Sums, collections and all the parts

pp. 189-209

in: Ariel Meirav, Wholes, sums and unities, Berlin, Springer, 2003

Abstract

In the last chapter we saw that neoclassical mereology is only partly successful in accounting for features of wholes which were not satisfactorily accounted for by classical mereology. Numerous difficulties are associated with the ways in which neoclassical mereology accounts for important features of wholes — features whereby the existence of a whole seems to depend on the way its parts are conditioned; whereby more than one whole seems capable of being made up of precisely the same entities; and whereby wholes can survive the loss or gain of parts.