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Ideas for 'works', 'Topics' and 'Writing the Book of the World'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
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.
'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider]
     Full Idea: An object is 'gunky' if each of its parts has further proper parts; thus gunk involves infinite descent in the part-whole relation.
     From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.11.2)
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 3. Axioms of Mereology
Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider]
     Full Idea: Should our fundamental theory of part and whole take 'part' or 'overlap' as primitive?
     From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.3)