ABSTRACT
A satisfying account of relations must be ontologically serious. This means, among other things, refusing to rest content with abstract specifications of relations as, for instance, sets of ordered n-tuples. Such bloodless characterizations would satisfy only the mean-spirited and ontologically timid. Philosophical conceptions of relations occupy positions between two poles. At the one extreme are relation-phobes, those who regard relations as creatures of reason or as identifiable with objects’ monadic properties. At the other extreme are lovers of relations, enthusiasts who regard relations as ontological bedrock, seeing other entities as constructed from relations. Philosophical discussion of relations from Aristotle through the mid-nineteenth century could be viewed as a succession of attempts to locate external relations ontologically. Aristotle classifies relations as accidents. Bradley insists that thoughts of qualities and relations alike are thoughts of impossible entities. Qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. Philosophers commonly characterize causal relations as holding among distinct, temporally ordered events.
