The cut is the heartbeat of relational ontology. Without it, system and instance collapse into undifferentiated potential. With it, possibility is sliced into actualisation. The cut is where theory meets event, where structured potential confronts the world.
Yet the cut is also the site of latent danger. If it cannot be grounded without presupposition, if it secretly relies on what it claims to individuate, then the ontology risks circularity. This is the first pressure point: the cut itself.
1. What the Cut Does
Relational ontology frames the world as a network of potentials, a structured field of possibility. An instance — an event, a phenomenon, a text, a thought — emerges as a cut: a perspectival incision through that field. The cut does three things simultaneously:
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Actualises potential – The cut selects one instantiation from the infinite array of possibilities contained in the system.
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Distinguishes instance from potential – By marking the boundaries of what is actualised, the cut separates the realised from the unrealised without assuming an external frame.
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Constitutes construal – The act of cutting is not passive. It configures meaning; it is co-constitutive of the phenomena it reveals.
The cut is therefore not a tool, not a method, not a metaphor. It is an event of relational structuring.
2. The Risk of Presupposition
Here is the danger. If the cut presupposes the very distinctions it is meant to generate, it risks becoming circular. Consider the following:
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The cut is defined as the locus of differentiation between potential and instance.
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But what individuates the cut? What specifies its boundaries?
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If the boundaries are assumed, the cut is not emergent; it is simply projected.
In other words, if we cannot specify how the cut comes into being without already invoking the system-instance distinction, we have substituted explanatory depth with definitional tautology.
This is not merely a philosophical quibble. It is a structural weakness. If the cut is presupposed rather than grounded, relational ontology loses its claim to account for instantiation as a genuine relational phenomenon. It becomes a descriptive framework, not an operative ontology.
3. Locating Grounding in the Relational Field
How, then, might the cut be grounded without presupposition? One approach is to locate it within the relational field itself:
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The system is a structured potential, which is not a thing but a network of relations.
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Cuts emerge where relations intensify, cohere, or encounter constraints.
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Instantiation is therefore perspectival, but not arbitrary: it is shaped by the local density and configuration of relational potential.
This positions the cut as emergent from relational tension. It is not projected onto the system from outside; it arises naturally where possibility is forced to choose a pathway.
Yet even this approach carries danger. How dense must a network of relations become to produce a cut? Could some cuts be unstable, fleeting, or indeterminate? These questions are not theoretical luxuries; they are stress points.
4. Examples of Pressure in Action
To make the stakes concrete, consider a few examples:
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Textual Instance – A novel emerges from the potential of language and culture. The cut is the moment a sentence is written, a chapter is structured, a narrative takes form. But if we assume the author’s intention or the genre conventions as given, have we presupposed the cut rather than explaining its emergence?
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Phenomenological Instance – Conscious perception actualises potential sensory data. The cut is the focus of attention, the delineation of figure from ground. Yet the “figure-ground” distinction cannot be invoked as primitive without risking circularity. Grounding must be relational: attention is drawn by intensity, salience, or constraining interactions within the perceptual field.
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Social Instance – A coordinated action emerges in a social network. The cut is the actual performance: a protest, a negotiation, a ritual. But if we take the social norms as pre-existing and fully determinate, we risk presupposing the cut. Instead, relational constraints within the network must generate the instance organically.
In each case, the cut is not projected; it is emergent. But its grounding is subtle, contingent, and structurally fragile.
5. The Tension Between Grounding and Freedom
Relational ontology must balance two opposing forces:
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Constraint – The cut must be individuated, realisable, and coherent. Without constraint, everything is potential and nothing is actual.
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Freedom – The cut cannot be over-determined by prior assumptions. Over-determination collapses relational emergence into mechanical instantiation.
The cut exists in the tension between these poles. Too much rigidity → determinism, loss of relational richness. Too much freedom → indeterminacy, collapse of meaningful distinction.
This tension is the first real test of the ontology’s structural integrity. Can it hold the cut without collapsing into tautology or arbitrariness?
6. The Cut as an Operational Pressure Point
We now treat the cut itself as a pressure point, the first site of experimental interrogation in this series. The questions to guide the analysis are:
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What mechanisms within the relational field produce the cut?
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Where might the cut fail to individuate instance from potential?
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Are there cases where the cut is indeterminate, fleeting, or contradictory?
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Can we specify these limits without invoking presupposed distinctions?
By pressing on these points, we allow the ontology to reveal its internal weaknesses. We do not patch them; we observe them. Some will yield, and some will hold — and each response informs the structure of possibility itself.
7. Closing: The Trembling Begins
The cut is where relational ontology begins to tremble. Its grounding is subtle; its failure would be structural, not incidental.
In the next posts, we will trace further pressure points — constraint, boundary preservation, empirical friction — each of which will stress-test the system from a different angle. But the cut is primary: it is the locus where theory meets instance, where possibility must be drawn into actualisation.
By interrogating the cut, we do not destroy the ontology. We enact it. We let it respond, adapt, and reveal its resilience or fragility.
And in that trembling, we discover the measure of possibility itself.
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