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desire, force, hierarchy

Imagine a much stronger person acting on one who is weaker an smaller.  The two compete with each other when it comes to displaying force.  That is, they counteract each other.  Also, one can note both forces using the same register.

Imagine a more knowledgeable person persuading one who less so to act a certain way (e.g., an architect giving plans to a bricklayer).  The one being directed displays desire, as does the director.  Neither display of desire negates the achievements of the other; rather, at least in certain scenarios, the achievements of each one magnify those of the other (the less knowledgeable is able to achieve more than he/she otherwise could and vise versa).  Also, note that one can recognize the two desires and their fulfillments only by using two different registers.  For example, think about an architect telling a bricklayer how to lay bricks by drawing a blueprint: the bricklayer registers whether he/she has laid bricks well by registering how they are placed with respect to each other, to other materials, and to their environment; the architect registers whether she/he has designed a house well by registering how the parts of the house such as rooms and the house as a whole relate to other parts, to humans and the physical environment.

My point: When we look at a hierarchy of powers, we often conceive of them as competing forces.  But what if they relate to each other more like the complementary desires given in the second example?  What if we can only note this relation by employing different registers?

Furthermore, isn't the objection the only non-dualistic alternative to reductionism is vitalism (and the assumption that this objection is fatal to non-reductivism) seen as cogent only because the objector conceives of the issue according to the first example, when thinking of it according to the second example would both more adequately represent the situation and undermine the objection?

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