The Knowing World: VI. The System and the Instance

If a theory is a structured potential for making instances intelligible, then we need to look more closely at the relation between the two.

A system is a field of possibilities.

An instance is something that occurs within that field.

The system makes the instance intelligible by providing distinctions through which it can be construed.

But the instance is not simply an example of what the system already knows.

Something happens.

We ask what it is.

The system gives us possibilities for answering.

And sometimes the answer does not quite fit.

This is where the relation becomes interesting.

An instance can confirm the distinctions already available. It can also expose a distinction that is too crude, a relation that has been overlooked, or a possibility that the system did not previously contain.

The instance can therefore act back upon the system.

This does not mean that every anomalous instance overturns a theory.

Most instances simply disappear into the existing potential. But occasionally an instance creates enough pressure for the system to change.

A new distinction appears.

A new relation becomes possible.

The horizon moves.

So the relation between system and instance is not one-way.

The system makes the instance intelligible; the instance can make the system inadequate.

This gives us a different picture of knowledge.

Knowledge is not simply the accumulation of instances under an increasingly elaborate theory.

It is a continuing movement between potential and occurrence.

The system opens a space in which something can become intelligible.

The instance tests what that space can contain.

And when the instance exceeds it, the potential itself may change.

Perhaps this is why a living theory cannot be separated entirely from what it construes.

It is not a finished structure imposed upon experience.

It is a potential that remains capable of being altered by the very instances it makes possible to recognise.

The system and the instance are therefore not two independent things.

They are two moments in a continuing process of articulation.

And this brings us to a tiny word that may carry an extraordinary amount of weight:

What does it mean for an instance to be an instance of something?