> How many different kinds of relationship are we capable of?
Kinds? (qualitative) ...
... I think you very much upped the ante there :)
I'd posit a (cheap, easy) guess: Infinite.-
PS. Of course, taking the "cheap" way out in thinking about this of assuming each one-on-one relationship (not to mention one-to-many, and many-to-one and many-to-many, like mentioned upthread) to be a unique "kind", is an easy way out: As many types of relationships as people, because no two people are alike, and so is their relationship. Heck, considering each of the individuals (themselves) involved, might subjectively experience a different relationship, there's even a "two to each pair" pairing of relationship types to participants, to be considered ...
Now, when, IMHO it gets interesting is if we - a bit more rigoroulsy - attempt a "taxonomy" of relationship "types".-
(And, then, again, I am sure anthropology has studied and catalogued those to death ...)
Kinds? (qualitative) ...
... I think you very much upped the ante there :)
I'd posit a (cheap, easy) guess: Infinite.-
PS. Of course, taking the "cheap" way out in thinking about this of assuming each one-on-one relationship (not to mention one-to-many, and many-to-one and many-to-many, like mentioned upthread) to be a unique "kind", is an easy way out: As many types of relationships as people, because no two people are alike, and so is their relationship. Heck, considering each of the individuals (themselves) involved, might subjectively experience a different relationship, there's even a "two to each pair" pairing of relationship types to participants, to be considered ...
Now, when, IMHO it gets interesting is if we - a bit more rigoroulsy - attempt a "taxonomy" of relationship "types".-
(And, then, again, I am sure anthropology has studied and catalogued those to death ...)