In virtue of being a transcendental ambit, the field of reality can contain many real things. But it does not contain them in just any form, i.e., as some mere multitude; on the contrary, this multitude has very precise structural characteristics. They are the very structure of the field of reality. It is a structure which, as I will state, is given in the primordial apprehension of reality.

In order to discover the structures of the field of reality, let us start from the fact that reality, such as it is given to us in impression, has different forms, one of which is the "toward" by which reality inexorably leads us to other realities. This does not refer to an inference or anything of that nature, nor is it a going toward reality; rather, it is an apprehending of reality itself in the mode of "toward", in a directional mode as a moment of reality. This "toward" is not just a mode of reality's presenting itself, but is, like the other modes, a mode of presentation which is transcendentally open. This means that every thing by virtue of being real is in itself of field nature; every real thing constitutes a form of reality "toward" another. To be sure, the "toward" is formally {34}a form of reality; but the "toward" in transcendental openness (proper to the impression of reality) is formally of field nature. And since this impression is numerically identical in all real things apprehended in an impression, it follows that in the field determined by the reality of each thing all the others are there as well. This is a structural and formal moment of the field; the field determines the reality of each thing as a reality "among" others. The "among" is grounded in the field nature and not the other way around; it is not the case that there is a field because there are some things situated among others, but rather some things are situated among others only because each and every one of them is in the field. And there is a field precisely and formally because the reality of each thing is formally of field nature. The "among" is not just a conglomeration; nor is it the mere relation of some things with others. Rather, it is a very precise structure, that of the actualization of one thing among others.

To be sure, the "among" is a moment of the actuity of the real: a real thing as such is among others. But the "among" also has a characteristic of actuality: the thing is actualized "among" others. Clearly these two aspects of "among" do not coincide, because there can be many things situated among others which are not intellectively present in actuality. What is important to us here is the "among" of actuality. It is a positive characteristic proper to each real thing qua of field nature. The "toward" of field-natureness is above all a "toward" in "among", or in other words, an "among" which positively has the characteristic of a "toward" of reality. If this were not the case, the "among" would be pure emptiness. But it is a field because it is reality open in a "toward" from each thing to all the others. And it is so because that openness is in turn determined by the reality of each thing. By being determined by the reality of each thing, the "toward" is a {35} real "toward"; it is reality in "toward". And it is in this that the field as "among" consists. Because of this things are not only some among others, so to speak materially, i.e. in actuity; but moreover they have a position with respect to others, they are among others by reason of their actuality. The field as the first plane, as the periphery, as the horizon, is just the structure of positionality; i.e., the structure of the "among" as a "toward". The field is not only something which encompasses things, but prior to doing so is something in which they are included, each and every one. Prior to encompassing things, and in order to be able to encompass them, the field includes the things in itself. And this inclusion is grounded in the field-nature characteristic of each real thing qua real. Hence: 1) the real thing determines the field; 2) the field determines the inclusion of the real in it; and 3) the field encompasses what is included in it. Such is the first structural moment of the field, viz., the position in the "among". Etymologically 'among' means the interior determined by two things. But each one represents the possibility of this determination because each thing is real in the "toward". In this way the "among" is a moment of the transcendental ambit.

But this is not the only structural moment of the field, because things are not only various but variable.

All things are variable in the field of reality. Above all, they can enter and leave it, or change their position with respect to other things. But in addition, each note, for example {36} color, size, etc., taken in and by itself, is something which can change and does change. Now, when we apprehend various things in a field, none of them is apprehended monolithically, so to speak, as if the unity of the field were merely additive. On the contrary, each thing is actualized together with others, or after them, or outside of them, or on the periphery of the field, etc. Each real thing in a field is actualized not just "among" other things but also as a function of them. Position, so to speak, is proper to a thing "among" others, but this is an "among" in which each thing has the position it does as a function of the others, and changes as a function of them. A real thing can disappear from the field; but this is never a type of volatilization of the thing, but a ceasing to be "among" the other things. Hence, it always (and only) disappears as a function of them. The unity of the field-nature moment and the individual moment is a functional "among"; it is what I term the functionality of the real. Here 'functionality' is taken in its broadest sense, and hence without any allusion to the diverse types of functionality which can be present. The fact that a thing is of field nature implies a character of functionality that is radical. Conversely, real things are not primarily encompassed by the field, but rather each is included in it, as we say; encompassing is grounded upon inclusion. Now, the mode of field-nature inclusion of each real thing has the intrinsic and formal characteristic of functionality.

What is this functionality? I have already described it: it is dependence in the broadest sense of the word. This functional dependence can assume diverse forms. We may cite some which are of special importance. Thus, a real thing can change as a function of another real thing which has preceded it; this is pure {37} succession. Succession is a type of functionality. The same must be said of something which is not successive but rather coexistent, namely when one real thing coexists with another. Coexistence is now functionality. From this point of view, every real thing in the field occupies a position by virtue of a field-nature function, in the field; it is next to other things, it is in the first plane or on the periphery, etc. But there are still other forms of functionality. Real material things are constituted by points. Each point is "outside" of the others; it is an ex. But it is not something which is simply outside; rather, the ex is a unity constructed with respect to the other ex's as points of the thing. We express this by saying that every ex is an "ex-of". In virtue of this every point has a necessary position with respect to other points by reason of its "ex-of" or "out-of". This quality of position in the "ex-of" is what I call spaciocity. It is a property of each material reality. Now, the functionality of real spacious things qua spacious is space; this is spaciality. Space is grounded in spaciocity. And this functionality depends upon the other notes of the things. That is to say, it is things which determine the structure of the functionality, i.e. the structure of space. As I see it, this determination is movement; the structure of space is thus the geometric cast of movement. (Naturally, I do not refer to geometric space but to physical space.) It can be quite varied: topological, affine, and metric structures, for example, and under this latter there are different metrics, viz. Euclidean and non-Euclidean. Succession, coexistence, position, spaciocity and spatiality, etc., and types of functionality. I do not claim to have made anything like a complete enumeration; I have only mentioned these cases to exemplify functional dependence. {38}

This functionality is, I said, an intrinsic and formal characteristic of the field; i.e., it is not the case, for example, only that B depends upon A; rather, there is an inverse function as well. In the case of temporal sucession, B may certainly succeed A, i.e., be dependent upon A. But in turn, A preceeds B; it is the antecendent. Functionality, then, is not a relation of some things with others, but is a structural characteristic of the field itself qua field; some things depend upon others because all are included in a field which is intrinsically and formally a functional field. This means that every real thing, by virtue of its moment of field nature-ness, is functional reality. Moreover, the functionality is an intrinsic field-nature characteristic because it pertains to each real thing by the mere fact of being of field-nature: each thing determines the field-nature-ness, and therefore its own functionality. Field-nature reality itself is, qua reality, of a functional character. That each real thing depends upon another is owing to the proper reality of both of them, to the intrinsic functional character of the field itself. The field is in itself a field of functionality. Only on account of this can each thing depend upon others. But it can also be independent of some of them. Independence is a mode of functionality.

I repeat, functionality is a moment of the reality of each field-nature thing. And each thing is a "toward" which is transcendentally open to other real things. Each thing is formally real by being de suyo. Now, each real thing is de suyo transcendentally open, and this openness has a dimension which is formally functional. This field-nature functional actualization is proper to the unity of all the modes of sensed reality, one of which is the "toward". What is of field-nature is functional in the "toward".

Whence arises an essential characteristic of functionality. It is not {39} a functionality which primarily concerns the content of the notes of the real, but rather concerns their actualization as real. It is not that a body, for example, is of functional character qua body; i.e., it is not that a body depends upon some other body or some other content. That will always be problematic. What is not problematic is that by being real, the body is in functional dependence with respect to other reality qua reality. Hence we are dealing with the functionality of the real as real. This is the essential point, as we shall see forthwith.

Now, this functionality is what is expressed by the preposition "by". Everything real "by" being field-nature real is functionally real, "by" some reality. This "by" is something sensed and not something conceived. Human sensing is an intellective sensing that is radically an impression of reality; it is something given "physically". Hence any subsequent intellection physically moves in this already physically given reality. Intellection does not need to get to reality because it is formally already there. Now, because this reality is actualized in a field-nature way, the field-nature-ness is a moment of the impression of reality; and therefore the functionality itself is a moment which is given in the impression of reality. It is given as one of reality's formal moments. Thus we are not dealing with inference or anything of that nature, but rather with a datum which is immediately and formally given in the impression of reality.

Conversely, the datum is a datum of simple functionality. It is essential to insist upon this point in order to preclude serious errors.

Above all, 'functionality' is not synonymous with 'causality'. Causality is but one type of functionality among others. In classical philosophy a cause is that from which something {40} proceeds by means of a real influence upon the being of the effect. Now, causality is not something given. We never perceive the productive influence of a real thing upon another. Thus, as I see it, the experimental studies (otherwise of the first rank) dealing with the presumed immediate perception of causality are radically incorrect. Our perception never perceives causality, but always does perceive the functionality; in the field of reality we sense reality in its functional moment as a field-nature moment of the impression of reality. We perceive that a thing is real as a function of others, and functionality which can be and is quite varied. Causality is only a type of functionality, and moreover very problematic. For example, with respect to efficient causality no refutation of metaphysical occasionalism is possible in the intramundane order. But for now I leave aside human actions; they will be taken up again in Part III. The "by" is functional, but this does not mean that it is causal. The "by" is something which we always perceive.

In the second place, this functionality is formally sensed, i.e., not only is it something accessible, it is something for which access is already physically given in sentient intellection, in the transcendental "toward". Whence the error of Hume's critique. For Hume, causality is not given, but only temporal succession. Now, I have just said myself that causality is not given. But Hume did not notice that there are two different aspects of the question. First of all, he did not see that temporal succession is just a form of functionality. In the second place, the succession is not the succession of two impressions, but the same impression of reality, one which is of successive nature-which means that what is essential about functionality does not concern the content of the impressions {41} but their formality of reality. In Hume's example, the ringing of the bell just follows upon the pulling of the cord. Now, it is not the case that the bell's ringing is qua ringing a function of the pulling of a cord qua cord; rather, the fact is that it is the reality of the ringing qua real which is a function of the reality of the pulling of the cord qua reality. And this is something perfectly given, even supposing that the ringing were not a function of the pulling of the cord. Functionality is functionality of the real inasmuch as it is real. In this sense it is a concept which encompasses many possible types. This formality, this "by" as such is given in the impression of reality. Hume's whole critique is based upon the content of sensing, but he erred on the matter of formality. Content is always problematic. There isn't sensing "and" intellective knowing, but only sentient intellection, impressive intellection of the real qua real.

In the third place, let us observe that the exordium of Kant's Critique is Hume. Since causality is not given, for Kant it is an a priori synthesis, a synthetic a priori judgement as the possibility of objective knowledge. Now, this is unacceptable. Above all, functionality is neither an analytic judgement (Leibniz) nor a synthetic judgement (Kant). Functionality is given in impression, not in its content but in its formality of reality, because it is a moment of the "toward". And the "toward" is not a judgement. As such it is not something a priori to the logical apprehension of objects, but a datum of the impression of reality. Whence the formal object of knowledge is not causality but functionality. The science of which Kant speaks (Newtonian physics) is not a science of causes but a science of functions of the real qua real.

{42}

In summary, the field of reality has a structure which is determined by two moments: the moment of the "among", and the moment of the "by". Each thing is real in the field among other real things and as a function of them. These two moments are not independent. Functionality, the "by", is rigorously speaking the form of the "among" itself. The form of being "among" is functional.

With this we have set forth in broad outline the structure of the field of reality. In order to preclude false interpretations it is not out of place to stress again the concept of the field. Above all, the field of reality is a moment which concerns things, but in their formality of otherness; i.e., it concerns things when they are intellectively known. The field is not a moment of these real things qua real beyond impression. The field is a dimension of the real such as it is given in apprehension itself. But on the other hand the field is not something which depends upon sentient intellection as an act of mine; it is not therefore something so to speak "subjective". The field is a dimensional moment of the real given in the sentient intellection, but only as actualized therein. It is a moment of actuality, not of actuity. To be sure, this actuality is only given in apprehension, in sentient intellection; but it is a physical moment of the real which is apprehended qua reality. This actuality is merely actual-ity, and as such constitutes an intellection. As actuality, it is always and only actuality of reality itself. Therefore the field as a dimension of the actuality of the real is not a moment of the real beyond apprehension; but neither is it a subjective moment. It is a moment of actuality of the real as real in sentient intellection. {43}

In this field thus determined in and by each real thing we apprehend in subsequent intellection what the things already apprehended as real are in reality. This is a modal intellection of its primordial apprehension. Which? That is the subject of the next chapter.