Objection 2: Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.

《神學大全》（Summa Theologica）導讀

A Companion to Philosophy of Religion

David Lewis famously endorsed Unrestricted Composition. His defense of such a controversial principle builds on the alleged innocence of mereology. This innocence defense has come under different attacks in the last decades. In this paper I pursue another line of defense, that stems from some early remarks by van Inwagen. I argue that Unrestricted Composition leads to a better metaphysics. In particular I provide new arguments for the following claims: Unrestricted Composition entails extensionality of composition, functionality of location and four-dimensionalism in the metaphysics of persistence. Its endorsement yields an impressively coherent and powerful metaphysical picture. This picture shows a universe that might not be innocent but it is certainly elegant.

https://doc.rero.ch/record/278356/files/Calosi_Claudio_-_An_Elegant_Universe_20170117.pdf

An elegant universe

Recently, I’ve championed the doctrine that fundamentally different sorts of things exist in fundamentally different ways. On this view, what it is for an entity to be can differ across ontological categories. Although historically this doctrine was very popular, and several important challenges to this doctrine have been dealt with, I suspect that contemporary metaphysicians will continue to treat this view with suspicion until it is made clearer when one is warranted in positing different modes of existence. I address this concern here. The question of when to posit ways of being is closely related to a more general question: when should one think that some philosophically interesting expression is analogous? Accordingly, my strategy here is as follows. First, I briefly explain my interpretation of ontological pluralism, the doctrine that there are ways of being. Second,

A Return to the Analogy of Being

This paper is a systematic exploration of non-wellfounded mereology Motivations and applications suggested in the literature are considered Some are exotic like Borges' ALEPH, and the TRINITY; other examples are less so, like TIME TRAVELING BRICKS, and even Geach's TIBBLES THE CAT The authors point out that the transitivity of non-wellfounded parthood is inconsistent with extensionality A non-wellfounded mereology is developed with careful consideration paid to rival notions of supplementation and fusion Two equivalent axiomatizations are given, and are compared to classical mereology We provide a class of models with respect to which the non-wellfounded mereology is sound and complete This paper explores the prospects of non-wellfounded mereology An order < (in this case proper parthood) on a domain is said to be wellfounded if every nonempty subset of that domain has a <-minimal element We say that x is a <-minimal element of a set S if there is no y in S such that y < x Wellfoundedness rules out any infinite descending <-chains There are atomless mereologies, sometimes called gunky, in which proper parthood chains are all infinite 1 This is one interesting and important case of a non- wellfounded mereology But notice, wellfoundedness also rules out structures in which for some x, x < x; likewise, it rules out cases in which there is some x and y such that x < y and y < x That is, wellfoundedness rules out parthood loops In this paper, we explore a non-wellfounded mereology that allows for both these sorts of parthood loops In §1, we briefly survey some applications for non-wellfounded mereology that have been suggested in the literature In §2, we consider difficulties with the classical definitions of parthood and proper parthood; we discuss extensionality principles in mereology, and argue that extensionality is inconsistent with the transitivity of parthood in certain non- wellfounded scenarios In §3, we examine supplementation principles and rival notions of fusion for non-wellfounded mereology §4 examines the relationship between classical mereology and non-wellfounded mereology We show that the latter is a simple generaliza- tion of the former Finally, we give a class of models for which non-wellfounded mereology is sound and complete in §5

/pdf/non-wellfounded-mereology-n2t4g0e04t.pdf

Non-wellfounded mereology

Multilocation and mereology

INTRODUCTION MEREOLOGY 1. THE MANY PRIMITIVES OF MEREOLOGY 2. PARTHOOD IS IDENTITY 3. MEREOLOGY AND MODALITY MEREOLOGY AND LOCATION 4. WHERE IT'S AT: MODES OF OCCUPATION AND KINDS OF OCCUPANT 5. A SPATIAL APPROACH TO MEREOLOGY 6. BALLS AND ALL 7. CONFLICTING INTUITIONS ABOUT SPACE INTERACTION WITH OTHER TOPICS 8. TRANSHYPERTIME IDENTITY 9. PARTS OF PROPOSITIONS 10. MEREOLOGICAL SUMS AND SINGULAR TERMS Notes on the Contributors Bibliography Index

Mereology and location

Placement Permissivism and Logics of Location

I examine the implications of positing stuff (which occupies an ontological category distinct from things) as a way to avoid colocation in the case of the statue and the bronze that constitutes it. When characterising stuff, it’s intuitive to say we often individuate stuff kinds by appealing to things and their relations (e.g., water is water rather than gold because it is entirely divisible into subportions which constitute or partially constitute H2O molecules). I argue that if this intuition is correct, there are important restrictions on how we can characterise stuff in order to avoid colocated portions of stuff.

Some Things About Stuff

The doctrine of the Trinity is, put simply, a conjunction of these three claims: (i) There are three distinct Divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, (ii) each Divine Person is God, and (iii), there is exactly one God. However, if there are three distinct Persons that are each God, we should get the result that there are three Gods. It seems Trinitarian Christians are having trouble counting: they need 3 to equal 1. But is that such a tall order? Perhaps bizarre mereology can give us a new way to count, to meet these many-one needs. The relevant mereological claim, which has been presented in the literature, is that pluralities are identical to the things that they compose. In this paper, I argue that this claim is not helpful to Trinitarians. In §1 I present and discuss the many-one identity claim, and in §2 I apply the claim to the Doctrine of the Trinity, presenting how it might seem to help the Trinitarian. Then in §3 and §4 I argue that upon closer inspection it proves to not help at all, but instead leaves us with the same options that we began with. In §4 I also explore whether it might help a polytheist, and argue that the only view it assists is one that’s entirely unmotivated. I conclude that, while it is an interesting metaphysical thesis, the composition-is-identity claim isn’t useful in helping reconcile the claims in the Doctrine of the Trinity.

/pdf/many-one-identity-and-the-trinity-376v0iiwlo.pdf

Shieva Kleinschmidt

Papers

Multilocation and mereology

Mereology and location

Placement Permissivism and Logics of Location

Some Things About Stuff

Many-One Identity and the Trinity