Relational Holism and Quantum Mechanics1

One can give a strong sense to the idea that a relation does not 'reduce' to nonrelational properties by saying that a relation does not supervene upon the nonrelational properties of its relata. That there are such inherent relations I ca11 the doctrine of relational holism, a doctrine which seems to conflict with traditional ideas about physicalism. At least parts of classical physics seem to be free of relational holism, but quantum mechanics, on at least some interpretations, incorporates the doctrine in an a11 pervasive way.