Author: Fumio Miyata
Affiliation: Independent Researcher, Kanagawa, Japan
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8797-5578
Email: ai.kenkyu.001@gmail.com
Date: August 2026
Abstract
This paper offers a metaphysical suggestion concerning the long‑standing problem of how outer order and inner structure can be joined without mutual reduction. The world presents an objective, preceding order that stands prior to and independent of the subject, while the subject possesses an internal structure capable of transformation in response to what is given. Standard reductionist and internalist paradigms fail to bridge this ontological divide. I propose that the connection between outer order and inner structure is a primitive, non-reducible relation of action and response. Outer order acts upon inner structure, and inner structure transforms in accordance with this action. Through this dynamic relation, the subject attains orientation toward the world, achieves a relational form of understanding, and exhibits the characteristic asymmetry of metaphysical explanation. This framework provides a robust point of entry into the problem of the subject-world boundary, showing how the outer and the inner may be joined while maintaining their respective ontological integrity.
Keywords: outer order; inner structure; action; response; transformation; orientation; understanding; explanatory asymmetry; metaphysical relation; subject-world boundary
1. Introduction: The Problem of the Outer and the Inner
A central metaphysical difficulty in the philosophy of mind and epistemology concerns the boundary between subjectivity and the external world. The world bears an objective order that stands outside and prior to the subject, while the subject bears a structure that belongs to its inner domain. How these two seemingly distinct domains may be joined without collapsing one into the other has remained an unresolved problem.
This difficulty is prominent in both classical phenomenology and contemporary epistemology, where thinkers have struggled to conceptualize the relational boundary of subjectivity. In classical phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2012) argues that the lived body is not a closed container of consciousness but a dynamic, relational structure that actively responds to and is transformed by the surrounding world. In recent analytic debates, Lucas Thorpe (2022) addresses a parallel issue in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, demonstrating how basic cognitive concepts are grounded in perception and action, thereby bridging the gap between external events and inner mental files.
The core question can be stated simply: how can outer order and inner structure form a single relation without being reduced to one another? This difficulty lies beneath many familiar philosophical issues, including the relation between mind and world, the possibility of cognitive understanding, and the asymmetric direction of explanation. Yet the metaphysical connection between the outer and the inner remains insufficiently clarified. This paper proposes a single point of entry into this difficulty: the relation between the outer and the inner is fundamentally a primitive relation of action and response.
2. Outer Order as a Preceding Condition
To understand this relation, we must first examine the nature of outer order. Outer order does not arise from the subject; rather, it stands prior to the subject and confronts it as an independent, objective condition. It possesses its own direction, strength, and articulation, which do not depend on the subject’s inner domain. Instead, these features present themselves to the subject as a structured field of constraint and possibility.
This external architecture of preceding constraints is closely linked to James J. Gibson’s (1979) classic ecological framework of “affordances”—preceding conditions and environmental structures that exist independently of the observer but are relative to the actor’s capacities. In the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Fermín C. Fulda (2017) similarly defends an ecological approach to natural agency and cognition, demonstrating how even basic biological organisms’ inner structures are shaped by and respond to the external environment’s objective preceding constraints. Furthermore, Tom Roberts and Lucy Osler (2024) investigate how such preceding constraints operate in the social and material sphere, showing how implicit bodily and social certainty is structurally dependent upon an unreflective alignment with these external, structured environments. Because outer order confronts the subject as an independent reality, it acts as a preceding condition for any inner formation.
3. Inner Structure as a Domain of Response
Conversely, inner structure is not a passive receptacle of external inputs. It is an active, responsive domain capable of structured transformation under external action. When outer order acts, inner structure responds.
This co-determination of inner response and outer environment mirrors the enactive paradigm introduced by Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch (1991), which conceptualizes the mind not as a passive mirror of the world, but as a system of sensorimotor coupling where inner structures emerge and adapt through action and response. This structural responsiveness is further supported by contemporary externalist accounts of perception. For instance, Matt Duncan (2022) argues in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association that externalists should adopt a sense-datum theory to properly explain how our internal perceptual experience is structurally coupled with and directly dependent upon external objects, reinforcing that the inner structure is fundamentally designed for transformation under external action. This relational tracking of outer objects is not limited to perception; as Matthew Ratcliffe, Louise Richardson, and Becky Millar (2023) show in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, complex inner emotional architectures such as grief are structured as direct intentional responses that track external relational absences and the loss of independent environmental features.
This response can manifest in several distinct metaphysical modes:
– generation, in which new structural orientation arises;
– dissolution, in which prior articulation fails to align with outer order and collapses; or
– integration, in which the tension between outer and inner is resolved into a stable configuration.
These responsive transformations are not mere passive reactions but are guided by the contrastive nature of the subject’s inner states; as Andrew Peet (2023) demonstrates in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, the subject’s intentions and actions are structurally contrastive, responding to specific external side-effects and alternatives within the environment. Thus, inner structure is defined metaphysically as a domain of transformation under action.
4. Action and Response as the Relation Between Outer and Inner
The central suggestion of this paper is that outer order and inner structure are joined through the relation of action and response. This relation is neither identity nor reduction. Outer order does not become inner structure, nor does inner structure generate outer order. Instead, outer order acts, and inner structure responds.
By resisting the collapse of the outer and the inner into a singular domain, this approach contrasts with holistic metaphysical accounts of consciousness. For example, Itay Shani and Joachim Keppler (2018) defend in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association a form of cosmopsychism where ordinary experiences are grounded in a singular cosmic consciousness, attempting to resolve the subject-world divide through combination and undifferentiated oneness. In contrast, our model preserves the dual-field architecture of the outer and the inner, proposing that their relation is not one of grounding in an underlying monistic whole, but a primitive, irreducible connection of action and response.
Importantly, this relation is primitive. It does not require mediation by further entities, nor does it require representation as a third term. It is a basic metaphysical connection between two distinct domains. By positing action and response as primitive, we avoid the regresses and reductions that plague traditional attempts to bridge the subject-world divide, offering instead a relational ontology where the outer and the inner are co-constituted through their dynamic engagement. This primitivity means that the action-response relation is not fully or partially grounded in more basic non-relational properties of the relata, challenging standard metaphysical frameworks of grounding (such as full and partial grounding analyzed by Kelly Trogdon and D. Gene Witmer 2021 in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association) by establishing relation as an ontological primitive.
5. Consequences for Orientation, Understanding, and Explanation
By framing the relation between outer and inner as one of action and response, we gain significant explanatory power in three key areas:
Orientation
The subject’s orientation toward the world arises when inner structure responds to the direction of outer order. Rather than being an internal representation of space, orientation is the structural consequence of external action on the inner domain. This relational orientation is what allows individual agents to align their actions with others in shared activities; as Michael E. Bratman (2022) argues in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, the coordination of collective action is structurally dependent on the interconnected planning and mutual responsiveness of individual agents to their shared environment.
Understanding
Understanding occurs when inner structure achieves integration with outer order. It is not a self‑contained inner achievement or a subjective feeling, but a resolution of tension between outer and inner. In the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Kevin Richardson (2026) develops a cognitive account of semantic understanding and representational limits, arguing that understanding is a relational property where cognitive structures achieve a structural grip or alignment with external reality rather than relying on isolated internal representations. Understanding is thus the structural fit between the inner and the outer.
Explanatory Asymmetry
Explanation is asymmetric because action is asymmetric: outer order acts upon inner structure, not the reverse. This asymmetry grounds the direction of explanation. Because the action-response relation is primitive, it acts as a foundational base that does not require further metaphysical decomposition—a concept that resonates with Yannic Kappes’s (2022) defense of non-reductive, empty-base explanations in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. This metaphysical asymmetry also explains the limits of reductive physicalism. As Thomas Nagel (1974) famously argues in “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, the subjective, internal character of experience is asymmetric to physical, objective descriptions because our internal structure responds to the world through a specific, non-reducible sensory and structural apparatus. Reductive explanations fail precisely because they attempt to reduce this asymmetric relation of action and response to a flat identity.
6. Conclusion: A Metaphysical Point of Entry
This paper has proposed that the relation between outer order and inner structure is a relation of action and response. This relation provides a metaphysical point of entry into the problem of how the outer and the inner may be joined without collapsing one into the other.
Outer order stands as a preceding condition, and inner structure stands as a domain of transformation. Their connection is the primitive relation through which orientation, understanding, and explanation become possible. While this suggestion does not resolve the entirety of the subject-world boundary problem, it offers a single, clear path of inquiry—a point of metaphysical breakthrough.
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