  Another consideration that plays an important role in the debate between reductive and non-reductive realists has to do with the proper interpretation of authoritative texts. Since medieval philosophers develop their theories of relations in the course of reflecting on Aristotle’s Categories, they often present their views as the one actually suggested (or even required) by the text itself. Abelard, for example, suggests that his reductive theory is a direct consequence of Aristotle’s second definition of relations. Thus, when Aristotle characterizes relations in Categories 7 as “those things for which this is their very being: being toward something in a certain way,” Abelard argues that this should be interpreted to mean that relations are items that make other things to be relatives. Just as certain attributes (say, being red, juicy, and sweet) make their subjects good, so too, he suggests, certain accidents (such as being-six-feet-tall and five-feet-ten) relate their subjects (See Logica ‘ingredientibus’, 216–17. For further discussion, see Brower 1998).