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21698 | All relations, apart from ancestrals, can be reduced to simpler logic [Quine] |
Full Idea: Much of the theory of relations can be developed as a virtual theory, in which we seem to talk of relations, but can explain our notation in terms {finally] of just the logic of truth-functions, quantification and identity. The exception is ancestrals. | |
From: Willard Quine (Lecture on Nominalism [1946], §8) | |
A reaction: The irreducibility of ancestrals is offered as a reason for treating sets as universals. |