by freeing itself qua belonging to the scientific system from the temporal restrictions of its object-in-its-environment, tends to increase the capacity for resolution and recombination.
It thus overdraws the potential that the object possesses in and for itself. The structures and limits accepted in the object as a condition of the possibility of processes are in turn functionally analyzed and related to deeper problems.
The reference problems of functional analysis are detached from the problem orientations that the object has in and of itself; they are abstracted in a way that at the same time makes objects of different kinds comparable. It is consistent with the logic of functionalism to push this tendency of abstracting reference problems and to go to the limits of what is possible. But where are these limits?
The functional analysis presupposes equality and inequality and the articulation of inequality via respectively extra-functional relations. The asymmetric structure of function, that is, of the relation between the reference problem and the problem-solving equivalents, is based on the fact that the relation between the functional equivalents is ordered in this form, which implies equality and inequality at the same time. The asymmetry is, in other words, one of disposition over equalities and inequalities: While the reference problem guarantees only the equality of the equivalents, the latter are always equal and unequal at the same time in relation to each other and as determinable elements of the functional relation itself.
On the basis of the sketch above this circumstance can be illustrated as follows:
The function is the total expression for the relations A-1 and/or A-2 and/or A-3. A acts as the reference problem, 1, 2 and 3 as functionally equivalent possible solutions.
Each of these equivalents has its own extrafunctional relations (1-a, 1-b, etc.). Further relations could be connected to a, b, c, etc., if there is an interest in doing so, that is, if the resulting inequalities of functional equivalents are relevant for their comparison.
The relations 1-2, 1-3, 2-3 express the functional equivalences themselves, i.e. the relations resulting from the fact that problem solutions can be cumulated or substituted for each other.
The function and thus ultimately the respective reference problem "constellates" such a total structure of relations, enables its summary in this form. This does not mean that the primary relations related by such a function would not also have meaning in themselves and could be determined, for instance the mere suitability of problem solution 2 to contribute to the solution of problem A, or extrafunctional relations like 3-i, 2-f. Such single determinations would refer to the facticity of the existence of such relations or even to their conditional factual possibility. But only the functional relation abstracts all relations of this relational structure in the sense that it sets them contingently and regulates the selection of what is interested in them with respect to a specific function.