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Single Idea 15446

[filed under theme 9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 5. Composition of an Object ]

Full Idea

Not just any operation that makes new things from old is a form of composition! There is no sense in which my parents are part of me, and no sense in which two numbers are parts of their greatest common factor.

Gist of Idea

Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples

Source

David Lewis (Against Structural Universals [1986], 'Variants')

Book Ref

Lewis,David: 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' [CUP 1999], p.97

A Reaction

One of those rare moments when David Lewis seems to have approached a really sensible metaphysics. Further on he rejects all forms of composition apart from mereology.

The 17 ideas from 'Against Structural Universals'

15433 Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis]
15448 The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis]
15449 If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis]
15439 The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis]
15441 The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis]
15440 A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis]
15443 Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis]
15450 Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis]
15451 I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis]
15445 Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis]
15446 Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis]
15444 Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis]
15434 Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis]
15437 We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis]
15435 If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis]
15436 Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis]
15438 We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis]