苏开源在《社会科学报》撰文指出，创新的本质是一种“关系”。作为人类认识史和发展史上的一种“辨证否定关系”的创新，具体地表征于批判性的摆脱关系、建构性的函数关系和超越性的更替关系三个递进着的层面上。首先，创新是一种批判性的摆脱关系：它必须摆脱对既定现实的依 Su Kaiyuan wrote in the “Journal of Social Science” that the essence of innovation is a “relationship.” As an innovation of dialectical and negative relations in the history of human cognition and history of development, it concretely characterizes the three progressive aspects of critical relationship-free relations, constructive functional relationships, and transcendental replacement relationships. First, innovation is a critical way to get rid of the relationship: it must break away from the established reality.