A Relevance Constraint on Composition

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (1):135-145 (2010)
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Abstract

Whether certain objects compose a whole at a given time does not seem to depend on anything other than the character of those objects and the relations between them. This observation suggests a far-reaching constraint on theories of composition. One version of the constraint has been explicitly adopted by van Inwagen and rules out his own answer to the composition question. The constraint also rules out the other well-known moderate answers that have so far been proposed

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David Vander Laan
Westmont College

Citations of this work

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Material beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Parts: a study in ontology.Peter M. Simons - 1987 - New York: Oxford University Press.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.

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