relational realism

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Relational realism, in RB2’s ecological sense, treats affordances as real features of organism–environment relations defined relative to particular abilities. They are neither arbitrary mental projections nor environmental properties wholly independent of any possible agent. The proposal retains the reality of unnoticed opportunities and risks while distinguishing this ecological usage from differently scoped relational ontologies elsewhere in the books.

Explanation

The direct definition places reality in the relation between abilities and surroundings. Description need not posit an internal representation that first creates the opportunity. That position does not deny material constraint or make an affordance cease to exist whenever a particular organism fails to notice it.

RB2 presents ecological psychology alongside enactivism and phenomenology, preserving their distinct emphases. AB’s examples connect the relational account to practical access and skill. These parallels support an ecological sense without making all perceptions accurate, reducing every relation to an affordance or turning the comparison into one universally accepted metaphysics.

RB1’s Rovelli discussion concerns relational realism and its limits in a different physical and ontological setting; RB3 treats objects as real achieved relational organizations. Those comparisons do not establish identity with Gibsonian affordances. The entry records the local ecological sense while preserving those other contexts rather than silently transferring their technical commitments.

Scope and attribution

This ecological sense remains distinct from other relational theories discussed across the books.

AB — The Actual Book

Unnoticed affordances remain real.

Occurrence locators: 93, 94, 95.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Ecological reality is organism-relative and not identical to successful perception.

Occurrence locators: 67, 79.

Background used in the editorial explanation

The inherited ecological sense is distinguished from relational quantum mechanics and generic relational ontology.