ABSTRACT
Why believe in the existence of relations? We have reason to believe in them if they best explain the fact that reality has structure, in other words, consists of related things. Relations are pieces of ontology introduced to explain relatedness in general as well as varieties of specialised relatedness. After sketching the relational phenomenon which relations are introduced to explain, I turn to consider the following questions. Are there relations? And how do relations do what they’re supposed to do? To answer these questions I employ the ontology-ideology distinction as a framework for considering responses to Bradley's regress, whether an ontology of internal relations is obviated by an appeal to non-relational truth-makers or subvening base, and how best to account for the distinctive features of asymmetric relations.
