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In philosophy, mereological nihilism (also called compositional nihilism) is the metaphysical thesis that there are no objects with proper parts. Equivalently, mereological nihilism says that mereological simples, or objects without any proper parts, are the only material objects that exist.[dubious–discuss] Mereological nihilism is distinct from ordinary nihilism insofar as ordinary nihilism typically focuses on the nonexistence of common metaphysical assumptions such as ethical truths and objective meaning, rather than the nonexistence of composite objects.
Our everyday perceptual experience suggests that we are surrounded by macrophysical objects that have other, smaller objects as their proper parts. For example, there seem to be such objects as tables, which appear to be composed of various other objects, such as the table-legs, a flat surface, and perhaps the nails or bolts holding those pieces together. Those latter objects, in turn, appear to be composed of still smaller objects. And so on. Indeed, every putative material object our perceptual faculties is capable of representing appear to be composed of smaller parts.
Mereological nihilists claim that there are no composite material objects. According to mereological nihilism, there are only fundamental physical simples arranged in various spatial patterns. For example, the mereological nihilist claims that, despite appearances to the contrary, there really are no tables. There are only fundamental physical simples spatially arranged and causally interrelated in such a way as to jointly cause perceptual faculties like ours to have table-like perceptual experiences. Nihilists often abbreviate claims like this one as follows: there are fundamental physical simples arranged table-wise. Ted Sider argued in a 2013 article that we should think of composition as arrangement.[1] According to Sider, when we say "there is a table", we mean there are mereological simples arranged table-wise.
Discussion
Mereological nihilism entails the denial of what is called classical mereology, which is succinctly defined by philosopher Achille Varzi:[2]
Mereology (from the Greek μερος, 'part') is the theory of parthood relations: of the relations of part to whole and the relations of part to part within a whole. Its roots can be traced back to the early days of philosophy, beginning with the Presocratic atomists and continuing throughout the writings of Plato (especially the Parmenides and the Theaetetus), Aristotle (especially the Metaphysics, but also the Physics, the Topics, and De partibus animalium), and Boethius (especially In Ciceronis Topica).
As can be seen from Varzi's passage, classical mereology depends on the idea that there are metaphysical relations that connect part(s) to whole. Mereological nihilists maintain that such relations between part and whole do not exist.
Nihilists typically claim that our senses give us the (false) impression that there are composite material objects, and then attempt to explain why nonetheless our thought and talk about such objects is 'close enough' to the truth to be innocuous and reasonable in most conversational contexts.[citation needed] Sider's linguistic revision that reformulates the existence of composite objects as merely the existence of arrangements of mereological simples is an example of this.[1] Tallant (2013) has argued against this maneuver. Tallant has argued that mereological nihilism is committed to answering the following question: when is it that a group of mereological simples is arranged in a particular way?[3] What relations must maintain among a group of mereological simples such that they are arranged table-wise? It seems the nihilist can determine when a group of objects compose another object: for them, never. But the nihilist, if he is committed to Sider's view, is committed to answering how mereological simples can be arranged in particular ways.
Objections
The objection that can be raised against nihilism is that it seems to posit the existence of far fewer objects than we typically think exist. The nihilist's ontology has been criticized for being too sparse, as it only includes mereological simples, and denies the existence of composite objects that we intuitively take to exist, like tables, planets, and animals. Another challenge that nihilists face arises when composition is examined in the context of contemporary physics. According to findings in quantum physics, there are multiple kinds of decomposition in different physical contexts. For example, there is no single decomposition of light; light can be said to be either composed of particles or waves depending on the context.[4] This empirical perspective poses a problem for nihilism because it does not seem like all material objects perfectly decompose to mereological simples.[dubious–discuss] In addition, some philosophers have speculated that there may not be a "bottom level" of reality. Atoms used to be understood as the most fundamental material objects, but were later discovered to be composed of subatomic particles and quarks. It is then possible that the most fundamental entities of current physics can actually be decomposed further than what is currently considered their base form, and their parts can be further decomposed.[dubious–discuss] If matter is infinitely decomposable in this respect, then mereological simples do not exist as an absolute entity. This poses a conflict with an initial assumption within Mereological Nihilism according to the belief that only mereological simples exist.[5]
Partial vs. pure nihilism
Philosophers in favor of something close to pure mereological nihilism include Peter Unger, Cian Dorr, and Ross Cameron. There are a few philosophers who argue for what could be considered a partial nihilism, or what has been called quasi-nihilism, which is the position that only objects of a certain kind have parts. One such position is organicism: the view that living beings exist, but there are no other objects with parts, and all other objects that we believe to be composite—chairs, planets, etc.—therefore do not exist. Rather, other than living beings, which are composites (objects that have parts), there are only true atoms, or basic building blocks (which they call simples). Organicist philosophers include Trenton Merricks and Peter van Inwagen.[6][7]
Van Inwagen's view
Peter Van Inwagen maintains that all material objects are mereological simples with the exception of biological life such that the only composite objects are living things. Van Inwagen's view can be formulated like this: "Necessarily, for any non-overlapping xs, there is an object composed of the xs if either (i) the activities of the xs constitute a life or (ii) there is only one of the xs." In other words, Van Inwagen contends that mereological atoms form a composite object when they engage in a sort of special, complex activity which amounts to a life. [8]
One reason why Van Inwagen's solution to the Special Composition Question is so attractive is that it allows us to account a conscious subject as a composite object. Nihilists have to maintain that the subject of a single consciousness is somehow the product of many discrete mereological atoms. Van Inwagen's argument against nihilism can be characterized as such:[9]
I exist
I am not a mereological simple
At least one object exists that is not a mereological simple
So, nihilism is false
In addition to allowing for the existence of trees, cats, and human beings, Van Inwagen's view is attractive because it inherits nihilism's elegant solutions to traditional problems in mereology like the Ship of Theseus and the problem of the many.
One objection that can be offered against Van Inwagen's view is the vagueness of the category of life and the ambiguity of when something gets "caught up" in a life. For example, if a cat takes a breath and inhales a carbon atom, it is unclear at what point that atom becomes officially incorporated into the cat's body.[10]
Even though there are no tables or chairs, Van Inwagen thinks that it is still permissible to assert sentences such as 'there are tables'. This is because such a sentence can be paraphrased as 'there are simples arranged tablewise'; it is appropriate to assert it when there are simples arranged a certain way. It is a common mistake to hold that Van Inwagen's view is that tables are identical to simples arranged tablewise. This is not his view: Van Inwagen would reject the claim that tables are identical to simples arranged tablewise because he rejects the claim that composition is identity. Nonetheless, he maintains that an ordinary speaker who asserts, for instance, "There are four chairs in that room" will speak truly if there are, indeed, simples in the room arranged in the appropriate way (so as to make up, in the ordinary view, four chairs). He claims that the statement and its paraphrase "describe the same fact". Van Inwagen suggests an analogy with the motion of the sun: an ordinary speaker who asserts that "the sun has moved behind the elms" will still speak truly, even though we accept the Copernican claim that this is not, strictly speaking, literally true. (For details, see his book "Material Beings".)[citation needed]
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some modern theorists view it as an inquiry into the fundamental categories of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry.
In philosophy, nihilism is any viewpoint, or a family of views, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, namely knowledge, morality, or meaning. There have been different nihilist positions, including that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some other highly regarded concepts are in fact meaningless or pointless. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons.
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines what all things have in common. It also investigates how they can be grouped into basic types, such as the categories of particulars and universals. Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, like the person Socrates. Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green. Another contrast is between concrete objects existing in space and time, like a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality, employing categories such as substance, property, relation, state of affairs, and event.
Mereology is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, also called parthood relationships. As a branch of metaphysics, mereology examines the connections between parts and their wholes, exploring how components interact within a system. This theory has roots in ancient philosophy, with significant contributions from Plato, Aristotle, and later, medieval and Renaissance thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Mereology gained formal recognition in the 20th century through the pioneering works of Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski, who introduced it as part of a comprehensive framework for logic and mathematics, and coined the word "mereology". The field has since evolved to encompass a variety of applications in ontology, natural language semantics, and the cognitive sciences, influencing our understanding of structures ranging from linguistic constructs to biological systems.
Roderick Milton Chisholm was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, deontology, deontic logic and the philosophy of perception.
The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber; therefore, the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." This is fallacious, because vehicles are made with a variety of parts, most of which are not made of rubber. The fallacy of composition can apply even when a fact is true of every proper part of a greater entity, though. A more complicated example might be: "No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive." This statement is incorrect, due to emergence, where the whole possesses properties not present in any of the parts.
In formal ontology, a branch of metaphysics, and in ontological computer science, mereotopology is a first-order theory, embodying mereological and topological concepts, of the relations among wholes, parts, parts of parts, and the boundaries between parts.
Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a research professor of philosophy at Duke University each spring. He previously taught at Syracuse University, earning his PhD from the University of Rochester in 1969 under the direction of Richard Taylor. Van Inwagen is one of the leading figures in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of action. He was the president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013.
Atomism is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
Trenton Merricks is an American philosopher and the Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. While Merricks' primary field of study is metaphysics, he has also published scholarship in epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion.
In contemporary mereology, a simple or indivisible monomere is any thing that has no proper parts. Sometimes the term "atom" is used, although in recent years the term "simple" has become the standard.
In contemporary metaphysics, temporal parts are the parts of an object that exist in time. A temporal part would be something like "the first year of a person's life", or "all of a table from between 10:00 a.m. on June 21, 1994 to 11:00 p.m. on July 23, 1996". The term is used in the debate over the persistence of material objects. Objects typically have parts that exist in space—a human body, for example, has spatial parts like hands, feet, and legs. Some metaphysicians believe objects have temporal parts as well.
In philosophy, mereological essentialism is a mereological thesis about the relationship between wholes, their parts, and the conditions of their persistence. According to mereological essentialism, objects have their parts necessarily. If an object were to lose or gain a part, it would no longer be the original object.
Jonathan Schaffer is an American philosopher specializing in metaphysics and also working in epistemology, mind, and language. He is best known for his work on grounding and his development of monism, and is also a notable proponent of contrastivism.
In philosophy, specifically in the area of metaphysics, counterpart theory is an alternative to standard (Kripkean) possible-worlds semantics for interpreting quantified modal logic. Counterpart theory still presupposes possible worlds, but differs in certain important respects from the Kripkean view. The form of the theory most commonly cited was developed by David Lewis, first in a paper and later in his book On the Plurality of Worlds.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
In mereology, an area of metaphysics, the term gunk applies to any whole whose parts all have further proper parts. That is, a gunky object is not made of indivisible atoms or simples. Because parthood is transitive, any part of gunk is itself gunk. The term was first used by David Lewis in his work Parts of Classes (1991), in which he conceived of the possibility of "atomless gunk", which was shortened to "gunk" by later writers. Dean W. Zimmerman defends the possibility of atomless gunk.
Compositional objects are wholes instantiated by collections of parts. If an ontology wishes to permit the inclusion of compositional objects it must define which collections of objects are to be considered parts composing a whole. Mereology, the study of relationships between parts and their wholes, provides specifications on how parts must relate to one another in order to compose a whole.
This is a glossary of mereology. Mereology is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, also called parthood relationships.
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