Parts: A Study in Ontology - Softcover

Simons, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199241465 ISBN 13: 9780199241460

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

A clear and careful work both in metaphysics and in the history and logic of mereology....Simons's care and precision and his sensitivity to fine distinctions are what make the book a success. (The Philosophical Review)

About the Author:

Peter Simons is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0199241465
• ISBN 13: 9780199241460
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 408