Browsing by Subject "Mereology"
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Item Open Access Composition as identity, now with all the pluralities you could want(Springer Netherlands, 2021-05-07) Payton, Jonathan D.According to ‘composition as identity’ (CAI), a composite object is identical to all its parts taken together. Thus, a plurality of composite objects is identical to the plurality of those objects’ parts. This has the consequence that, e.g., the bricks which compose a brick wall are identical to the atoms which compose those bricks, and hence that the plurality of bricks must include each of those atoms. This consequence of CAI is in direct conflict with the standard analysis of plural definite descriptions (and hence with the standard plural comprehension schema which uses it). According to that analysis, the denotation of ‘the bricks’ can include only bricks. It seems, then, that if CAI is true, ‘the bricks’ doesn’t denote anything; more generally, if CAI is true, there are fewer pluralities than we ordinarily think. I respond to this argument by developing an alternative analysis of plural descriptions (and an alternative comprehension schema) which allows the denotation of ‘the bricks’ to include non-bricks. Thus, we can accept CAI, while still believing in all the pluralities we could want. As a bonus, my approach to plural descriptions and plural comprehension blocks recent arguments to the effect that CAI entails compositional nihilism.Item Open Access Counting composites(Routledge, 2021-08-21) Payton, Jonathan D.I defend the thesis that Composition Entails Identity (CEI): that is, a whole is identical to all of its parts, taken together. CEI seems to be inconsistent, since it seems to require that the parts of a whole possess incompatible number properties (for instance, being one thing and being many things). I show that these number properties are, in fact, compatible.Item Open Access Hesperus is phosphorus, indeed(Springer Netherlands, 2009) Aranyosi, I.Tobias Hansson Wahlberg argues in a recent article that the truth of ‘‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’’ depends on the assumption that the endurance theory of persistence is true. I argue that the premise Wahlberg’s conclusion is based upon leads to absurd consequences, therefore, nothing recommends it. As a consequence, ‘‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’’ has to be true, if it is true, regardless of which theory of persistence one is committed to.