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Full Idea
While mereology was originally offered with a nominalist viewpoint, resulting in a conception of mereology as an ontologically parsimonious alternative to set theory, there is no necessary link between analysis of parthood and nominalism.
Gist of Idea
Mereology need not be nominalist, though it is often taken to be so
Source
Achille Varzi (Mereology [2003], 1)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.3
A Reaction
He cites Lesniewski and Leonard-and-Goodman. Do you allow something called a 'whole' into your ontology, as well as the parts? He observes that while 'wholes' can be concrete, they can also be abstract, if the parts are abstract.
| 10648 | Mereology need not be nominalist, though it is often taken to be so [Varzi] |
| 10647 | Parts may or may not be attached, demarcated, arbitrary, material, extended, spatial or temporal [Varzi] |
| 10651 | If 'part' is reflexive, then identity is a limit case of parthood [Varzi] |
| 10649 | 'Part' stands for a reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive relation [Varzi] |
| 10653 | Maybe set theory need not be well-founded [Varzi] |
| 10652 | Conceivability may indicate possibility, but literary fantasy does not [Varzi] |
| 10654 | The parthood relation will help to define at least seven basic predicates [Varzi] |
| 10655 | Are there mereological atoms, and are all objects made of them? [Varzi] |
| 10658 | Sameness of parts won't guarantee identity if their arrangement matters [Varzi] |
| 10659 | There is something of which everything is part, but no null-thing which is part of everything [Varzi] |
| 10661 | 'Composition is identity' says multitudes are the reality, loosely composing single things [Varzi] |