Social Acts as Wholes: Dynamic Eidetics and Modifications

I argue that Reinach provides a qualitative ontology of social acts. I focus on his idea of “essential connections,” which can be specified both as whole-parts constituency connections and as existential dependency connections between wholes and other entities, and show that both constituency and existential dependence connections are subject to various degrees of constraint: they can be also possible, and not only necessary connections. I point out that social acts are subject to modifications both of their parts and of the entities upon which they existentially depend. Their modifiable ontological structure involves a dynamic eidetics: they are wholes that can be expanded and subject to integrations in time