Objecthood as Alternation: Dynamic Existence and the Infinitesimal Center

Objecthood is best understood as dynamic relational individuation rather than static self-presence. An object appears as one through structured perceptual, temporal, bodily, practical, mnemonic, anticipatory, and intersubjective transitions. The paper introduces the notion of an infinitesimal center: a non-objective unity-function that gathers a manifold as one object. Alternation extends Husserlian horizonality, Merleau-Pontian motor intentionality, Gibsonian affordance theory, Gestalt organization, and sensorimotor enactivism by explaining objectivity as stabilized transposability among standpoints. The ontological proposal is abductive, asking what account of objecthood best explains effective reidentifiability, resistance, and unity across variation. A final implication suggests a field-priority alternative to atomistic micropsychism.

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Abstract

This paper develops a phenomenological ontology of objecthood centered on alternation. Its phenomenological thesis is that an object appears as one only through structured perceptual, temporal, bodily, practical, mnemonic, anticipatory, and intersubjective transitions. Its ontological thesis is more cautious: objecthood, as objecthood, is best understood as dynamic relational individuation rather than static self-presence. Alternation is returnable transition: distinguishable phases are held together such that a thing can be recognized, corrected, restored, or transformed across variation. The paper introduces the notion of an infinitesimal center: not a spatial point, hidden substance, or mathematical infinitesimal, but the non-objective unity-function through which a manifold is gathered as one object. Alternation extends Husserlian horizonality, Merleau-Pontian motor intentionality, Gibsonian affordance theory, Gestalt organization, and sensorimotor enactivism by explaining objectivity as stabilized transposability among standpoints. The ontological proposal is abductive rather than deductive: it asks what account of objecthood best explains effective reidentifiability, resistance, and unity across variation. A final implication concerns panpsychism: if experience cannot arise from the wholly non-experiential, dynamic existence suggests a field-priority alternative to atomistic micropsychism.