Change and Relations: A Philosophical Essay on the Problem of Relations

Relations belong to the fundamental philosophical concepts, for everything that exists relates to something. This leads us quite naturally to think about relations themselves. In our book we consider relations against the background of the issue of change. We draw on the Aristotelian but also the Platonic traditions of thought, which for centuries have tried to come to terms with Aristotle's thesis that there is no change with respect to relations. We critically examine and ultimately reject this certainly surprising claim. As a part of our own solution to this difficulty, we propose a particular reconstruction of the Aristotelian categorial schema that allows us to properly grasp not only ordinary changes but also relational changes. The book is systematic in nature; in dialogue with many great philosophers, we seek a true solution to our difficulty, using in particular the resources of contemporary analytic philosophy.