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If to you relations exist in nature therefore they are physical, there is a physicalist assumption in there which doesn't go without saying. Now, I happen to h
by davidivadavid 5y ago
If to you relations exist in nature therefore they are physical, there is a physicalist assumption in there which doesn't go without saying.
Now, I happen to have sympathy for that position, but it's hardly as straightforward as you seem to imply.
Where it does have a lot to do with Platonism is that positing that relations are not abstract things but physical entities presumably entails that you can show what a relation physically is. And an instance of a relation isn't the relation. As soon as you go into "for example", you're not talking about the object itself anymore.
(To better see that relationship, see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/)
So what kind of physical object is a relation?
- Koshkin 5y agoIt pays to draw a distinction between objects and relations. Relations manifest themselves when more than one object is involved. A pair of objects is an object; it is a physical relation between pairs, the isomorphism if you will, that we call "number 2"; it manifests itself in cases when pairs can physically "snap" together solely due to the fact that their cardinalities match. I think it is the fact that a number (a count, in this case) is not tied to a single object (e.g. a pair) but rather expresses the potential of a certain physical interaction between several objects that makes understanding this difficult.