Atoms, combs, syllables and organisms

Philosophical Studies, 2017

Mereological atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atomic parts, i.e., parts lacking proper parts. Standardly, this thesis is characterized by an axiom that says, more simply, that everything has atomic parts. Anthony Shiver (2015) has argued that this characterization is satisfied by models that are not atomistic, and is therefore inadequate. I argue that Shiver’s conclusion can and ought to be resisted, for (i) the models in question are atomistic in the intended sense, and (ii) even though the standard characterization does not say that everything is composed of atoms, it implies so. If there is a sense in which the relevant models are problematic, it lies elsewhere.

Erkenntnis, 2016

It is customary practice to define ‘x is composed of the ys’ as ‘x is a sum of the ys and the ys are pairwise disjoint (i.e., no two of them have any parts in common)’. This predicate has played a central role in the debate on the special composition question and on related metaphysical issues concerning the mereological structure of objects. In this note we show that the customary characterization is nonetheless inadequate. We do so by constructing a mereological model where everything qualifies as composed of atoms even though some elements in the domain are gunky, i.e., can be divided indefinitely into smaller and smaller proper parts.

This paper opposes universal mereological composition (UMC). Sider defends it: unless UMC were true, he says, it could be indeterminate how many objects there are in the world. I argue that there is no general connection between how widely composition occurs and how many objects there are in the world. Sider fails to support UMC. I further argue that we should disbelieve in UMC objects. Existing objections against them say that they are radically unlike Aristotelian substances. True, but there is a stronger objection. This is that they are characterized by no properties, and so fail to be like anything -even themselves.

Synthese, 2019

In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called '(Strong) Composition as Identity' ('CAI'): the 'wall-bricks-and-atoms problem' ('WaBrA problem'), and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call 'Atomic Composition as Identity' ('ACAI') which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the (proper) plurality of atoms it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider's (2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that (pace Calosi 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an 'atomic comprehension principle' which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the 'one of' relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi (1999a, 2014) and Calosi (2016b, 2018) but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many.

Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science, 2022

In this paper, we aim at a transdisciplinary approach on atomicity. We especially focus on the mathematical perspective and we highlight the intimate, usual, defining property of the atom of being, in a sense, the essential indestructible, indivisible, irreducible, minimal, and self-similar unity. Using notions, concepts, and results, we try to answer the question \What is the atom?" from a mathematical perspective, offering at the same time a series of possible interpretations and meanings that exceed its strict limits.

mbph.de

Sophia, 2024

Vasubandhu’s arguments against atomism in Viṃśikā stanzas 12-13 are not strong enough to disprove that atoms are simple partless substances. However, if we take the special composition question into consideration, Viṃśikā stanza 13ab can be regarded as an objection to so-called ‘series-style answers’, which results in an undesirable conclusion for the opponents, i.e., the Vaibhāṣikas. A step back to a simple bonding answer is not a good choice for the Vaibhāṣikas in responding to this objection because the simple bonding answer leads to other difficulties and because some notions in Vaibhāṣika atomic theory entail multigrade relations in the material aggregates of atoms. Hence, the objection to series-style answers still makes sense in the refutation of Buddhist atomism through the claim that atoms are not proper parts of a material aggregate.

Logic and Logical Philosophy, 2005

In this paper † we will treat mereology as a theory of some structures that are not axiomatizable in an elementary language (one of the axioms will contain the predicate 'belong' ('∈') and we will use a variable ranging over the power set of the universe of the structure). A mereological structure is an ordered pair M = M, ⊑ , where M is a non-empty set and ⊑ is a binary relation in M , i.e., ⊑ is a subset of M × M. The relation ⊑ is a relation of being a mereological part (instead of ' x, y ∈ ⊑' we will write 'x ⊑ y' which will be read as "x is a part of y"). We formulate an axiomatization of mereological structures, different from Tarski's axiomatization as presented in [10] (Tarski simplified Leśniewski's axiomatization from [6]; cf. Remark 4). We prove that these axiomatizations are equivalent (see Theorem 1). Of course, these axiomatizations are definitionally equivalent to the very first axiomatization of mereology from [5], where the relation of being a proper part ⊏ is a primitive one. Moreover, we will show that Simons' "Classical Extensional Mereology" from [9] is essentially weaker than Leśniewski's mereology (cf. Remark 6).

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2001