 Relational thinking is a way of seeing the world that places greater precedence on the relations or connections between entities rather than simply looking at those entities as discreet and separate. The main overarching principle in the relational paradigm is a shift in one's perception from seeing a fixed world made up of things and their properties to seeing a world that is primarily made of relations and connections between those parts. Throughout the sciences, relational theories in general are frameworks for understanding physical or social systems in such a way that the elements of interest are only meaningful in relation to other entities that is to say through their relations. With the rise of network theory and computation, relational approaches have developed in many different areas over the past few decades. There are now relational theories in physics, sociology, psychology, international relations and many more. The traditional analytical approach taken within modern science is to understand the world through focusing on the properties of discrete parts holding these as ontologically primary that is to say separate objects or entities are what are seen to be real and one must first have these entities before one can have the relations between them. In a paper entitled What is relational thinking, Didier Debès describes this component-based paradigm as such. A paradigm which has crossed modernity and which deploys itself more or less implicitly at every level of knowledge in the orientations given to practices in the way of relating to experience. This paradigm is that of being individual. One can say very schematically that modernity will have been a research almost exclusively on the conditions of experience the reasons, modalities and characteristics of the individual granting it implicitly or explicitly an ontological privilege to the constituted individual. Reductionism is an attempt to trace back all phenomena to basic elementary parts and how those parts generate direct cause and effect interactions. A classical example of this is methodological individualism which is the requirement that causal accounts of social phenomena explain how they result from the motives and actions of individual agents at least in principle. The analytical reductionist paradigm excludes the idea that relations, how two or more things interact can actually be the source in itself shaping those elementary parts. The synthetic approach of systems thinking is instead focused on the relations between the parts. It posits that the relations between the elements and whole networks of relations that form the context can and do shape the constituent parts in a two-way reciprocal relationship. Within the systems paradigm causes are not traced back to the properties of component parts but instead are seen to derive primarily from the relations between things. In particular how whole networks of interconnections that form the context or environment can shape the individual parts by creating the context within which they act or operate. For example two objects may have a particular color when taken in separation but when we place them side by side in relation to each other the initial objects colors may appear different. The properties of the objects colors has not changed but they appear different because a relation has been added to them and there is this relation that is affecting the perceived properties of the elements. As another example one could cite global cities like Singapore or Dubai which are a product of the context of globalization. They are enabled and defined by global networks of connection such as air traffic, logistics and financial networks. These global cities are not entirely created by the local context but instead are defined largely by the global connections that shape them. One of the most extraordinary examples of this within physics would be what is called quantum entanglement whereby two subatonic particles interact and become entangled with each other meaning that their spin, position and other properties become linked or interdependent. If one then makes a measurement of one particle that then instantly determines the other particle state. This no manifest interaction between them instead it is this relationship of entanglement that defines the properties of the parts. These examples help to illustrate how certain properties, features and dynamics only emerge out of the interaction between things and they are governed by the nature of those interactions. Thus it is important to use a relational paradigm to understand these phenomena. The systems paradigm argues for a balance between the analytical approach on the parts and the synthetic approach focused on relations and over emphasis on the parts can lead to a narrow process of reasoning that creates its own limitations. For example by focusing on the individual parts of society we derive the conception of the rational individual that is to say the individual that is driven solely or primarily by their own internal logic. This conception of the rational agent then leads to defining any human action that is not logically reasoned through by the individual as irrational or unexplainable which turns out to be a large section of human behavior. Most humans do not rationally and logically reason through what they choose to do or believe instead they act based on the context and their connections with others. People adopt a particular belief or opinion because it fits in with their culture that is to say their connections with others that form their sociocultural context. These choices are not derived from the individual making a logical decision but instead from the nexus of connections around them. Thus simply trying to understand human behavior as a function of the internally generated motives of the individual is a very much limited enterprise likewise trying to describe all phenomena in terms of the connections and context results in an equally limited perception. To gain a complete understanding of some phenomena it is required that a relational paradigm is used to complement and balance this perspective. The relational paradigm leads to an inversion of our traditional conception where discrete entities exist within an inner space with those component parts creating the actions, interactions and relations. From the relational perspective relations are what define how entities act and react. It is the network of connections around an entity that creates the context for its behavior or form. For example when looking at a sculpture we often assume it is simply the inherent properties of that item that define it but a sculpture is made up of what is called positive and negative space. Positive space refers to the object itself while negative space is the space around the sculpture that gives it form, context and which we use to interpret the positive space. This is analogous to the shift in perception brought about by the rise of modern physics. Newtonian classical physics saw the environment of space and time as essentially absolute exerting no influence. It was the object that affected change in interaction. General relativity changed this though to a new perspective where space and time are a fabric and events are a product of an interaction between the object and its space-time fabric. Here again the interactions and context are an active agent in shaping events and outcomes. We cannot reduce everything to a description of the parts. The relational paradigm fundamentally alters our perception of space. The traditional component-based conception of space is relative to objects and their physical extension which creates a three-dimensional Euclidean space one that is absolute in that it just exists and is not affected by the changes in components or connections. The relational paradigm though alters this perception of space in that relations are defined by exchanges of some kind. Along every connection something is transferred information, money, heat, light, trust, etc. How close things are to each other is relative to how easily something can be exchanged through the connection. The easier it is to exchange something between two elements the closer they are. And thus within this relational paradigm there is no absolute space but instead distance is defined by connections and the ease of transfer along those connections. The same applies to any form of network of connections such as transportation networks with major hubs that will in effect be closer than other less well connected nodes because of their high degree of connectivity and not because of distance within some absolute form of space. The relational paradigm has found application in many areas of science and will briefly highlight some of its main applications. In physics a relational theory is a framework for understanding physical systems in such a way that the positions and other properties of objects are only meaningful relative to other objects. In a relational space-time theory space does not exist unless there are objects in it nor does time exist without events. Space can be defined through the relations among the objects that it contains and considering their variations through time. Leibniz's relationalism is one example of this describing space and time as systems of relations that exist between objects. The alternative spatial theory is an absolute theory in which space exists independent of any object that can be immersed within it. Relational sociology is a collection of sociological theories that emphasize relationism over substantivism in explanations and interpretations of social phenomena. Pierre Pelloudinati, known as the founder of relational sociology, writes about relational sociology as such. More or less implicitly, the observer, the social scientist, takes for granted the concept of relations that our talism is not of first importance but must come after the terms that it connects. This means that social relations are viewed as a product of individuals and of social structures as something that comes after them. On the contrary, the relational paradigm affirms in the beginning there is the relation. Relational psychoanalysis is a relatively new and evolving school of psychoanalytical thought created by its founders to represent a paradigm shift in psychoanalysis. An important difference between relational theory and traditional psychoanalytical thought is in its theory of motivation, which would assign primary importance to real interpersonal relations rather than the instinctual drives of the individual. Freudian theory, with a few exceptions, proposed that human beings are motivated by drives that are biologically rooted and innate to the individual. Relationalists, on the other hand, argue that the primary motive of the psyche is to be in relationships with others. Relationalists posit that the personality emerges from the matrix of early formative relationships with parents and other figures. Complex interdependence in international relations is the idea that states and their fortunes are inextricably tied together through a complex set of interdependencies that have grown up with the rise of global interconnectivity on different levels, what is called globalization. Complex interdependence theory was a major challenge to the fundamental assumptions of traditional and structural realism, which focused on military and economic capabilities to explain the behavior of states. Complex interdependence on the country highlights the emergence of transnational institutions through global relations and their capacity to affect the nation state. The relational paradigm has been applied to many other areas and offers a fresh way of looking at age-old questions that can lead to totally new, out-of-the-box insights and solutions in that it represents a complete shift in our perception to the nexus of relations and context that surrounds objects and events.