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Single Idea 10806

[filed under theme 4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology ]

Full Idea

Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification, as advocated by George Boolos, to the language of mereology.

Gist of Idea

Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology

Source

David Lewis (Mathematics is Megethology [1993], p.03)

Book Ref

-: 'Philosophia Mathematica' [-], p.3


The 23 ideas with the same theme [formalised general theory of how parts relate to wholes]:

It seems absurd that seeing a person's limbs, the one is many, and yet the many are one [Plato]
Are a part and whole one or many? Either way, what is the cause? [Aristotle]
Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P]
Dedekind originally thought more in terms of mereology than of sets [Dedekind, by Potter]
The part-whole relation is ultimate and indefinable [Russell]
The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman]
Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology [Lewis]
Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi]
Part and whole contribute asymmetrically to one another, so must differ [Fine,K]
Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen]
'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider]
Mereology began as a nominalist revolt against the commitments of set theory [Harte,V]
Mereology has been exploited by some nominalists to achieve the effects of set theory [Orenstein]
Mereology need not be nominalist, though it is often taken to be so [Varzi]
Are there mereological atoms, and are all objects made of them? [Varzi]
There is something of which everything is part, but no null-thing which is part of everything [Varzi]
A 'part' has different meanings for individuals, classes, and masses [Simons]
Classical mereology doesn't apply well to the objects around us [Simons]
Complement: the rest of the Universe apart from some individual, written x-bar [Simons]
Criticisms of mereology: parts? transitivity? sums? identity? four-dimensional? [Simons]
Mereology elides the distinction between the cards in a pack and the suits [Potter]
The 'aggregative' objections says mereology gets existence and location of objects wrong [Koslicki]