How did radical empiricism explain the relations between things?

William James proposed that the relations between things are just as real as the things themselves. In his theory of radical empiricism, he argued that these relations—whether conjunctive or disjunctive—are matters of direct, particular experience.1

James contended that the parts of our experience hold together through these relations, which are themselves integral parts of that experience. Consequently, the universe does not require any hidden, transempirical, or extraneous support to maintain its structure. Instead, the world possesses a continuous, concatenated structure in its own right, refuting the rationalist belief that an external or transcendent being is necessary to provide unity to the world.1