To maintain that social relations have a reality of their own (sui generis) means saying that they are not simply derived from something else, but reflect an order of reality of their own with internal dynamics that require theoretical-practical conceptualization. This order of reality is not derivable from or reduicble to this or that particular factor or variable (for example, ‘power’, as Elias maintains), but derives from the relatedness itself of the social order.
This relational ontology has, so to speak, an empirical foundation that can be known, in part, experientially. In the system of organic reference (body), a person cannot exist without air and without food, but the former cannot be reduced to the latter. In the system of social reference (social forms) the human being cannot exist without relations with others. These relations are what ‘constitutes’ his or her being a person, and are like the air and food necessary for the body. Were the relation with the other to be suspended, so too would the relation with the self. This, and nothing else, is what sociology deals with.
– Relational Sociology: A new paradigm for the social sciences. Pg 13. By Pierpaolo Donati
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