Buch, Englisch, 404 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 573 g
A Study in Ontology
Buch, Englisch, 404 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 573 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-924146-0
Verlag: OUP Oxford
The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, yet until now there has been no full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. This has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of such classical philosophical concepts as identity, individual, class, substance and accident, matter, form, essence, dependence, and integral whole. It also enables the author to offer new solutions to long-standing problems surrounding these concepts, such as the Ship of Theseus Problem and the issue of mereological essentialism. The author shows by his use of formal techniques that classical philosophical problems are amenable to rigorous treatment, and the book represents a synthesis of issues and methods from the analytical tradition and from the older continental realist tradition of Brentano and the early Husserl.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
- Introduction; Part 1 Existensional Part-Whole Theory; 1. Concepts and Principles of Extensional Mereology; 2. Survey of Extensional Mereology; 3. Problems; 4. Occurrents, Classes, and Masses; Part II Mereology of Continuants; 5. Temporary Parts and Intermittent Existence; 6. Superposition, Composition, and Matter; Part III Essence, Dependence, and Integrity; 7. Essential Parts; 8. Ontological Dependence; 9. Integral Wholes; Concluding Remarks; Bibliography; Index.
