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2 ideas
| 13270 | Are a part and whole one or many? Either way, what is the cause? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is a difficulty about part and whole, ...whether the part and the whole are one or more than one, and in what way they can be one or many, and, if they are more than one, in what way they are more than one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 185b11), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.3 | |
| A reaction: He only states the problem here, but doesn't pursue it. I take the real question of mereology to be what makes a many into a one. I don't see a problem with a many being simultaneously a one. |
| 13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
| A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |