Abstract

Joseph Schmid has proposed an account of existential inertia which says (among other things) that each existentially inert object is not ontologically dependent on anything that is not a part of itself. Using this account, I propose an argument that existential inertia cannot be enjoyed by external relations nor by their relata. I first draw from Arianna Betti’s case for relata-specific relations to argue that external relations cannot have existential inertia. Building on this conclusion, I then propose an argument that the relata of external relations also cannot have existential inertia.