back to ideas for this text


Single Idea 14244

[from 'Parts of Classes' by David Lewis, in 9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts ]

Full Idea

Lewis employs mereological fusion as his sole method of making one thing out of many, and fusion is notorious for the way it flattens out and thereby obliterates distinctions.

Gist of Idea

Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions

Source

comment on David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991]) by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? 3.1

Book Reference

'Metaphysics (Philosophical Perspectives 20)', ed/tr. Hawthorne,John [Blackwell 2006], p.137


A Reaction

I take this to be a key point in the discussion of mereology in ontological contexts. As a defender of intrinsic structural essences, I have no use for mereological fusions, and look for a quite different identity for 'wholes'.