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Single Idea 13380

[filed under theme 9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects ]

Full Idea

When thought of just as an object, the parts of a thing seem definitive and their arrangement seems inconsequential. But when thought of as an object of a familiar kind it is reversed: the arrangement is important and the parts are inessential.

Gist of Idea

Parts seem to matter when it is just an object, but not matter when it is a kind of object

Source

Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.4)

Book Ref

Jubien,Michael: 'Possibility' [OUP 2009], p.15

A Reaction

This is analogous to the Ship of Theseus, where we say that the tour operator and the museum keeper give different accounts of whether it is the same ship. The 'kind' Jubien refers to is most likely to be a functional kind.

The 27 ideas with the same theme [what is involved in being part of something else]:

15849 Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V]
15850 Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato]
2084 If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato]
13274 The contents of an explanatory formula are parts of the whole [Aristotle]
12697 Indivisibles are not parts, but the extrema of parts [Leibniz]
9806 Whatever is made up of parts is made up of parts of those parts [Mill]
8249 Class membership is not transitive, unlike being part of a part of the whole [Lesniewski, by George/Van Evra]
10650 In the military, persons are parts of parts of large units, but not parts of those large units [Rescher]
17566 I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen]
14230 We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins]
13380 Parts seem to matter when it is just an object, but not matter when it is a kind of object [Jubien]
18998 Parthood lacks the restriction of kind which most relations have [Yablo]
13326 A 'temporary' part is a part at one time, but may not be at another, like a carburetor [Fine,K]
13327 A 'timeless' part just is a part, not a part at some time; some atoms are timeless parts of a water molecule [Fine,K]
18515 Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil]
18516 A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil]
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]
10654 The parthood relation will help to define at least seven basic predicates [Varzi]
6128 Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region [Merricks]
12864 We say 'b is part of a', 'b is a part of a', 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. [Simons]
12795 Parts must be of the same very general type as the wholes [Laycock]
14233 Nihilists needn't deny parts - they can just say that some of the xs are among the ys [Liggins]
14498 For three-dimensionalist parthood must be a three-place relation, including times [Koslicki]
13283 The parts may be the same type as the whole, like a building made of buildings [Koslicki]
16068 The weight of a wall is not the weight of its parts, since that would involve double-counting [Wasserman]