Abstract

Bradley's Regress-a problem about what grounds or 'accounts for' the ability of two or more things to stand in a relation-is often presented as a problem about truthmakers: what entity 'makes it true' that two objects a and b are related? I criticize this account of the regress on the grounds that it is dialectically weak and trivially solvable. I then propose an alternative interpretation, according to which the regress challenges our ability to use relational entities to give an account of the underlying metaphysical situation in cases of relatedness. Although I concede that this regress is fatal for some realist and trope-theoretic accounts of relatedness, and does not permit of a trivial solution, I suggest a way we can avoid it without giving up an ontology of relational universals or relational tropes. Bradley's Regress-correctly understood-sets limits on our theory of relations; it does not force us to abandon relations altogether.