display all the ideas for this combination of texts
15 ideas
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 14748 | The many are many and the one is one, so they can't be identical [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: What is true of the many is not exactly what is true of the one. After all they are many while it is one. The number of the many is six, whereas the number of the fusion is one. The singletons of the many are distinct from the singleton of the one. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: I wouldn't take this objection to be conclusive. 'Some pebbles' seem to be many, but a 'handful of pebbles' seem to be one, where the physical situation might be identical. If they are not identical, then the non-identity is purely conceptual. |
| 6129 | Lewis affirms 'composition as identity' - that an object is no more than its parts [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| Full Idea: Lewis says that the parts of a thing are identical with the whole they compose, calling his view 'composition as identity', which is the claim that a physical object is 'nothing over and above its parts'. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], p.84-7) by Trenton Merricks - Objects and Persons §I.IV | |
| A reaction: The ontological economy of this view is obviously attractive, but I don't agree with it. You certainly can't say that all identity consists entirely of composition by parts, because the parts need identity to get the view off the ground. |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 15512 | In mereology no two things consist of the same atoms [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: It is a principle of mereology that no two things consist of exactly the same atoms. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: The problem with this is screamingly obvious - that the same atoms might differ in structure. Lewis did refer to this problem, but seems to try to wriggle out of it, in Idea 15444. |
| 15519 | Trout-turkeys exist, despite lacking cohesion, natural joints and united causal power [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A trout-turkey is inhomogeneous, disconnected, not in contrast with its surroundings. It is not cohesive, not causally integrated, not a causal unit in its impact on the rest of the world. It is not carved at the joints. That doesn't affect its existence. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice pre-emptive strike against all the reasons why anyone might think more is needed for unity than a mereological fusion. |
| 15521 | Given cats, a fusion of cats adds nothing further to reality [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Given a prior commitment to cats, a commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment. The fusion is nothing over and above the cats that compose it. It just is them. They just are it. Together or separately, the cats are the same portion of Reality. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: The two extremes of ontology are that there are no objects, or that every combination is an object. Until reading this I thought Lewis was in the second camp, but this sounds like object-nihilism, as in Van Inwagen and Merricks. |
| 15522 | The one has different truths from the many; it is one rather than many, one rather than six [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: What's true of the many is not exactly what's true of the one. After all they are many while it is one. The number of the many is six, whereas the number of the fusion is one. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: Together with Idea 15521, this nicely illustrates the gulf between commitment to ontology and commitment to truths. The truths about a fusion change, while its ontology remains the same. Possibly this is the key to all of metaphysics. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 14244 | Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions [Oliver/Smiley on Lewis] |
| 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. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991]) by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? 3.1 | |
| 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'. |
| 10660 | A commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment; it is them and they are it [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Given a prior commitment to cats, a commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment. The fusion is nothing over and above the cats that compose it. It just is them. They just are it. | |
| From: David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991], p.81), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 4.3 | |
| A reaction: I take this to make Lewis a nominalist, saying the same thing that Goodman said about Utah in Idea 10657. Any commitment to cat-fusions being more than the cats, or Utah being more than its counties, strikes me as crazy. |
| 10566 | Lewis prefers giving up singletons to giving up sums [Lewis, by Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In the face of the conflict between mereology and set theory, Lewis has advocated giving up the existence of singletons rather than sums. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Parts of Classes [1991]) by Kit Fine - Replies on 'Limits of Abstraction' 1 |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |