PERSONAL INTERDEPENDENCE
Thomas, James – 300 Cooper St, Apt B, Ottawa, ON K2P 0G7 CANADA
e-mail: jathomas@fastmail.ca

Given that the terms of an 'internal relation' derive at least in some ways their nature from this relation, one can explore the meaning of 'personal interdependence' with a precise framework for understanding internal relations. A.C. Ewing derived 10 senses of the expression from a thorough study of the 19th- and 20th-century American and British idealist: relations 1) defining the nature, 2) defining only the essential nature, 3) forming qualities, 4) assembling a unity, 5) altering the nature, 6) deriving from the nature, 7) making a difference to the nature, 8) enabling one to infer the nature of the one from the other, 9) constituting a necessary condition for the existence, and 10) being logically, as well as a causally, essential to the existence of their terms. With this framework, I explore some of the ways people with diverse cultures might form a unity and, by reaching out to each other, more fully realize themselves.