Relation (philosophy)
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Relations are ways in which several entities stand to each other. They usually connect distinct entities but some associate an entity with itself. The adicity of a relation is the number of entities i
G. E. Moore introduced the distinction between internal and external relations.
F. H. Bradley formulated a regress argument to defend the claim that relations do not exist.
The nature of relations was reconceptualized following various academic developments in the 19th century, such as the formulation of the logic of relations by Augustus De Morgan.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz held that relations do not have fundamental reality and described the world instead as a collection of unconnected monads.
Philosophical realism
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Philosophical realism—usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters—is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it e
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. In Plato's metaphysics, ever-unchanging Forms, or Ideas, exist apart from particular physical things, and are related to them as their prototype or exemplar. Aristotle's philosophy of reality also aims at the universal. Aristotle finds the universal, which he calls essence, in the commonalities of particular things.
