theoria

There is that. 

This is a gesture to immediate encounter. It gestures to space (there), time (is), and matter (that).

To gesture to the observed (there is that) is to reveal the observer (here is this).

I am this, here and now. 

Only matter exists. Space is understood from the relations of matter. Time is understood from the change in the relations of matter. 

Reality is the totality of matter in spatial and temporal relations.

Experience precedes knowledge; but knowledge precedes knowing that existence precedes experience.

If there is “this” and “this” (two objects), then there are “these”. With “these” there are “those”. And from this, all categories arise. 

For Aristotle, primary substances are “this x”. But already, in this phrase, is included the secondary substance of “x”. It is tautological to say, “this human is a human”. Aristotle avoided expressing this because he was aware of its tension. But this situation can be said logically. “This is a human”, is an adequate and coherent expression. He avoided the demonstrative. “There are things. And this is a human.” It can be said. And I am not afraid to say it. But Aristotle was. “This x” therefore “x”. Aristotle chose “x”. “This x” therefore “this”. I choose “this”.

Truth is not only the correspondence of language to reality (the totality of matter in spatial and temporal relations), but also correspondences of experience, knowledge, and action to reality.

What exists? Only matter exists. How do we know? We know through encounter, not category. How should we live? We must live in fidelity with reality, not only in what we say, but also in what we do, and in how we choose to experience and know. 

This is an outline of a philosophy of pure relational materialism.

The ethical implications of PRO (Pure Relational Ontology) arise directly from its ontological and epistemological foundations. Since PRO begins with material reality, acknowledges that all knowledge and language arise from experience, and demands truthfulness in correspondence to that reality, its ethics are grounded, non-idealistic, and action-based. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Ethics Follows Ontology and Language

Reality precedes experience, and experience precedes knowledge and language. Ethics is not abstract or imposed from above (e.g., divine, ideal, rational), but emerges from how one navigates these layers. Ethics in PRO is the correspondence between reality, thought, speech, and action. Therefore, truthful thinking, truthful speaking, and truthful acting are core ethical principles.

2. Anti-reification as Ethical Practice

PRO insists on minimal and transparent reification. Abstract entities are not “real” in themselves but are metaphorically constructed. To act ethically is to speak and think with awareness of reification, and avoid confusing the map (language/symbol) for the territory (reality). Misleading through abstraction—intentionally or not—is an ethical failure.

3. Material Commitment and Responsibility

Because all that exists is materially grounded, every ethical action must take account of the real-world consequences on actual beings (not fictions). Ethical action is not about aligning with ideals but aligning speech and action to reality as experienced and understood.

4. Situated Agent Responsibility

The speaker (external agent) is responsible for the act of expression. Ethics, then, includes the responsibility of casting: how one chooses to frame a situation, assign agency, and describe relations in a sentence, metaphor, or discourse. Every sentence is a moral act, insofar as it is a choice of perspective and relation.

5. No Universal Ethical Ideals

PRO rejects transcendental ethics. Ethics must be grounded in situated, embodied, experiential contexts. However, this is not relativism: truth still matters, but it is contextual, embodied, and materially-based.

6. Action-Based Ethics

PRO culminates in ethics as action: not what we think or say alone, but how we live and act in the world, in light of our understanding of reality and our symbolic expressions. Ethical life is continuous alignment across experience, knowledge, speech, and action.

Summary in One Line:

To live ethically in PRO is to speak and act truthfully, with awareness of how our concepts and words shape reality, and with responsibility to the material world they refer to.

0. Ontic Premise

0.1 There are things.

0.2 This is not a deduction, but an expression of presence.

0.3 To say “there are things” is to say “this,” “this,” and “this.”

0.4 Space arises from the relation of things.

0.5 Time arises from the change in these relations.

0.6 Matter, space, and time: this is reality.

1. Of Knowing

1.1 Reality precedes experience.

1.2 Experience precedes knowledge.

1.3 Knowledge precedes knowing that reality precedes experience.

1.4 Therefore, reflection cannot claim primacy over perception.

1.5 All knowledge is born in relation: between “this” and “that,” “here” and “there,” “now” and “then.”

2. Of Language

2.1 Language is the gesture of relation.

2.2 To say “that” is to imply “this.”

2.3 To say “there” is to imply “here.”

2.4 To say “then” is to imply “now.”

2.5 Language categorizes. Categories arise from naming.

2.6 “To name” is to reduce “this” to “x.”

2.7 Aristotle chose “x.”

2.8 I choose “this.”

3. Of Truth

3.1 Truth is the correspondence of experience, knowledge, language, and action to reality.

3.2 Truth is not said alone—it is lived.

3.3 A true life is not the naming of what is, but the alignment with what is.

3.4 Where there is misalignment between speech and presence, there is distortion.

4. Of the Self

4.1 I am this thing, here, now.

4.2 I do not stand outside what is.

4.3 I cannot speak for others, for I am not “those.”

4.4 I speak only “this.”

4.5 To know myself is to attend: not to category, but to presence.

5. Of Action

5.1 To act rightly is to act in correspondence with what is.

5.2 Do not act upon concepts alone, but upon what is seen, heard, touched—this.

5.3 Language must not override reality.

5.4 Naming must not suffocate presence.

5.5 Ethics arises when attention precedes judgment.

6. Final Principle

6.1 This x, therefore this.

6.2 Let philosophy begin, and end, in the humility of attention.

6.3 Live not in pursuit of truth as possession, but in practice of truth as alignment.

The initial experience is sense experience, not rational experience. What can you rationalize about if you do not have no experience of the world? Suppose someone from birth was in a coma. They are normal except having no sense input. Effectively they are a brain in a vat. For the idealist that would be a perfect world. The only conclusion to draw is the world is not in the mind but the mind is in the world. But does the mind exist in any way at all? If it did, and if thought is all that is necessary then again purely mental rational world is the ideal world. So the other non-mind world exists, firstly, and is necessary, or existent. The world was not created or generated to facilitate mind. It is the opposite. What do I experience? There are things. What else do I experience? There is space which is inferred from the relationship of things. And there is time which is inferred from the change in the relationship of things in inferred space. To infer is not to say they do not exist, but that I do not experience space and time without experiencing things. Inference is to say indirect experience and knowledge of space and time. Reality (the world) is the totality of things, space and time. There are purely physical things without thought or language, like rocks. There are also physical things which have thoughts about world, like dogs. And there are physical things which have thoughts and communicate about the world, like humans. These categories are not hierarchical but of difference in kind. I am a physical thing of the thinking communicating kind. I am a thing of the world. Human experience is of the physical world (the reality of things), thoughts (concepts), and language (symbols). Reality is the base. Whether you think or communicate or not is irrelevant to reality’s realism. Thinking and communication only contribute to our knowledge of it. 

In order to know something of the physical reality one must use physical senses. One cannot use non-physical sense(s). This is in some ways the mind-body problem. The mind being a different substance to body makes it difficult to explain how these can interact in any way.

The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body are physical organs. The brain too is a physical organ. In this way, experience can be explained to be fully performed by parts of the body with no need for inflation of entities.

In short, the mind is not a thing. The language represents it as an object, a reified one, when in reality it is a large complex set of processes. Although one may break these processes down to simpler ones, they ultimately remain processes.

A simple process like sitting does not belong to the object. For the object remains what it is regardless of whether it is sitting or standing. The processes are irrelevant to the existence of the object. Let us call it a particular. The particular remains this particular whether its properties or attributes (processes, qualities, or relations) change.

So attributes are not part of the object. A particular (object, thing) exists. Existence itself is not an attribute.