In Defense of Irreducible Relations [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Francesco Orilia, Michele Paolini Paoletti
Topics: Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of language
At least since Russell, mainstream analytic philosophy has distinguished internal and external relations and acknowledged the existence of both. This seems in line with both the manifest and scientific images of the world. However, there is a recent deflationary trend about relations, which focuses on the truthmakers of relational statements in order to show that putative external relations are in fact internal, and that internal relations do not really exist. Lowe’s posthumous 2016 paper is a thorough presentation of this line of thought. This article critically analyzes Lowe’s arguments in…