the entity only actualises relative to a context.
Biology: A cell or organism is individuated relationally—through developmental context, functional role, and ecological interaction. Asking what it “is” in isolation overlooks the relational criteria that define its identity.
Social systems: Roles, institutions, and identities exist because of relational patterns: norms, recognition, interactions. Attempting to pin down a social object’s essence independently is equally futile.
Across domains, the question collapses relational richness into an imagined unity that does not exist.
The Misleading Search for Essence
The persistent urge to ask “What is it?” generates confusion and paradox. It motivates metaphysical models, reification, and disputes over identity that obscure relational dynamics. Essence becomes a phantom, and failure to locate it is misread as breakdown or incompleteness.
This habit also misleads formalisation: it treats stable identity as pre-given, when in fact stability itself must be actively maintained through relations.
From Thing to Trajectory
The correct move is to replace the search for intrinsic essence with an attention to trajectory: the evolving pattern of relations that sustains individuation and objecthood over time. Trajectories capture continuity, transformation, and context-dependence without assuming immutable cores.
This shift dissolves the metaphysical misdirection: the “what” of a thing is never an independent property. It is always a relational achievement actualised through interaction and observation.
Preparing the Series’ Conclusion
Recognising the error of asking “What is it?” clears the conceptual space for the final post, From Thing to Trajectory, where objects are reframed entirely as patterns in motion. Persistence, individuation, and relational cuts converge into a coherent account of objecthood without ever appealing to intrinsic essence.
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