F. H. Bradley’s relation regress poses a difficult problem for metaphysics of relations. In this paper, we reconstruct this regress argument systematically and make its presuppositions explicit in order to see where the possibility of its solution or resolution lies. We show that it cannot be answered by claiming that it is not vicious. Neither is one of the most promising resolutions, the relata-specific answer adequate in its present form. It attempts to explain adherence (relating), which is a crucial component (...) of the explanandum of Bradley’s relation regress, in terms of specific adherence of a relational trope to its relata. Nevertheless, since we do not know the consequences and constituents of a trope adhering to its specific relata, it remains unclear what specific adherence is. It is left as a constitutively inexplicable primitive. The relata-specific answer only asserts against Bradley. This negative conclusion highlights the need for a metaphysical account of the constitution of the holding of adherence. (shrink)

According to the cluster of theories in the metaphysics of properties known as ‘trope’ theories, properties are collections of particular qualitative instances. Though increasingly influential, the cluster is sufficiently diverse for there to be little agreement as to the prospects of its members. The present essay articulates and defends a conception of tropes as primitively qualitatively complex, somewhat in the vein of Quinean nominalist objects. After clarifying the relationships among tropes, properties, property exemplification, and property conferral, the essay discusses the (...) benefits of this new ‘ostrich’ trope theory. Specifically, the theory explains better than prior trope theories both the spatiotemporal status of tropes and the capacity tropes have to confer properties onto objects. Moreover, the theory is immune to many of the concerns that threaten more orthodox trope ontologies. (shrink)

Why is it that whenever a structural property is instantiated, its constituent properties are instantiated as well, by proper parts of the original object? By developing a suggestion from Lewis :25–46, 1986), Hawley :117–133, 2010) rises to this explanatory challenge by taking structural properties to be mereologically composed by their constituents, and by taking composition to be analogous to identity. However, setting up a plausible framework for composition and CAI claims about properties, I will argue that structural properties are not (...) identical to their constituents, at least not in any sense robust enough to warrant an Hawley-style argument—and perhaps not identical to them in any sense whatsoever. More generally, core principles of extensional mereology are in danger when applied to structural properties, which may force an extensionalist to either reconsider the application altogether, or reconsider mereological monism, thus granting the mereology of structural properties a peculiarly non-extensional status. Finally, although this debate has been traditionally framed as a debate about universals, an appeal to structural tropes can reconcile, at least to some extent, the mereology of structural properties with Lewisian extensional mereology— CAI included. (shrink)