Table Of Content

Mereology Also available from Bloomsbury The Bloomsbury Companion to Metaphysics, edited by Neil A. Manson and Robert W. Barnard A Critical Introduction to Properties, Sophie R. Allen Metaphysics, Jonathan Tallant Ontology and Metaontology: A Contemporary Guide, Francesco Berto and Matteo Plebani Mereology A Philosophical Introduction Giorgio Lando Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Giorgio Lando, 2017 Giorgio Lando has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-8366-6 ePDF: 978-1-4725-8368-0 ePub: 978-1-4725-8367-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lando, Giorgio, author. Title: Mereology : a philosophical introduction / Giorgio Lando. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016058157| ISBN 9781472583666 (hb) | ISBN 9781472583680 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Whole and parts (Philosophy) Classification: LCC BD396 .L36 2017 | DDC 111/.82–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058157 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: What is Mereology? 1 0.1 A general, yet narrow, theory of parthood and composition 1 0.2 Mereology as a discipline, mereology as a theory, mereology as a philosophical thesis 3 0.3 Mereological monism and David Lewis: The reasons for this book 5 0.4 Mereology is not logic 8 0.5 Mereology is imperfectly understood, problematic, and dubious 8 0.6 Mereology and abstract entities 9 0.7 Mereological monism versus composition as identity 11 0.8 The plan of the book 12 Part One The Methodology of Mereological Monism Abstract 15 1 Natural Language, Literal Parthood, and Philosophical Mereology 17 1.1 Mereology and the lexical meaning of “part” 17 1.2 “Part” and cognate terms: Three distinctions 18 1.3 Literal parthood versus metaphorical parthood 23 1.4 Spatial parthood, paradigmatic parthood 25 1.5 Formal features and intuitive constraints 27 1.6 Mereology is about nonselective parthood 29 2 Mereological Monism: A Desirable Philosophical Thesis 31 2.1 How to maximize the discriminating power 31 2.2 Mereological monism as a refutation tool: An example 33 2.3 Classical Extensional Mereology: From above and from below 35 3 Is Mereology Formal? 39 3.1 Three senses of formality 39 3.2 How to show that mereology is formal 42 3.3 Formality, existence, identity 44 vi Contents 4 Transitivity and Other Features 47 4.1 Is parthood transitive? Yes 47 4.2 Monism, pluralism, and Ad Hocness 50 4.3 Reflexivity 52 4.4 Antisymmetry 55 4.5 Overlap, Fusion 59 Part Two Extensionalism Abstract 65 5 Hyperextensionality and Nominalism about Structure 67 5.1 Extensionalism at the origins of mereology 67 5.2 Mereological monism and nominalism 69 5.3 Goodman on hyperextensionality 71 5.4 Hyperextensionality, sets, wholes 72 5.5 Goodman’s approach, atomism, gunk 73 5.6 Is Goodman’s approach circular? 77 5.7 Fine’s principles of obliteration 78 6 What Extensionalism Says 85 6.1 Uniqueness of Composition and Extensionalism 85 6.2 Why Extensionalism is thus formulated 88 6.3 Extensionalism, atoms, and verbal tricks 90 7 Extensionalism and Concrete Entities 93 7.1 A multiplicity of extensional (non-fuzzy) mountains 93 7.2 A kind of duality 96 7.3 Modal properties and counterpart theory 97 7.4 Aesthetic properties and metalinguistic negation 99 7.5 Different things, with different parts: Extensionalism vindicated 104 7.6 A role for structures in Extensionalism 109 7.7 Extensionalism and time 111 8 Extensionalism and Abstract Entities 117 8.1 A different scenario 117 8.2 Facts and propositions 118 8.3 Extensionalism and stipulation 121 8.4 Extensionalism and language 122 8.5 A limitation for Extensionalism 128 8.6 Why it is reasonable to exclude abstract entities 131 Contents vii 9 The Alternatives to Extensionalism 135 9.1 Motivations for a non-extensional mereology 135 9.2 Roles, forms, Extensionalism 137 9.3 Dropping Weak Supplementation 139 9.4 Reciprocal proper parts 140 9.5 Strong Supplementation and Extensionalism 143 Part Three Unrestricted Composition Abstract 147 10 Mereological Fusion and Plural Logic 149 10.1 Mereological monism and ontological economy 149 10.2 Plural quantification 150 10.3 Mereology is not logic 152 10.4 The alternatives to plural quantification: Sets 155 10.5 The alternatives to plural quantification: Schemas 157 11 The Definition of Fusion 163 11.1 What a fusion should be 163 11.2 Minimal upper bounds and fusions 165 12 Allegedly Counterintuitive Entities 169 12.1 These fusions do not exist 169 12.2 Negative existential intuitions 170 12.3 A variety of intuitions 172 13 The Argument from Vagueness 175 13.1 Quine, Williams, and the argument from vagueness 175 13.2 Lewis’s version of the argument 180 13.3 What cannot be vague 183 13.4 The Lewis-Sider argument versus intuitions 185 13.5 Unrestricted Composition and formal mereology 187 13.6 What about intuitions? 190 14 Unrestricted Composition and Metaontology 193 14.1 Unrestricted Composition, Meinongian existence, Williamson’s concreteness 193 14.2 Fine’s metaontology 195 14.3 Unrestricted Composition and the narrow understanding of mereology 199 viii Contents Appendix: Mereological Monism, without Composition as Identity 201 15.1 Ontological innocence? 201 15.2 Is the whole nothing over and above its parts? 203 15.3 From Composition as Identity to mereological monism? 207 15.4 Why mereological monists should stay clear of Composition as Identity 210 Notes 211 References 223 Index 231 Acknowledgments I have presented early versions of some chapters of this book at various conferences and workshops in Geneva, Zagreb, Exeter, Madrid, and Milan. I would like to thank all the people who organized and/or attended these events, and in particular Aaron Cotnoir, Alessandro Giordani, Arianna Betti, Ciro De Florio, Claudio Calosi, Daniel Korman, Giuliano Torrengo, Kevin Mulligan, Kit Fine, Massimiliano Carrara, and Peter Simons. A draft of the book has also been used as a reference text for two graduate seminars on mereology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (Italy) in 2015 and 2016. I would like to thank the entire audience of these seminars for their patience, and in particular Andrea Strollo, Lorenzo Azzano, and Martina Botti for raising insightful questions, and for shaking their heads to express disagreement. I would also like to thank Massimo Mugnai for organizing lots of interesting and motivating seminars and research events at the Scuola Normale Superiore in those same years, and for making me aware that Leibniz's mereology is so interesting and stunningly similar to the doctrine which is analyzed and defended in this book. Andrea Borghini, Martina Botti, and Massimiliano Carrara have shared with me some very significant aspects of my research work over the last years, and I would like to offer them a particularly warm thanks. Claudio Calosi, Massimiliano Carrara, Giulia Felappi, Simone Gozzano, and Andrea Strollo have read and commented the entire manuscript, and contributed to amending a lot of mistakes. Fabio Carestiato did not read the manuscript but encouraged me to write it. Sergio Knipe has been a sensible and meticulous proofreader. Carmel Isaac and all the staff at Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. have followed the entire production process of the book with remarkable care. Finally, Diego Romei has proven a constant source of inspiration, warmth, and love during these years, and the book is dedicated to him.