Trying to make a Mendeleyev table for the modes of Existence

An alternative way to think on the modes of existence in such a way as to get suggestions on modes that may need splitting or on new modes that may be needed is to use the Medeleyev strategy (for organizing knowledge in Chemistry) and thus to organize them in ways that allow gaps to appear



I make here an effort but perhaps the idea of somehow projecting the modes of existence in a structure is more important than the specific effort

I used three main sources:
1. Maslow's hierarcy of needs. This is well known for moderns and I know that it is challenged (especially for people from other cultures). I am not familiar to all the litterature.
Why do I use it: When seeing a particular course of action I think that distinguishing modes of existence is not just an empirical issue. The complaint of the informants is not enough to distinguish the modes through the detection of a crossing (for example many informants complain that humans should be in the center even in AIME but they are brushed asside -I think-. Moreover when a counterintuitive proposal like AIME comes around it is expected that people will complain. I do not see a principled way to distinguish between different kinds of complains). So it is possible that the distinction of different modes  has to do with subjective factors such as the sensitivities and intutions of the principal researcher who must rely on his sense of needs and possibly follow the sense of needs highlighted by Maslow (since he is modern).
If modes of existence explain the values of moderns, what moderns do care for, their needs, and if they have different timbre between themselves then perhaps the modes can be projected on the different timbre that Maslow shows about different needs (although modes are more collective constructions)

2. Ruthellen Jossleson, dimensions of human relationships. Jossleson has written an important book, based on empirical research, analyzing different dimensions that “relationality” may have among humans

Josselson, R. (1995). The space between us: Exploring the dimensions of human relationships. Sage.
Why do I use it: It seems to me natural that Latour’s attempt to extract modes of existence, modes that refer to “beings baring relations” would be related to this categorization of human relationality (one of the very few that exist) so I tried to find out commonalities between modes of existence and the eight dimensions of relatedness that Josselson speaks about. If subjectivity is layered gradually through the “turning on” of different modes of existence and if the Subject is strongly composed through relations is it not expected that in the empirical work on human relations and their relation to the Subject there will be traces of these modes?

Dimension of relationality	Phrases taken from: Josselson, R. (1995). The space between us: Exploring the dimensions of human relationships. Sage.
Holding	Of all the ways in which people need each other, holding is the most primary, the least evident, the hardest to describe. Holding contains the invisible threads that tie us to our existence.  From the first moments of our life to the last, we need to be held –or we fall. Adolescents experience the absence of holding
Attachment	In attachment we “hold on” and thereby feel less alone. The foundation of attachment is the security of predictable responsiveness So much of the pain of adolescence is disappointment with the capriciousness and unreliability of attachements at this age. The securely attached adult feels in proximity to an important other (or others) whether or not that person is geographically close The fact of responsiveness is more important than its character. The power of the attachement system can supersede all other needs and can even supersede reason In attachment, unlike holding, the bond needs to serve no other purpose than responsiveness in a context of continuity
Embededness	Embededness, like holding and attachment, is silent rather than active and eventful. It is the framework that gives shape to selfhood, the context in which we define ourselves, the togetherness in which we are alone. The issues of embeddedness are the issues of the individual in group life. The successful resolution of such a crisis of embeddedness is a deep sense that “here, with this group of people, I belong” Unlike the other dimensions of relatedness, embeddedness is an impersonal experience
Passionate Experience	Relatedness in the service of passion is a story of arousal and union. The passions are foreground phenomena. We long for the sense that the other wants what we want, identically and in the same moment Powerful urges to engulf, to penetrate, to devour, to contain, to own and to control accompany the wish to merge Falling in love represents above all hope… the essential core of the experience is [to exist ] as a container of hope and futurity The idea of “forever” is always a part of passionate love The quest for particularity and specialness through love was part of each person’s story
Eye to eye validation	The gleam in our mother’s eye reflects the essential goodness of our being and forms the core of our sense of specialness The look of love is a look of intense valuation, of being prized and cherished, of being special As we grow and develop, we never cease to need this unconditional, simple valuing in another’s  eyes We need to feel invited to be in this world This need to matter, to be simply valued by another, has only recently been conceptualized within object-relational thinking Thus the infant has the experience of being acknowledged, of being a self with attributes and capacities A mirroring other (or selfobject) confirms us in what we are, accepting the feelings and perceptions that emanate from inside us as what they are What is adequately mirrored becomes, in time, a part of psychic organization – a more or less certain region of self that we feel is really and truly us. [fro some people] beyond sex, beyond fears of loss and abandonment, whishes simply to be known and accepted seemd to be closest to the core of what people wanted from each other.
Idealization and Identification	Idealization is an internal process that draws us toward others in an effort to posess them or their qualities. Our longing is toward possession of that which is outside ourselves that appears far grander than what we know ourselves to be We may be deeply connected to our important idealized others without seeking proximity to them , or we may intensely desire physical closeness There is a paradox here, for we grope toward what must remain out or reach. To attain an idealized other is to lose him or her –at least as an idealizable other The young person, usually at adolescence… searches for others who seem to possess the idealized qualities that the parentsonce exemplified Idealization, therefore, affords two interpersonal responses. Either we try to posess and control the idealized person or we try, through identification, to become like that person When we ask people about the history of the development of an interest or skill, they usually mention a person at the root of it.
Mutuality and Resonance	Mutuality is emotionally being with another, joining in. In mutuality we resonate with one another. Mutuality is a join creation How rapidly our patients begin to improve when they become able just to be with others, swapping stories, experiencing a communion of selves that has no goal. How often is our own experience made fuller by sharing it with another. Mutuality is a pure form of communion with another person. Either we see what another is doing (physically, emotionally or metaphorically) and try to orient our own experience –either actually or vicariously- or we allow another to join us in what we are doing. In empathic responsiveness, one person is taking in, holding and perhaps reflecting the experience of another, putting aside her own reactions and experience. In mutuality, both people are participating in each others’ experience , each recognizing the experience of the other and adding to it
Tending (Care)	When we tend another we do so deliberately, intentionally. Tending, the most ubiquitous of human interactions, goes far beyond parenting [sometimes] the worst of human fears is not of being unloved but of being unable to love Caring as a form of connection exists in a cauldron of affect that includes rage, boredom, resentment and other manifestations of our hostility, and these manifestations may be aroused paradoxically , by the acts of caretaking themselves. This is what is so hard to remember when discussing care: love and hate are parallel, not opposite, streams of experience. Tenderness is orientation and receptivity, not behavior Sucesful tending is an exquisitively balanced operation

3. Christopher Alexander's fifteen properties in composition. On  the characteristics of "good composing" and on the process of composing is Christopher Alexanders' "The Nature of Order" (http://www.natureoforder.com/)

http://www.tkwa.com/fifteen-properties/ Has a nice presentation of 15 properties that Alexander has singled out through his studies (the number is open to change). I first connected the fifteen properties that I have classified here (http://vkollias.blogspot.gr/2015/09/composing-in-aime.html) with the dimensions of human relationships

• The “centers” and their quality (strong center, good shape,  roughness)Eye to eye validation
• Emptiness as center (Void, positive space, Local symmetries) Idealization and Identification
• Centers next to each other (boundaries, contrasts, alternating repetition)Attachment, passionate experience
• Resonance (Echoes, graded variation, Levels of scale)Mutuality and Resonance, Holding
• Composition (Non separatedness, Inner calm, Deep interlock)Embededness, Tending (Care)

Then I split Malsow's Belonging need , into belonging in a pair and belonging in a group.
Finally I distinguish between modes where trial and error is not a welcomed strategy (errors seem particularly bad) (Cautious movement), modes that are characterized by elaborate structure (Composed motion, as we say somebody is moving with composure) and modes that seem to move in the fast track (fast motion)

So by combining all these

“Maslow”	Cautious/Hesitant movement	Fast motion	Composed motion
Self-actualization ( a belonging that alters the notion of self: my addition)	[REL]   Mutuality and Resonance	[DC] Holding	[REL] Mutuality and resonance
Esteem (the network sources of self esteem: my addition)	[LAW] Idealization and Identification	[COMMON KNOWLEDGE/ EVERYDAY TALK] Idealization and Identification	[REF] Idealization and Identification (anderson’s article)
Belonging: the group context of selfhood	[MOR] Tending (Care)	[NORM/ CONV] Or [COMMUN] Embededness	[POL] Tending (Care)
Love/ Belonging,  pair	[FIC] Eye to eye validation	[REP] Eye to eye validation	[TEC] Eye to eye validation
Safety	[HAB] Attachment	[ATT] Passionate Experience	[ORG] Attachment
Physiological/( Basic Orientational: my addition)	[PRE] Holding	[MET]  Mutuality and Resonance	[NET] Holding

Perhaps there are two missing modes. One that expresses the stabilization of things in everyday talk. Currently I think it is included under [REP]. The other that exresses the national/tribal way of embededness (How are things done in the German way? How do we proceed from here in the French way? all these everyday norms that make for national character, for the character of the collective, rather than just based on the efficience of tying scripts one with the other)