Thaw

relation

is grounded in the idea that only similar things can differ, and only different things can be similar.

It was Levi-Strauss, I think, who showed you had to distinguish the following two propositions: that only similar things can differ, and only different things can be similar' (Deleuze Negotiations 156).

is a tedious lot of people who don't know how to live or when to die.

is the most important of all the basic notions in philosophy. An idea without relations of any kind is empty; this is all that is meant by saying that "Pure Being and Nothing are the same"

It is the first business of philosophy to dissect these basic notions that are so bandied about in all our thinking. The most pervasive of them all is Relation; every idea is a group of relations; we can think of something only by relating it to something else, and perceiving its similarities and its differences. An idea without relations of any kind is empty; this is all that is meant by saying that "Pure Being and Nothing are the same": Being absolutely devoid of relations or qualities does not exist, and has no meaning whatever. This proposition led to an endless progeny of witticisms which still breed; and it proved to be at once an obstacle and a lure to the study of Hegel's thought.

relation, n.All

relation