Attribute
An attribute is something that can be exemplified or that has parts that can be exemplified.
Some attributes are simple.
All simple attributes can be exemplified.
Some attributes are complexes of attributes. Complex
attributes are unordered wholes. Some complex
attributes cannot be exemplified, such as being
square and circular. I strongly suspect that every complex attribute is built
ultimately from simple attributes. That is, no attribute is such that all its
parts have parts, ad infinitum. This principle seems to me to be an axiom of
attributes.
There are two general kinds of attributes, properties and relations. Peter
van Inwagen calls my attributes, ‘relations’, and he
calls my relations ‘proper relations’. I suppose my terminology is reverse: I call
his relations, ‘attributes’, and his improper relations, ‘proper attributes’.