The Theory of Relational Change: A Scientific Explanatory Framework Built upon the Ontology of Relational Change

Abstract

Contemporary metaphysics and theoretical physics have independently converged on the view that neither static substance nor static structure alone can furnish an adequate ontological foundation for physical and philosophical inquiry. Process ontology has argued that change, rather than enduring substance, may serve as ontologically basic; relational ontology has argued, independently, that relational structure, rather than the objects it relates, may be ontologically primary. These two literatures have developed largely in parallel, and neither, on its own, specifies how a primitive that is both dynamic and relational might be structured. This paper introduces the Theory of Relational Change (TRC), a scientific explanatory framework built upon the ontological foundations established in a companion work on Relational Change (RC). TRC proposes that Relational Change is the intrinsic relational manifestation of Change, where Change is the sole primitive ontological category whose intrinsic relationality is structured through the duality of coherence and excitation, with excitation necessarily defined through contextual relations. Rather than defending or reconstructing this ontology, the paper undertakes a systematic, conceptually oriented literature review that situates each of TRC's constitutive commitments within its corresponding scientific and philosophical literature, arguing that these commitments are individually well established even though their specific combination has not, to the best of our knowledge, been previously articulated. The paper's contribution is accordingly conceptual and integrative rather than empirical: it positions TRC as a disciplined synthesis of existing, validated ideas into an architecture not previously proposed, with implications for how relational and processual approaches to ontology might be jointly developed in future work.