The Classic Inherence Theory of Attributes: Its Theses and Their Errors

Abstract

Primary to both ontology and epistemology is the attributional union that properties and relations have with their subjects. Yet, the tradition’s understanding of attribution has been assessed as shallow, and its contemporary analysis deemed locked in a non-progressing stalemate. Central here is the historically dominant inherence/constituent construal of attribution, what, I argue, has remained obscure and unattended as to its background assumptions and their implications. On the analysis offered herein, I make precise and detail errors of the defining assumptions of inherence theory and the two-tiered nature it requires of attribution. Brought into relief will be the four elements involved in every attributional union, and what are the errors in a sequence of collapsing identities among them that define inherence theory. Along the way, clarification and warrant is provided for the alternative theses and their implications defining an adherence theory of attribution, key features synopsized in the last section.