What does Aquinas mean by "relations"?

[fakename]

Basically, what does he mean by the word “relations”? What does that word mean? I think it means, a thing which inheres as an accident in something but whom’s essence is more about “direction towards another” than any other accident which is usually just a modification of a subject by itself and not modification of a subject via another thing per se.

 

[Khalid]

There’s not enough context there. What writing is it in (I’m assuming the Summa)? and, if you have it, could you post the sentence in the original Latin?

Aquinas can be quite confusing in translation. He thought in Latin and wrote in Latin, and his ideas are best expressed in Latin - to the point where English had to borrow words from Latin to express his ideas, such as “transubstantiation”.

You’re also trying to stuff far too much actual information in far too little words. It gets confusing.

 

[fakename]

To Khalid,

“relations” is used too many times to post it here, but from what I remember, it does mean, “that for which “to exist”, is to have regard towards something else”. So fatherhood is a relation since it’s definition is to be the father OF someone.

But a relation is also an accident and so it shares in the definition of all accidents which is, “that for which “to exist”, is to inhere in a substance.”

But is that all there is to the notion of relation?

 

[levinas12]

Basically, what does he mean by the word “relations”? What does that word mean? I think it means, a thing which inheres as an accident in something but whom’s essence is more about “direction towards another” than any other accident which is usually just a modification of a subject by itself and not modification of a subject via another thing per se.

This is such a good philosophical question.

I know you asked about Aquinas. But the question itself has broader implications.

Think of the Trinity. One theological view is that the triune God is nothing but “relations”.

Or intentionality. That consciousness is always about “something” - i.e., consciousness is a transcendental “relation”.

Or Aquinas’ teaching that creatures have a “real relation” to God while God does not have a “real relation” to creatures.

Or Hegel’s teaching on “internal” relations, e.g., “north” can only be defined in terms of “south” and vice versa.

Or the view of Ferdinand de Saussure that language is a system of pure differences, i.e., relations. The meaning of one word is “generated” by its “difference” from all the other words in the language.

Or Theology of the Body. That the human body has a “spousal” meaning, i.e., is essentially “related” to the “other”.

“Relation” may be a more fundamental philosophical category than “substance”.

Because without the “relation” involved in certain philosophical “distinctions”, there would be no philosophical vocabulary at all. For example, without “accident”, no “essence”; or without “essence”, no “existence”. Every philosophical “word” is caught up in “internal” relations with every other philosophical “word” (something like de Saussure’s differential theory of language).

You may recognize in all of this Jacques Derrida’s “differance”.

 

[levinas12]

I should have added: without the “sophist”, no “philosopher”.

And with respect to Hegel’s “internal relations”: “being” has an internal relation to “non-being” - “presence” has an internal relation to “absence” - just like “north” has an internal relation to “south” - one cannot be understood without the other