  Given that non-reductivists construe the nature of paradigmatic relations as sui generis, it is not surprising that they feel the need to resort to metaphors to describe it. Albert himself appeals most often to a visual metaphor of outward-looking-ness (respectus), and describes individual relations as that in virtue of which a subject “looks out toward another” (respicit ad aliud). Other philosophers, rely on other metaphors and variously describe the nature of relations as a kind of directionality or toward-ness (aditas), as a type of disposition or way of holding oneself (habitudo or relativa habitudo), or again as the source or principle of structure and order   (ordinatio).[26]