Mereological Explanation and Time Travel

Effingham, Nikk

doi:10.1080/00048400903018972

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Since the endurantist denies that F(Brick) and Wall are part of her ontology as distinct objects, the weak supplementation principle isn't violated. And so we needn't follow Smith [2009] and Effingham [2010] down the rabbit hole into a revised mereology. But, if we wanted to follow their lead for other reasons, the endurantist would have the same options available as those available to the perdurantist, at least for the weak supplementation principle.…”

Section: Objectionsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Occupy Wall: A Mereological Puzzle and the Burdens of Endurantism

Daniels

2013

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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Endurantists have recently faced a mereological puzzle in various forms. Here I argue that, instead of presenting a genuine worry, the puzzle actually reveals a common misunderstanding about the endurantist ontology. Furthermore, through this discussion of the alleged problem and the misunderstanding which motivates it, I reveal metaphysical commitments the endurantist has that may not be widely recognized. For instance, she is committed to interesting and perhaps controversial views about shape and location. I highlight these commitments and what they mean for the endurantist.

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Section: Objectionsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Occupy Wall: A Mereological Puzzle and the Burdens of Endurantism

Daniels

2013

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

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“…The cube is now a proper part of itself at that time. So [proper parthood isn't asymmetric] (Effingham : 335).…”

Section: Undermining the Motivations For Multiple Location IImentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although I agree that an object can have one proper part by having many different multi‐located versions of that part as parts (Effingham and Robson ; Effingham ) but that's irrelevant as the objects under consideration don't have multiple versions of the same constituent as constituents.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Location of Properties

Effingham

2015

Nous

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This paper argues that, assuming properties exist and must be located in spacetime, the prevailing view that they are exactly located where their instances are is false. Instead a property is singularly located at just one region, namely the union of its instance's locations. This bears not just on issues in the metaphysics of properties, but also on the debate over whether multi-location is conceivable and/or possible (and, by proxy, any theory that relies on that e.g. certain formulations of endurantism/perdurantism). This paper assumes throughout that properties exist and:Properties Are Located: If x is a property, there is some region r, and x stands in some location relation to r. 1The prevailing view is that, given Properties Are Located, properties are multiply located where their instances are. This paper argues that this is false and that a property is instead a singularly located entity spread across a scattered region composed of all of the locations of each of its instances. §1 introduces the lay of the land and the main line of argument: that we should default to my position, arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. Proposed arguments to the contrary are: that properties are multiply located because instantiation should be analysed in terms of location; Plato's Sailcloth Dilemma; and that properties are multiply located because only multiply located properties can be constituents of singularly located objects. § §2-3 explain why those arguments fail. With those arguments dispatched, §4 discusses what we can draw from properties not being multiply located, namely how it affects the debate over the conceivability of multi-location and how it relates to the metaphysics of persistence.

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“…However, Nikk Effingham (2010) presents a (relevantly dissimilar) time‐travel case to raise problems for the Transitivity of Parthood as well as for the Transitivity of Proper Parthood. In his case, there is a car that has a proper part, a wheel, which goes on to become separated from the car and gain an extra part.…”

Section: The Transitivity Of Proper Parthoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multilocation and Mereology

Kleinschmidt

2011

Philosophical Perspectives

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Multilocation and Minimal Mereology do not mix well. It has been pointed out that Three-Dimensionalism, which can be construed as multilocation-friendly, runs into trouble with Weak Supplementation. 1 But in fact, regardless of one's theory of persistence, if someone posits the possibility of any one of several kinds of multilocation, he or she will not be able to maintain the necessity of any of the three axioms of Minimal Mereology: the Transitivity of Proper Parthood, the Asymmetry of Proper Parthood, and Weak Supplementation. 2 In fact, positing even the mere conceivability of cases involving multilocation will require the denial of the analyticity of Minimal Mereology. In response to this, some have claimed that we ought to relativise parthood, either to one region or to two. Unfortunately, if we replace the axioms of Minimal Mereology with region-relativised counterparts, we will not be able to capture the intuitions that supported the original axioms. In what follows I will argue for the incompatibility of this plausible picture of parthood and liberalism about location, then I will consider the region-relativising response that involves adopting an analogous logic of parts and wholes which uses region-indexed parthood, and I will argue that this analogous logic fails to capture the spirit of the original. The only adequate solution, I maintain, is to restrict multilocation to a domain outside the scope of the rules we intuitively take to govern the parthood relation. For those who take Minimal Mereology to be necessary and universal, that will mean relinquishing the possibility of multilocation.

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Mereological Explanation and Time Travel

Cited by 23 publications

References 9 publications

Occupy Wall: A Mereological Puzzle and the Burdens of Endurantism

Occupy Wall: A Mereological Puzzle and the Burdens of Endurantism

The Location of Properties

Multilocation and Mereology

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