Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Network neuroscience explains the function of a neural region by its position within a connectome rather than by its intrinsic properties. This paper argues that this explanatory practice is tacitly committed to a relational ontology: the thesis that a neural system's properties are constituted by, not merely correlated with, the relations among its parts, which the science relies on but does not articulate. Spinoza’s theory of modes, I argue, articulates and defends precisely this ontology: on Spinoza’s account, a finite mode is individuated by its place within the causal order rather than by any relation-independent essence, so that the notion of a part with a fixed nature “prior to” its relations is incoherent. The relation between the two is therefore not an analogy but an articulation: neuroscience presupposes an individuation-by-relation ontology, which Spinoza states and defends. After distinguishing three Spinozan relations (inherence, causal determination, individuation) and locating the argument within current Spinoza scholarship, the paper defends the move from methodological to ontological relationalism against three objections and reads connectome, neuroplasticity, and affect as instances of the single thesis. The result is modest yet twofold: neuroscience gains an explicit ontological rationale for its relational explanations, and Spinoza's contested relational individuation acquires a concrete case in which it performs substantive explanatory work.
Author: Abdurrazak Gültekin
Institution: Inonu University
Language: Turkish
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7224763724