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The Metaphysics of Relations (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,434
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The Metaphysics of Relations (Hardcover)
Series: Mind Association Occasional Series
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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This volume presents thirteen original essays which explore both
traditional and contemporary aspects of the metaphysics of
relations. It is uncontroversial that there are true relational
predications-'Abelard loves Eloise', 'Simmias is taller than
Socrates', 'smoking causes cancer', and so forth. More
controversial is whether any true relational predications have
irreducibly relational truthmakers. Do any of the statements above
involve their subjects jointly instantiating polyadic properties,
or can we explain their truths solely in terms of monadic,
non-relational properties of the relata? According to a tradition
dating back to Plato and Aristotle, and continued by medieval
philosophers, polyadic properties are metaphysically dubious. In
non-symmetric relations such as the amatory relation, a property
would have to inhere in two things at once-lover and beloved-but
characterise each differently, and this puzzled the ancients. More
recent work on non-symmetric relations highlights difficulties with
their directionality. Such problems offer clear motivation for
attempting to reduce relations to monadic properties. By contrast,
ontic structural realists hold that the nature of physical reality
is exhausted by the relational structure expressed in the equations
of fundamental physics. On this view, there must be some
irreducible relations, for its fundamental ontology is purely
relational. The Metaphysics of Relations draws together the work of
a team of leading metaphysicians, to address topics as diverse as
ancient and medieval reasons for scepticism about polyadic
properties; recent attempts to reduce causal and spatiotemporal
relations; recent work on the directionality of relational
properties; powers ontologies and their associated problems;
whether the most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics
posit a fundamentally relational world; and whether the very idea
of such a world is coherent. From those who question whether there
are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a
fundamental part of reality, this book covers a broad spectrum of
positions on the nature and ontological status of relations, from
antiquity to the present day.
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