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Property: What is referred to
by a one-place predicate, or also more
widely what is referred to by a predicate. The given definition follows the usage of "property"
in logic, though it should be noted that in logic a property gets easily
identified or confused with the set of things that satisfy a predicate
(its extension),
and therefore may all be said to have the property.
This makes technical sense, but is not quite what is normally understood
by "property", which is like quality i.e. an aspect or feature of a
thing that is not a thing, nor itself the
set of things that have that property.
This is related to a very fundamental problem: What are
properties and relations? As was already
clear to Aristotle, in intuitive terms, there are no forms without
substances (to be the forms of), nor substances without form (that
determines what the substances are capable of).
The clearest treatment of the issues involved that I know of is by
D.M. Armstrong.
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