 The more general challenge that faces the different versions of positionalism is whether we have a better understanding of positions and the assignment relation that the different versions of positionalism propose, than we do of the relations that positions and assignment are used to explain (Fine 2000: 16; MacBride 2014: 11–12; Orilia 2014: 302–3). Consider, for example, Donnelly’s claim that the application of n-ary relations needs to be explained in terms of packages of n! relative properties. One problem, acknowledged by Donnelly (2016: 98), is the ontological cost of having to trade in each relation for so many properties. Another problem concerns why relative properties of a given package cannot be instantiated independently of one another but only relative to other properties belonging to that package, even though each relative property is meant to be unary. The obvious explanation is that such properties aren’t unary at all but to be explained in terms of an underlying relation (Bigelow &amp; Pargetter 1990: 55, MacBride: 2000: 83). So saying that one thing x has a property relative to something else y having another relative property etc is more perspicuously rendered by saying that x bears a relation to y.