Do relations individuate?

Abstract

WIIAT iS it that renders two exactly similar material objects numerically different from one another? One possible answer to this question is that the two objects have different relational properties or stand in different relations. They stand in different spatial relations to some other material objects and, perhaps, to one another. For example, one object X may be to the left of the other, Y (this relation hereafter being called L), while Y is to the right of X. E. B. Allaire rejects this answer on the grounds that X and Y first must be numerically different before they can stand in Relation L: Relations-I'll stick with spatial ones-presuppose numerical difference; they do not account for it. The thisness and the thatness of things is presupposed in saying that the one is to the left of the other.' Allaire's own answer to the question stated above is that each of the two numerically different material objects contains a different (a particular of this sort being called bare because it itself has no properties): Bare particulars are,