What is a letter?

Michael Root summarizes the notion of “configurational” understanding, as opposed to a “theoretical” understanding of things, that has been developed by Louis O. Mink: In narratives, events are “elements in a single and concrete complex of relationships. Thus a letter which I burn may be understood not only as an oxidizable substance but as a link with an old friend. It may have relieved a misunderstanding, raised a question, or changed my plans at a crucial moment. As a letter, it belongs to a kind of story, a narrative of events which would be unintelligible without reference to it. But to explain this I would not construct a theory of letters or of friendships but would, rather, show how it belongs to a particular configuration of events like a part in a jigsaw puzzle.”

What a thing is cannot be reduced to either material features or metaphysical essence. It is what it is by its place in a narrative.