The Naturalness and Structure of Relations

Date of Award

12-20-2024

Date Published

January 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Philosophy

Advisor(s)

Kris McDaniel

Second Advisor

Mark Heller

Keywords

naturalness;relations

Subject Categories

Arts and Humanities | Philosophy

Abstract

This dissertation contributes to a theory of naturalness of properties and relations and to a view on the internal structure of relations. On naturalness, I develop and defend a new theory according to which it is position-relative and category-relative. Relations have object-positions. For example, the loving relation has the lover-position and the beloved-position, and the set-member relation has the set-position and the member-position. Position-relativism allows for attributions of naturalness to positions of relations. Category-relativism allows for attributions of naturalness to properties and (positions of) relations relative to categories of objects. For example, the lover-position of the loving relation can be more natural than its beloved-position, and the set-position of set-membership can be natural relative to the category of sets while failing to be natural relative to the category of physical objects. In the first two papers of this dissertation, I argue that position- and category-relative naturalness can help in accounts of similarity, especially regarding existential derivatives of relations (such as perhaps loving something) and negative totality properties (such as perhaps having no members); that it can help in accounts of intrinsicality, real change, and haecceistic properties; that it can account for negation as privation and real category mistakes; that it entails a distinction between characterizing and non-characterizing fundamental facts; and that it generates multiple orderings of naturalness, which, I suggest, has further applications. In the third paper, I apply a version of this view to improve sparse modalism, the view that analyzes concepts of essence in terms of necessity and naturalness. In the fourth paper, I defend positionalism, the view that takes positions to be irreducible aspects of the internal structure of non-directed relations. I formulate two main versions of this view and argue that they can accommodate relations with any symmetries.

Access

SURFACE provides description only. Full text may be available to ProQuest subscribers. Please ask your Librarian for assistance.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS