Many philosophers think not. Many philosophers, in fact, seem to suppose that anyone who raises the question whether mereological sums can change their parts displays thereby a failure to grasp an essential feature of the concept “mereological sum.” It is hard to point to an indisputable example of this in print,[i] but it is a thesis I hear put forward very frequently in conversation (sometimes it is put forward in the form of an incredulous stare after I have (...) said something that implies that mereological sums can change their parts). (shrink)

The relative merits of standard mereology have received quite a bit of attention in recent years from metaphysicians concerned with the part/whole properties of material objects. A question that has not been pursued to the same degree, however, is what sort of semantic repercussions a commitment to mereological sums in the standard sense might have in particular on the predicted behavior of singular terms and our practices of using such terms to refer to objects. The apparent mismatch between our (...) actual referential practices and the persistence conditions attributed to material objects by the supporters of standard mereology puts these philosophers, other things being equal, at a disadvantage compared to those whose ontology matches more closely the observed behavior of singular terms, as they are commonly used in ordinary discourse. To alleviate this problem, David Lewis leans heavily on his distinction between natural and non-natural properties. I argue in this paper that Lewis’ already heavily burdened natural/non-natural distinction among properties is not enough to avoid Quinean indeterminacy for singular terms. Those who are in the business of giving an analysis of constructions involving full-fledged predication, as opposed to the mere spatial overlap of denotations, will thus want to go in for an ontology that places more stringent structural constraints on the referents of singular terms than would be supplied by standard mereology. (shrink)

Some tools introduced by Linnebo to show that mathematical entities are thin objects can also be applied to non-mathematical entities, which have been thought to be thin as well for a variety of reasons. In this paper, I discuss some difficulties and opportunities concerning the application of abstraction and interpretational modalities to mereological sums. In particular, I show that on one hand some prima facie attractive candidates for the role of an explanatory plural abstraction principle for mereological sums (...) (in terms of pluralities of summed entities) are not really explanatory; on the other hand, singular abstraction principles (in terms of single summed entities) are materially inadequate. Nonetheless, explanatory criteria of identity and conditions of existence for mereological sums are provided by classical extensional mereology independent of abstraction principles. Thus, given classical extensional mereology, the reasons why, according to Linnebo, mathematical abstracted entities are thin also hold for mereological sums. Finally, I contend that interpretational modalities can be used to characterise the process by which a subject adds sums of previously admitted entities to the domain of quantification. (shrink)

Abstract: Friends of plural logic—like Oliver & Smiley (2001), Rayo (2002), Yi (2005), and McKay (2006)—have argued that a semantics of plurals based on mereological sums would be too weak, and they have adduced several examples in favor of their claim. However, they have not considered various possible counter-arguments. So how convincing are their own arguments? We show that several of them are easily answered, while some others are more problematic. Overall, the case against mereological singularism—the idea that (...) mereological sums can serve as the semantic values of plurals—turns out to be much less strong than what it is usually presented to be. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends an account of the coincidence of biological organisms with mereological sums of their material components. That is, an organism and the sum of its material components are distinct material objects existing in the same place at the same time. Instead of relying on historical or modal differences to show how such coincident entities are distinct, this paper argues that there is a class of physiological properties of biological organisms that their coincident mereological sums (...) do not have. The account answers some of the most pressing objections to coincidence, for example the so-called grounding problem , that material coincidence seems to require that coinciding objects have modal differences that do not supervene on any other properties. (shrink)

Classical mereology is a formal theory of the part-whole relation, essentially involving a notion of mereological fusion, or sum. There are various different definitions of fusion in the literature, and various axiomatizations for classical mereology. Though the equivalence of the definitions of fusion is provable from axiom sets, the definitions are not logically equivalent, and, hence, are not inter-changeable when laying down the axioms. We examine the relations between the main definitions of fusion and correct some technical errors in (...) prominent discussions of the axiomatization of mereology. We show the equivalence of four different ways to axiomatize classical mereology, using three different notions of fusion. We also clarify the connection between classical mereology and complete Boolean algebra by giving two "neutral" axiom sets which can be supplemented by one or the other of two simple axioms to yield the full theories; one of these uses a notion of "strong complement" that helps explicate the connections between the theories. (shrink)

This volume is the first systematic and thorough attempt to investigate the relation and the possible applications of mereology to contemporary science. It gathers contributions from leading scholars in the field and covers a wide range of scientific theories and practices such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, computer science and engineering. Throughout the volume, a variety of foundational issues are investigated both from the formal and the empirical point of view. The first section looks at the topic as it applies (...) to physics. The section addresses questions of persistence and composition within quantum and relativistic physics and concludes by scrutinizing the possibility to capture continuity of motion as described by our best physical theories within gunky space times. The second part tackles mathematics and shows how to provide a foundation for point-free geometry of space switching to fuzzy-logic. The relation between mereological sums and set-theoretic suprema is investigated and issues about different mereological perspectives such as classical and natural Mereology are thoroughly discussed. The third section in the volume looks at natural science. Several questions from biology, medicine and chemistry are investigated. From the perspective of biology, there is an attempt to provide axioms for inferring statements about part hood between two biological entities from statements about their spatial relation. From the perspective of chemistry, it is argued that classical mereological frameworks are not adequate to capture the practices of chemistry in that they consider neither temporal nor modal parameters. The final part introduces computer science and engineering. A new formal mereological framework in which an indeterminate relation of part hood is taken as a primitive notion is constructed and then applied to a wide variety of disciplines from robotics to knowledge engineering. A formal framework for discrete mereotopology and its applications is developed and finally, the importance of mereology for the relatively new science of domain engineering is also discussed. (shrink)

Classical mereology (CM) is usually taken to be formulated in a tenseless language, and is therefore associated with a four-dimensionalist metaphysics. This paper presents three ways one might integrate the core idea of flat plenitude, i.e., that every suitable condition or property has exactly one mereological fusion, with a tensed logical setting. All require a revised notion of mereological fusion. The candidates differ over how they conceive parthood to interact with existence in time, which connects to the distinction (...) between endurance and perdurance. Similar issues arise for the integration of mereology with modality, and much of our discussion applies to this project as well. (shrink)

Is a whole something more than the sum of its parts? Are there things composed of the same parts? If you divide an object into parts, and divide those parts into smaller parts, will this process ever come to an end? Can something lose parts or gain new ones without ceasing to be the thing it is? Does any multitude of things (including disparate things such as you, this book, and the tail of a cat) compose a whole of some (...) sort? Questions such as these have occupied us for at least as long as philosophy has existed. They define the field that has come to be known as mereology-the study of all relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole-and have deep and far-reaching ramifications in metaphysics as well as in logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and beyond. In Mereology, A. J. Cotnoir and Achille C. Varzi have compiled decades of advanced research into a comprehensive, up-to-date, and formally rigorous picture. The early chapters cover the more classical aspects of mereology; the rest of the book deals with variants and extensions. Whether you are an established professional philosopher, an interested student, or a newcomer, inside you will find all the tools you need to join this ever-evolving field of inquiry and theorize about all things mereological. (shrink)

The special composition question, which asks under which conditions objects compose a further object, establishes a central debate in modern metaphysics. Recent successes of inductive metaphysics, which studies the implications of the natural sciences for metaphysical problems, suggest that insights into the SCQ can be gained by investigating the physics of composite systems. In this work, I show that the minus first law of thermodynamics, which is concerned with the approach to equilibrium, leads to a new approach to the SCQ, (...) the thermodynamic composition principle : Multiple systems in thermal contact compose a single system. This principle, which is justified based on a systematic classification of possible mereological models for thermodynamic systems, might form the basis of an inductive argument for universalism. A formal analysis of the TCP is provided on the basis of mereotopology, which is a combination of mereology and topology. Here, “thermal contact” can be analyzed using the mereotopological predicate “self-connectedness”. Self-connectedness has to be defined in terms of mereological sums to ensure that scattered objects cannot be self-connected. (shrink)

Part One of this paper is a case against classical mereology and for Heyting mereology. This case proceeds by first undermining the appeal of classical mereology and then showing how it fails to cohere with our intuitions about a measure of quantity. Part Two shows how Heyting mereology provides an account of sets and classes without resort to any nonmereological primitive.

In ‘Essential stuff' (2008) and ‘Stuff' (2009), Kristie Miller argues that two generally accepted theses, often formulated as follows, are incompatible: - (Temporal) mereological essentialism for stuff (or matter), the thesis that any portion of stuff has the same parts at every time it exists. - Stuff composition, the thesis that for any two portions of stuff, there exists a portion of stuff that is their mereological sum (or fusion). She does this by considering competing hypotheses about stuff, (...) trying to prove inconsistency in all cases and with all corresponding understandings of mereological essentialism and stuff composition. I explain why, from an endurantist standpoint, her argument does not go through. (shrink)

As I will use the term, an object is a mereological sum of some things just in case those things compose it simply in virtue of existing. In the first half of this paper, I argue that there are no sums. The key premise for this conclusion relies on a constraint on what, in certain cases, it takes for something to ground, or metaphysically explain, something else. In the second half, I argue that in light of my argument against (...) sums, Universalism, which is perhaps the most widely accepted answer to the Special Composition Question, is false. (shrink)

As it is indicated in the title, this paper is devoted to the problem of defining mereological (collective) sets. Starting from basic properties of sets in mathematics and differences between them and so called conglomerates in Section 1, we go on to explicate informally in Section 2 what it means to join many objects into a single entity from point of view of mereology, the theory of part of (parthood) relation. In Section 3 we present and motivate basic axioms (...) for part of relation and we point to their most fundamental consequences. Next three sections are devoted to formal explication of the notion of mereological set (collective set) in terms of sums, fusions and aggregates. We do not give proofs of all theorems. Some of them are complicated and their presentation would divert the reader’s attention from the main topic of the paper. In such cases we indicate where the proofs can be found and analyzed by those who are interested. (shrink)

A lump theorist claims that ordinary objects are spread out across possible worlds, much like many of us think that tables are spread out across space. We are not wholly located in any one particular world, the lump theorist claims, just as we are not wholly spatially located where one’s hand is. We are modally spread out, a trans-world mereological sum of world-bound parts. We are lump sums of modal parts. And so are all other ordinary objects. In this (...) paper, I explore lump theory and investigate five arguments against it. These arguments may be the primary reasons why lump theory has not been widely accepted––or extensively explored––until now. I maintain that these arguments can be answered, and moreover, that accepting lump theory has distinct advantages, making it a competitive view in its own right. (shrink)

Mereological entities often seem to violate ‘ordinary’ ideas of what a concrete object can be like, behaving more like sets than like Aristotelian substances. However, the mereological notions of ‘part’, ‘composition’, and ‘sum’ or ‘fusion’ appear to find concrete realisation in the actual semantics of mass nouns. Quine notes that ‘any sum of parts which are water is water’; and the wine from a single barrel can be distributed around the globe without affecting its identity. Is there here, (...) as some have claimed, a ‘natural’ or ‘innocent’ form of mereology? The claim rests on the assumption that what a mass noun such as ‘wine’ denotes — the wine from a single barrel, for example — is indeed a unit of a special type, the sum or fusion of its many ‘parts’. The assumption is, however, open to question on semantic grounds. (shrink)

Milk, sand, plastic, uranium, wood, carbon, and oil are kinds of stuff. The sand in Hawaii, the uranium in North Korea, and the oil in Iraq are portions of stuff. Not everyone believes in portions of stuff.1 Those who do are likely to agree that, whatever their more specific natures, portions of stuff can at least be identified with mereological sums of their subportions.2 It seems after all trivial that a given portion of stuff just is all of its (...) subportions combined—not by a spatiotemporal or any other substantive unifying relation, but by a mere principle of summation, a principle requiring that, if some things exist, there exists the sum, or collection, of those things. (shrink)

The debate about the ontological innocence of mereology has generally been framed as a debate about the plausibility of Universal Fusion. Ontologically loaded fusions must be more than the sum of their parts, and this seems to violate parsimony if fusion is universal. Less attention has been paid to the question of what sort of emergence mereological fusions must exhibit if they are irreducible to their parts. The philosophy of science literature provides several models of such strong emergence. Examining (...) those models suggests that the difficulty with emergent fusions has at least as much to do with extensionality as it does with Universal Fusion. Some accounts of emergence fail to ensure irreducibility when combined with extensional mereologies. The most promising model for the strong emergence of ontologically loaded fusions fails to validate Anti-Symmetry, which naturally leads to failures of extensionality. These results suggest that the focus on Universal Fusion may have been misplaced. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine how any domain of Meinongian objects can be structured by a special kind of mereology. The basic definition of this mereology is the following: an object is part of another iff every characteristic property of the former is also a characteristic property of the latter. I will show that this kind of mereology ends up being very powerful for dealing with Meinongian objects. Mereological sums and products are not restricted in any (...) way in a domain of Meinongian objects: there is a sum and a product for any pair of Meinongian objects. With the mereological operations of sum, product and complement, and two special Meinongian objects, we can define a full boolean algebra on Meinongian objects. Moreover, this kind of mereology is atomic and extensional: an atom is a Meinongian object having just one characteristic property and two objects are identical iff the same atoms are parts of both of them. A Meinongian object can finally be defined in mereological terms as the sum of the atoms of its characteristic properties. (shrink)

I analyze the relations of constituency or ``being in'' that connect different ontological items in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus by Wittgenstein. A state of affairs is constituted by atoms, atoms are in a state of affairs. Atoms are also in an atomic fact. Moreover, the world is the totality of facts, thus it is in some sense made of facts. Many other kinds of Tractarian notions -- such as molecular facts, logical space, reality -- seem to be involved in constituency relations. (...) How should these relations be conceived? And how is it possible to formalize them in a convincing way? I draw a comparison between two ways of conceiving and formalizing these relations: through sets and through mereological sums. The comparison shows that the conceptual machinery of set theory is apter to conceive and formalize Tractarian constituency notions than the mereological one. (shrink)

Michael Ghiselin and David Hull’s individuality thesis is that biological species are individuals. Philosophers often treat the term “individual” as synonymous with “mereological sum” and characterize it in terms of mereology. It is easy to see how the biological project has been interpreted as a mereological one. This chapter argues that this is a mistake, that biological part/whole relations often violate the axioms of mereology. Conflating these projects confuses the central issues at stake in both, and makes the (...) job of evaluating either unnecessarily burdensome. Clarifying this helps identify the genuine metaphysical implications of the individuality thesis, which serves as an exemplar of scientifically informed metaphysics. (shrink)

Lewis famously argued that mereology is ontologically innocent. Many who have considered this claim believe he was mistaken. Mereology is not innocent, because its acceptance entails the acceptance of sums, new objects that were not previously part of one’s ontology. This argument, the argument from ontological parsimony, has two versions: a qualitative and a quantitative one. I argue that the defender of mereology can neutralize both arguments by holding that, given mereology, a commitment to the parts of an object is (...) not an extra ontological commitment, made in addition to the commitment to the object; and that if the parts of an object are ‘ontologically innocent’, then sums cannot fail to be innocent either. (shrink)

In 2013, Bennett proposed a mereological theory in which the parthood relation is defined on the basis of two primitive relations: a is a part of b iff a fills a slot owned by b. However, this theory has issues counting how many parts an entity has. We explore the various counting problems and propose a new theory to solve them. Keeping the core idea of Bennett’s slots, this theory introduces mereological relations between slots. This theory enables us (...) to solve all known counting problems and to go beyond the limits of Bennett’s theory by theorising expected features of mereological theories: supplementation principles and mereological sum and fusion. The theory is illustrated on ontological issues on the nature of structural universals and informational entities. (shrink)

I provide a classification of varieties of pantheism. I argue that there are two different kinds of commitments that pantheists have. On the one hand, there is an ontological commitment to the existence of a sum of all things. On the other hand, there is an ideological commitment: either collectively or distributively, the sum of all things is divine.

Noël Blas Saenz has recently argued for a counterfactual condition on grounding called Sensitivity, with which he tries to show that there are no mereological sums and that universalism abo...

In this thesis I argue against unrestricted mereological hybridism, the view that there are absolutely no constraints on wholes having parts from many different logical or ontological categories, an exemplar of which I take to be ‘mixed fusions’. These are composite entities which have parts from at least two different categories – the membered (as in classes) and the non-membered (as in individuals). As a result, mixed fusions can also be understood to represent a variety of cross-category summation such (...) as the abstract with the concrete, the physical with the non-physical, and the possible with the impossible, just to name a few. -/- Proposed by David Lewis (1991) alongside his defence of classical mereology (the major theory of parthood which permits such transcategorial composites through its principle of unrestricted composition) it is my contention that mixed fusions are an under-examined consequence of indiscriminate mereological fusion which harbour a multitude of complications. In my attempt to discern their substantive character, throughout this thesis I make a case study of mixed fusions and uncover several problematic consequences which I think follow from their most plausible assessment. -/- These include: (1) that mixed fusions’ probable membership relations may lead to dubious foundational loops in the mereological Universe, or (2) otherwise that mixed fusions oblige an implausible ontological priority of the mereological Universe as a whole; (3) that mixed fusions contradict the reductive account of set theory they are proposed within, by plausibly being seen to have the same members as their class parts, and (4) that mixed fusions therefore confound a mereological thesis of Composition as Identity, which some (including Lewis) use to support classical mereology – a consequence which is potentially self-defeating; (5) that mixed fusions as sums of abstract and concrete entities both subvert Lewis’s (1986) system of modal realism, while (6) also undermining less expansive theories of possible worlds; and finally, (7) that even where some of the foregoing is resisted, it remains implausible that mixed fusions are ontologically innocent, because their supposed distinction from their parts in this case ensures that they need to be counted as additional entities in one’s ontology. -/- To be clear, I do not advance a theory of mereological hybrid nihilism in the sense of denying all cases of transcategorial composition. (I only cover a few select instances of mereological hybridism via mixed fusions after all.) Rather, I deny that mereological hybridism is plausible in full generality, by demonstrating that any cases of it are at least limited by the constraints that I identify. This in turn vindicates a call for a restriction on parthood theories and composition principles which allow certain types of categorially mixed entities – including restricting classical mereology with its principle of unrestricted composition. -/- Although theories of parthood like the standard classical mereology are not ordinarily developed for the sake of mereological hybrids like mixed fusions, these and other transcategorial composites are still among the logical consequences of such parthood systems operating with sufficient generality. The significance of my thesis, then, comes from showcasing how some of these kinds of entities do not conform to the systems in which they are included as required, and hence I argue for the rejection of unrestricted mereological hybridism as well as any mereological principles which support it. (shrink)

In this work, the author formulates a critique of widely accepted mereological assumptions, presents a new conception of wholes as ‘Unities’, and demonstrates the advantages of this new conception in treating a variety of metaphysical puzzles (such as that of Tibbles the cat). More generally he suggests that conceiving wholes as Unities offers us a new way of understanding the world in non-reductive terms.

The paper set up a small “philosophical lab” for thought experiments using Digital Universes as its main tool. Digital Universes allow us to examine how mereology affects the debate on New Realism of Ferraris and shed new light on the whole notion of Realism. The semi-formal framework provides a convenient way to model the varieties of realism that are important for the program of New Realism: we then draw the natural consequences of this approach into the ontology of our world, (...) arguing that the same considerations that apply to Digital Universe would hold for chess, institutions and social objects as well. Once a particular version of mereology is chosen, there are unavoidable consequences that the very underlying structure of social ontology. We then propose a new New Realism to tackle social objects: social objects turn out to be nothing more than mereological sums, picked up by some description. (shrink)

In a series of publications, L. A. Paul has defended a version of the bundle theory according to which material objects are nothing but mereological sums of ‘their’ properties. This ‘mereological’ bundle theory improves in important ways on earlier bundle theories, but here I present a new argument against it. The argument is roughly this: Material objects occupy space; even if properties have spatial characteristics, they do not quite occupy space; on no plausible construal of mereological composition (...) does a mereological sum of non-space-occupying entities occupy space; therefore, material objects are not mereological sums of properties. (shrink)

This paper aims to formalize Galileo’s argument against the Aristotelian view that the weight of free-falling bodies influences their speed. I obtain this via the application of concepts of parthood and of mereological sum, and via recognition of a principle which is not explicitly formulated by the Italian thinker but seems to be natural and helpful in understanding the logical mechanism behind Galileo’s train of thought. I also compare my reconstruction to one of those put forward by Atkinson and (...) Peijnenburg :115–136, 2004), and propose a formalization which is based on a principle introduced by them, which I shall call the speed is mediative principle. (shrink)

In Parts of Classes [Lewis 1991] David Lewis attempts to draw a sharp contrast between mereology and set theory and to assimilate mereology to logic. He argues that, like logic but unlike set theory, mereology is “ontologically innocent”. In mereology, given certain objects, no further ontological commitment is required for the existence of their sum. On the contrary, by accepting set theory, given certain objects, a further commitment is required for the existence of the set of them. The latter – (...) unlike the sum of the given objects – seems to be an abstract entity whose existence is not directly entailed by the existence of the objects themselves. The argument for the innocence of mereology is grounded on the thesis of “Composition as identity”. Lewis analyses two different versions of the thesis: the first is the Strong composition thesis, according to which certain objects are their sum, where the use of “are” would mean that composition is literally identity. The second version is the Weak composition thesis, according to which composition is analogous, under some aspects, to identity. He criticises the first version of the thesis and argues for the second one. In the paper we argue that (T1) arguments for the ontological innocence of mereology are not conclusive. An obvious objection to the Strong composition thesis is that – given certain objects Xs – they cannot be their sum because none of them is the sum. One could reply to this objection by observing that the “are” in the sentence “The Xs are their sum” is to be understood collectively and not distributively. But the crux is that the collective reading fails to generate a new entity, whereas mereology, in particular in Lewis’ use for the reconstruction of set theory as “megethology”, needs to consider sums as real objects. Besides, we contend that Lewis’ argument for the innocence of mereology based on the Weak composition thesis is a petitio principii. The reason is that the aspects of the analogy between composition and identity, which Lewis emphasises, obtain under the presupposition of the existence of sums. But this is just what a denier of innocence would refuse. (T2) Some arguments against the ontological innocence of mereology show a certain ambiguity in the innocence thesis itself. Some defences of the innocence seem to implicitly presuppose that the sum of certain objects Xs is not a genuine entity. Speaking of the sum of the Xs would be just another way of speaking plurally of the Xs. However, the relevant use of sums in mereology treats them as well determined objects. The relevant innocence thesis takes for granted that, though sums are genuine objects, nevertheless their existence does not require any further commitment. (T3) The innocence thesis, apart from Lewis’ defence, seems to depend on a general conception of the nature of objects and on how the notion of ontological commitment is understood. We think that the thesis is the manifesto of a realistic conception of parts and sums. This conception consists of the following clauses: (i) given any object x, it is well determined which parts it possesses; these are in turn objects whose existence is a necessary consequence of the existence of x. (ii) However any objects Xs are given, they automatically constitute a well determined object x which is their sum; (iii) We can refer singularly and plurally to parts and sums of given objects. Obviously, one might wonder if such a conception is really ontologically innocent. One could object that it is not innocent because clauses (i) – (iii) are not. For example, clause (i) could be considered as an ontological commitment to the existence of sums. But the innocence at issue does not concern the above-sketched conception. The innocence is embedded in the conception itself. In other words, someone who argues for clauses (i) – (iii) takes a point of view from which mereology appears to be innocent. For, such a point of view forces us to consider as well determined the parts of any object and does not allow us to separate the existence of certain objects form the existence of their sum. (T4) is the claim that the alleged innocence of mereology is subject to Quine’s notorious criticisms of the set-theoretical interpretation of second order logic. To the purpose, we construct a mereological model of a substantive fragment of set theory, i.e. the one that grounds the principal model semantics of second order logic. First, we construct a mereological model under the assumption of the existence of infinitely many atoms. Then, we replace this assumption with that of the existence of any infinite object (with or without atoms). Finally, let us make a general point about the innocence thesis of mereology. A conclusive argument for that would be a refutation of the thesis that there are only denumerably many entities. For, since the parts of an infinite object constitute a non-denumerable infinity, such an argument would entail that there could be no infinite without a non-denumerable infinity. However, the thesis that any genuine infinity is a denumerable one has had some important advocates. So, a conclusive argument for the innocence of mereology seems to be highly implausible. (shrink)

In Parts of Classes David Lewis attempts to draw a sharp contrast between mereology and set theory and he tries to assimilate mereology to logic. For him, like logic but unlike set theory, mereology is “ontologically innocent”. In mereology, given certain objects, no further ontological commitment is required for the existence of their sum. On the contrary, by accepting set theory, given certain objects, a further commitment is required for the existence of the set of them. The latter – unlike (...) the sum of the given objects – seems to be an abstract entity whose existence is not directly entailed by the existence of the objects themselves. The argument for the innocence of mereology is grounded on the thesis of composition as identity. In our paper we argue that: arguments for the ontological innocence of mereology are not conclusive. Some arguments against the ontological innocence of mereology show a certain ambiguity in the innocence thesis itself. The innocence thesis seems to depend on a general conception of the nature of objects and on how the notion of ontological commitment is understood. Specifically, we think that the thesis is the manifesto of a realistic conception of parts and sums. Quine‟s notorious criticism of the set-theoretical interpretation of second order logic seems to be reproducible against Lewis‟defence of mereology. To the purpose we construct a mereological model of a substantive fragment of set theory, adequate to ground the set-theoretical semantics of second order logic. (shrink)

The home learning environment includes what parents do to stimulate children’s literacy and numeracy skills at home and their overall beliefs and attitudes about children’s learning. The home literacy and numeracy environments are two of the most widely discussed aspects of the home learning environment, and past studies have identified how socioeconomic status and parents’ own abilities and interest in these domains also play a part in shaping children’s learning experiences. However, these studies are mostly from the West, and there (...) has been little focus on the situation of homes in Asia, which captures a large geographical area and a wide diversity of social, ethnic, and linguistic groups. Therefore, this paper aims to review extant studies on the home literacy and numeracy environments that have been conducted in different parts of Asia, such as China, the Philippines, India, Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Specifically, we explore how parents in these places perceive their roles in children’s early literacy and numeracy development, the methods they regard as effective for promoting young children’s literacy and numeracy learning, and the frequency with which they engage their young children in different types of home literacy and numeracy activities. We also examine studies on the relationship of the home literacy and numeracy environment with young children’s developmental outcomes, and the effectiveness of parent training programs to improve the home literacy and numeracy environments in these contexts. By examining potential trends in findings obtained in different geographical areas, we can initially determine whether there are characteristics that are potentially unique to contexts in Asia. We propose future research directions that acknowledge the role of cultural values and social factors in shaping the home learning environment, and, by extension, in facilitating children’s early literacy and numeracy development. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe examine Marx's critiques of language, politics, and capitalist political economy and show how these anticipated critical discourse and argumentation analysis and ‘cultural political economy’. Marx studied philology and rhetoric at university and applied their lessons critically. We illustrate this from three texts. The German Ideology critically explores language as practical consciousness, the division of manual and mental labor, the state, hegemony, intellectuals, and specific ideologies. The Eighteenth Brumaire studies the semantics and pragmatics of political language and how it represents (...) the class content of politics and contributes to social transformation. Capital deconstructs the categories of classical political economy and their constitutive role in capitalist social relations. This is one aspect of CPE. Capital also highlights the structural and agential aspects of these relations, their contradictory dynamic, and their crisis-prone character. We comment on this aspect too. This said, Marx held that social transformation is mediated through political imaginaries and highlighted the need for the proletariat to develop a ‘poetry’ of the future. We then consider the misleading ‘base-superstructure’ metaphor and note how, against the thrust of Marx's work, it tends to reify culture. The article concludes that Marx contributed to the critique of semiotic as well as political economy. (shrink)

According to Thomas Kuhn, the entrenchment of a paradigm, especially in the critical stages when facing anomalies, requires the further suppression of competing ideas. This essay addresses the unconscious entrenchment of European modernist aesthetics in the everyday, especially in the American suburbs of the 1950s, and its popular and cultural manifestations. Taking Levittown as a starting point, modernist architectural principles have since its construction radiated into the mass-housing market and materialized in housing development projects that have led to the rise (...) of suburbia and, more recently, the New Urbanism. Despite the conventional separations of modernism from the more criticized mass-housing development, the same principles of security, shelter, community, and utopia are present in each. Presented by some architects as a postmodernist aesthetic, the central tenets of modernism are still pursued and reimagined as timeless principles in the building of new housing communities, recycled and reconstituted to meet the dreams and desires of the public—a utopia that is both avant-garde and kitsch. (shrink)

The existence of mereological sums can be derived from an abstraction principle in a way analogous to numbers. I draw lessons for the thesis that “composition is innocent” from neo-Fregeanism in the philosophy of mathematics.

No research thus far has attempted to examine ethical decision- making in corporate entrepreneurial organizations. Results of such study would provide management executives with insights on what action, if any, is essential for achieving business ethics and corporate entrepreneurship simultaneously. This paper argues, theoretically, that the work characteristics, organizational characteristics, and some individual characteristics in a corporate entrepreneurial organization are conducive to ethical decisions. These characteristics help mitigate the adverse impact of the turbulent environments on ethical decision- making behavior. Based (...) on these arguments, a tentative model of ethical decison-making in corporate entrepreneurial organization is constructed. (shrink)

Physical literacy has received considerable attention in the field of physical education and physical activity worldwide. According to recent studies, the level of physical fitness among Chinese university students is gradually decreasing. This study aims to examine the impact of the PF level on PA and PL, as well as the relationships among PF, PA, and PL, in Chinese university students. Participants comprised 798 university students in Chongqing, China. Participants completed the tests of vital capacity, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, and (...) flexibility, according to the National Physical Fitness Measurement Standards Manual, as well as questionnaires on PA and PL. The independent t-tests were conducted to examine sex differences in the evaluated variables, and the Pearson’s correlation between each PF test and PL attributes and PA was calculated according to sex. In addition, the independent t-tests were conducted to determine whether the PF level had an effect on PL attributes and PA at various intensities. Significant sex differences were found in the PF domains of vital capacity, muscular strength, and aerobic fitness, with higher scores in men than in women, but not in the PF domain of flexibility and total PL score. Furthermore, the PF domains of muscular strength and aerobic fitness were significantly and positively correlated with the PL attributes of confidence and physical competence in both men and women, while the PF domains of vital capacity and aerobic fitness were significantly and positively correlated with the PL attribute of motivation in men. In addition, PL was significantly and positively associated with cardiorespiratory fitness, vital capacity, muscular strength, and flexibility among participants in the fit group. These findings support advocating for increased participation in PA in university students and using PL as a tool to improve PF components. (shrink)

Many are calling for concrete mechanisms of oversight for health research involving artificial intelligence (AI). In response, institutional review boards (IRBs) are being turned to as a familiar model of governance. Here, we examine the IRB model as a form of ethics oversight for health research that uses AI. We consider the model's origins, analyze the challenges IRBs are facing in the contexts of both industry and academia, and offer concrete recommendations for how these committees might be adapted in order (...) to provide an effective mechanism of oversight for health‐related AI research. (shrink)

According to the prevalent 'sum view' of stuffs, each portion of stuff is a mereological sum of its subportions. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the sum view in the light of a modal temporal mereology which distinguishes between different varieties of summation relations. While admitting David Barnett's recent counter-example to the sum view, we show that there is nonetheless an important sense in which all portions of stuff are sums of their subportions. We use our summation (...) relations to develop, as an alternative to the sum view, an analysis of stuffs that distinguisher between the ways in which different sorts of stuffs are sums of their subportions. (shrink)