Abstract

This book studies seven medieval philosophers' theories of relation. It shows how each thinker's theory of relations reflects and is consistent with his overall metaphysics. The introduction locates the sources of medieval interest in relations in Aristotle and in Augustine's Trinitarian theology. Henninger summarizes the Aristotelian subject-predicate analysis of relation and its difficulties, and contrasts it with nineteenth-century developments. At the beginning of the period covered, a relation was seen as an accident inhering in a term on account of a foundation in the term. For example, given two white things, there are two relations of similarity founded in the whiteness of each. A relation has the unique property of esse ad, "being towards" another.