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The concept of relation as a term used in general philosophy has a long and complicated history. One of the interests for the Greek philosophers lay in the number of ways in which a particular thing might be described, and the establishment of a relation between one thing and another was one of these. A second interest lay in the difference between these relations and the things themselves. This was to culminate in the view that the things in themselves could not be known except through their relations. Debates similar to these continue into modern philosophy and include further investigations into types of relation and whether relations exist only in the mind or the real world or both. An understanding of types of relation is important to an understanding of relations between many things including those between people, communities and the wider world. Most of these are complex relations but of the simpler, analytical relations out of which they are formed there are generally held to be three types, although opinion on the number may differ. The three types are spatial relations which include geometry and number, relations of cause and effect, and the classificatory relations of similarity and difference that underlie knowledge. Going by different names in the sciences,〔Perreault J. ''Categories and Relators'' (''International Classification'', vol 21, No 4, Frankfurt 1994) pp.189ff where Perreault talks of ordinal relations (e.g. dimensions), determinative relations (e.g. activities) and subsumptive relations (e.g. types and kinds)〕 mathematics,〔Piaget J. ''Structuralism'' (tr. Maschler C., Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1971) pp 24-25 where Jean Piaget refers to the mathematicians, Nicolas Bourbaki, using topological structures (derived from geometrical relations), order structures (from predecessor-successor relations) and algebraic structures (including sets and sub-sets)〕 and the arts 〔Norberg-Schulz C., ''Intentions in Architecture'' (Allen & Unwin Ltd., London 1963) Besides such headings as Form (geometrical and spatial relations), Building Task (functional relations) and Semantics (relations of meaning) the book refers to Charles W. Morris's division of semiology into syntactics (formal relation of signs), pragmatics (use and effect of signs) and semantics (the relation between the sign and reality)〕 they can be thought of as three large families and it is the history of these that will be dealt with here. ==Ancient Greeks== Traditionally the history of the concept of relation begins with Aristotle and his concept of relative terms. In ''Metaphysics'' he states: "Things are called relative as the double to the half... as that which can act to that which can be acted upon... and as the knowable to knowledge".〔Aristotle ''Metaphysics'' 1020b; cf De Generatione 333a〕 It has been argued that the content of these three types can be traced back to the Eleatic Dilemmas, a series of puzzles through which the world can be explained in totally opposite ways, for example things can be both one and many, both moving and stationary and both like and unlike one another.〔Plato ''Parmenides'' 129, cf 136〕 For Aristotle relation was one of ten distinct kinds of predicate (Gk. ''kategorien'') which list the range of things that can be said about any particular subject: "...each signifies either substance or quantity or quality or relation or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or acting or being acted upon".〔Aristotle ''Categories'' in ''Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione'' (tr. Ackrill J.L., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963) Ch.4〕 Subjects and predicates were combined together to form simple propositions. These were later redefined as "categorical" propositions in order to distinguish them from two other types of proposition, the disjunctive and the hypothetical, identified a little later by Chrysippus.〔Long A. & Sedley D. ''The Hellenistic Philosophers'' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987) p.206〕 An alternative strand of thought at the time was that relation was more than just one of ten equal categories. A fundamental opposition was developing between substance and relation.〔Aristotle ''Metaphysics'' 998b ff; cf 1029a & 1070a; ''Physics'' 185a; ''Analytica Posteriora'' 83b〕 Plato in ''Theaetetus'' had noted that "some say all things are said to be relative" 〔Long & Sedley, ''op.cit''. p.480〕 and Speusippus, his nephew and successor at the Academy maintained the view that "... a thing cannot be known apart from the knowledge of other things, for to know what a thing is, we must know how it differs from other things".〔Ex Brit cv ''Speusippus''〕 Plotinus in third century Alexandria reduced Aristotle's categories to five: substance, relation, quantity, motion and quality.〔Plotinus ''Enneads'' VI.3.3 & VI.3.21〕 He gave further emphasis to the distinction between substance and relation and stated that there were grounds for the latter three: quantity, motion and quality to be considered as relations. Moreover these latter three categories were posterior to the Eleatic categories, namely unity/plurality; motion/stability and identity/difference concepts that Plotinus called "the hearth of reality".〔''Ibid''. V.1.4〕 Plotinus liked to picture relations as lines linking elements, but in a process of abstraction our minds tend to ignore the lines "and think only of their terminals".〔''Ibid''. VI.5.5〕 His pupil and biographer, Porphyry, developed a tree analogy picturing the relations of knowledge as a tree branching from the highest genera down through intermediate species to the individuals themselves.〔cf ''Ibid''. V.3.10 & V.6.1〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Relation (history of concept)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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