Jitse M. van der Meer

Professor
Redeemer University College

Since Plato, levels of organization have been acknowledged as a fundamental feature of reality. In the twentieth century the static notion of the level structure of reality of Plato and Aristotle has been replaced with a dynamic notion of emerging levels of organization. This is the notion in which Mariano Artigas discerns the mind of God immanent in the rationality of the cosmos. But confusion has existed about the nature of the levels and thus about the kind of rationality the cosmos displays. Entities are confused with modes of existence, parts are confused with wholes and different criteria for relating entities are used within the same level structure of entities. To resolve this confusion, I introduce a distinction between entities and their modes of existence (modalities). Modalities are not types or classes of things, but kinds of properties things appear to have and kinds of ordering principles that hold for those properties. There is an order of succession in the modalities. Any given modality is a necessary, but insufficient condition for the possibility of the next modality: Life requires matter, matter requires motion, motion requires space, and space requires number. This sequence is a level structure of modes of existence.

I then present a view of the part-whole relation. A part is governed by the same rules as the whole to which it belongs and cannot exist apart from the whole. This means that a part cannot be understood apart from the whole because it is closely integrated into the whole. This view allows one to distinguish parts from wholes, even when parts change into wholes and wholes into parts. It also allows one to distinguish between wholes that are governed by different rules. This distinction between the part-whole relation and the whole-whole relation allows for the construction of level structures that are internally consistent and thus display the rationality of the cosmos in the sense intended by Mariano Artigas.