 The idea of ontological dependence goes back further than Descartes though, at least to Aristotle (see Corkum 2008, Koslicki 2013, and Peramatzis 2011), and it appears throughout the history of philosophy. For instance, there is a notion of dependence operative in the philosophy of John Duns Scotus, who uses it in his proof of the existence of God (see the separate entry on  John Duns Scotus,  §2.2 for details). Later, precursors to the contemporary work on ontological dependence can be found in the work of Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl; in particular, Husserl’s work on the dependence between wholes and parts (for discussion, see Simons 1982 and Johansson 2004: Ch. 9).