A Sudden Collapse to Nihilism

Loss, Roberto

doi:10.1093/pq/pqx012

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Calosi (2016) and Loss (2018) have recently offered three arguments to this effect. They all (implicitly or explicitly) rely on (CMP) to argue that a certain kind of pluralities exist, and then argue for Nihilism by employing those pluralities.…”

Section: Comprehension and Collapsementioning

confidence: 99%

“…They all (implicitly or explicitly) rely on (CMP) to argue that a certain kind of pluralities exist, and then argue for Nihilism by employing those pluralities. The pluralities whose existence is presupposed by Calosi's (2016) and Loss's (2018) arguments are pluralities Y such that, 11 See, in particular, Yi (1999Yi ( , 2014 and Sider (2007Sider ( , 2014.…”

Section: Comprehension and Collapsementioning

confidence: 99%

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On atomic composition as identity

Loss¹

2019

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In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called '(Strong) Composition as Identity' ('CAI'): the 'wall-bricks-and-atoms problem' ('WaBrA problem'), and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call 'Atomic Composition as Identity' ('ACAI') which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the (proper) plurality of atoms it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider's (2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that (pace Calosi 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an 'atomic comprehension principle' which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the 'one of' relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi (1999aYi ( , 2014 and Calosi (2016bCalosi ( , 2018 but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many. Keywords Mereology • Composition as Identity • Collapse • Mereological Nihilism1 '[…] perhaps the major motivation for CAI is that it implies the 'ontological innocence' of classical mereology' (Cotnoir 2014: 7). 'If Lewis's claim were that the fusion is literally identical to the cats that compose it, he would clearly be entitled to ontological innocence' (Bennett 2015: 256). '[…] the thought that a fusion is numerically identical to the things that compose it taken together […] would vindicate the intuition that such double countenancing is ultimately redundant, hence the innocence thesis' (Varzi 2014: 49). 'But why think that mereology is ontologically innocent? If composition is identity, then ontological innocence is secured' (Hawley 2014: 72).

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Section: Comprehension and Collapsementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comprehension and Collapsementioning

confidence: 99%

On atomic composition as identity

Loss¹

2019

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“…This has various consequences that many are unwilling to swallow [see, e.g., Calosi, 2016;Loss, 2018;Sider, 2014]. Fortunately for Priest, his mereology does not result in Collapse (or its set-theoretic analogue), as we will now show.…”

Section: Mereology For Gluon Theorymentioning

confidence: 76%

On the Overlap Between Everything and Nothing

Carrara

Mancini

Smid

2021

LLP

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“…7 For this reason, it might be worth pointing out that there are potential problems for composition as identity that do not seem to carry over to nihilism. For example, it has been argued that the most straightforward way to spell out composition as identity leads to the result that composition as identity collapses to nihilism (see Calosi, 2016;Loss, 2018) and that other ways to spell out composition as identity lead to the result that there are no atoms (see Lechthaler, 2019).…”

Section: Primitively Plural Quantification and Mereologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Irreducibly collective existence and bottomless nihilism

Werner

2022

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This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form of mereological nihilism.

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A Sudden Collapse to Nihilism

Abstract: According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi.

Cited by 10 publications

References 5 publications

On atomic composition as identity

On atomic composition as identity

On the Overlap Between Everything and Nothing

Irreducibly collective existence and bottomless nihilism

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