Mereology

Edited by Meg Wallace (University of Kentucky)
Related

Contents
452 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 452
Material to categorize
  1. The Empty World as the Null Conjunction of States of Affairs.Rafael De Clercq - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:0-17.
    If possible worlds are conjunctions of states of affairs, as in David Armstrong’s combinatorial theory, then is the empty world to be thought of as the null conjunction of states of affairs? The proposal seems plausible, and has received support from David Efird, Tom Stoneham, and Armstrong himself. However, in this paper, it is argued that the proposal faces a trilemma: either it leads to the absurd conclusion that the actual world is empty; or it reduces to a familiar representation (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Fragments, plinths and shattered bricks: Deleuze and atomism.Yannis Chatzantonis - 2023 - la Deleuziana 1 (15):39-45.
    There are two links that stand in the foreground of Deleuze’s treatment of Epicurus and Lucretius: the themes of immanent naturalism and of the externality of ontological relations. However, the links are problematised in Difference and Repetition, which presents an important critique of the concept of the atom. I will argue that this critique reveals the limits of the intellectual affinity between ancient atomism and Deleuzian metaphysics; in particular, that Deleuze’s notions of relationality and spatium respond to problems raised by (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. When do parts form wholes? Integrated information as the restriction on mereological composition.Kelvin J. McQueen & Naotsugu Tsuchiya - forthcoming - Neuroscience of Consciousness.
    Under what conditions are material objects, such as particles, parts of a whole object? This is the composition question and is a longstanding open question in philosophy. Existing attempts to specify a non-trivial restriction on composition tend to be vague and face serious counterexamples. Consequently, two extreme answers have become mainstream: composition (the forming of a whole by its parts) happens under no or all conditions. In this paper, we provide a self-contained introduction to the integrated information theory of consciousness (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. El ente compuesto.Salvador Daniel Escobedo Casillas - 2012 - In Teoría de los entes: Propuesta para la formalización de la filosofía Con una introducción a la lógica y a la semiótica. Guadalajara, Jal., México: Temacilli. pp. 364-387.
    Se presenta una teoría axiomática sobre entidades compuestas generales. Por entidad compuesta se hace referencia a cualquier ser hecho de partes. Usando esta formalización, es posible llegar a algunas conclusiones metafísicas valiosas, como la no equivalencia entre los conceptos de entidad compuesta y conjunto matemático. Asimismo, se analizan y desacreditan algunas formas de platonismo matemático. Se proponen algunos ejercicios para ayudar al lector a aprender la notación simbólica.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. In defense of disjointism.Martin A. Lipman - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Disjointism is the view that co-located objects do not share any parts. A human-shaped statue is composed from a torso, head and limbs; the co-located lumpof clay is only composed from chunks of clay. This essay discusses the tenability of this relatively neglected view, focusing on two objections. The first objection is that disjointism implies co-located copies of microphysical particles. I argue that it doesn’t imply this and that there are more plausible disjointist views of tiny parts available. The second (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. La providence chez Thomas d'Aquin comme compréhension de la totatlité.David Torrijos-Castrillejo - 2016 - In Claude Brunier-Coulin (ed.), Institutions et destitutions de la totalité: explorations de l'oeuvre de Christian Godin: actes du colloque des 24-25-26 septembre 2015, Clermont-Ferrand, Université Blaise Pascal, Paris, Université Paris Descartes. Orizons.
    This article deals with the doctrine of providence in Thomas Aquinas based on the thinking of the French philosopher Christian Godin: divine providence would provide an understanding of the “totality” (totalité) that concerns not only the entire universe but also each individual. Aquinas gives an Aristotelian explanation of chance, luck and contingency from the divine perspective. Omniscience, omnipotence and divine providence, however, do not contradict the existence of either true contingency in the natural world or freedom but, on the contrary, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. The harmony of grounding.Sam Baron, Kristie Miller & Jonathan Tallant - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (11):3421-3446.
    Mereological harmony is the idea that the mereological structure of objects mirrors the mereological structure of locations. Grounding harmony is the idea that there is a similar mirroring between the grounding structure of objects and locations. Our goal in this paper is exploratory: we introduce and then explore two notions of grounding harmony: locative and structural. We outline potential locative and structural harmony principles for grounding, and show which of these principles may entail, or be entailed by, principles of mereological (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. Partialhood.David Liebesman - forthcoming - In Karen Bennett & Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics.
    My bedroom window is a part of my house, but it is not a partial house. A half-built house is a partial house, but there is no house it is a part of. Being a part of something—parthood—is a familiar topic of philosophical inquiry. Being a partial something—partialhood—is not. The neglect of partialhood is a shame because it is intrinsically interesting as well as metaphysically and semantically important. After using fractions and counting constructions to identify partialhood in §1, I give (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. The Whole-Part Dilemma: A Compositional Understanding of Plato’s Theory of Form.SeongSoo Park - forthcoming - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu.
    In this paper, I suggest a way of resolving the whole-part dilemma suggested in the Parmenides. Specifically, I argue that grabbing the second horn of the dilemma does not pose a significant challenge. To argue for this, I consider two theses about Forms, namely, the oneness and indivisibility theses. More specifically, I argue that the second horn does not violate the oneness thesis if we treat composition as identity and that the indivisibility thesis ought to be reinterpreted given Plato’s later (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. Features and Components in Product Models.Emilio M. Sanfilippo, Claudio Masolo, Stefano Borgo & Daniele Porello - 2016 - In Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference, {FOIS} 2016, Annecy, France, July 6-9, 2016. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 283. pp. 227-240.
    Product structures are represented in engineering models by depicting and linking components, features and assemblies. Their understanding requires knowledge of both design and manufacturing practices, and yet further contextual reasoning is needed to read them correctly. Since these representations are essen- tial to the engineering activities, the lack of a clear and explicit semantics of these models hampers the use of information systems for their assessment and exploita- tion. We study this problem by identifying different interpretations of structure rep- resentations, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Composing Spacetime.Sam Baron & Baptiste Le Bihan - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (1):33-54.
    According to a number of approaches in theoretical physics, spacetime does not exist fundamentally. Rather, spacetime exists by depending on another, more fundamental, non-spatiotemporal structure. A prevalent opinion in the literature is that this dependence should not be analyzed in terms of composition. We should not say, that is, that spacetime depends on an ontology of non-spatiotemporal entities in virtue of having them as parts. But is that really right? On the contrary, we argue that a mereological approach to dependent (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  12. Heraclitean Flux Metaphysics.Andrew Dennis Bassford - forthcoming - Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics.
    This essay offers an original interpretation and defense of the doctrine of flux, as it is presented in Plato’s Theaetetus. The methodology of the paper’s analysis is in the style of rational reconstruction, and it is highly analytic in scope, in the sense that I will focus on the text itself, and only on certain parts of it too, while ignoring the rest of Plato’s extensive corpus, and without worrying about whether, how, and to what extent the interpretation of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. On Mereology and Metricality.Zee Perry - forthcoming - Philosophers' Imprint.
    This article motivates and develops a reductive account of the structure of certain physical quantities in terms of their mereology. That is, I argue that quantitative relations like "longer than" or "3.6-times the volume of" can be analyzed in terms of necessary constraints those quantities put on the mereological structure of their instances. The resulting account, I argue, is able to capture the intuition that these quantitative relations are intrinsic to the physical systems they’re called upon to describe and explain.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14. No Unity, No Problem: Madhyamaka Metaphysical Indefinitism.Allison Aitken - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (31):1–24.
    According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  15. Fine’s Monster Objection Defanged.Damiano Costa, Alessandro Cecconi & Claudio Calosi - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2):435-451.
    The Monster Objection has often been considered one of the main reasons to explore non-standard mereological views, such as hylomorphism. Still, it has been rarely discussed and then only in a cursory fashion. This paper fills this gap by offering the first thorough assessment of the objection. It argues that different metaphysical stances, such as presentism and three- and four-dimensionalism, provide different ways of undermining the objection.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  16. Persistence as a Four-Dimensionalist: Perdurantism vs. Exdurantism.Richard Callais - 2021 - Dialogue 64 (1):24-29.
    The debate over persistence currently involves three competing theories—one three-dimensionalist theory called “endurantism” and two four-dimensionalist theories called “perdurantism” and “exdurantism.” This inner debate between the latter two persistence theories is what I aim to clarify, and ultimately, I argue that perdurantism is superior to exdurantism because exdurantism is too extravagant in counting ordinary objects in the world. Extravagant for the reason that objects in their entirety are bound to their momentary stages, and there is practically an interminable number of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Deleuze's metaphysics of structure in Difference and Repetition.Yannis Chatzantonis - manuscript
    This essay describes and evaluates the conception of mereological structure that underpins Deleuze’s account of ontogenesis in Difference and Repetition. A theory of mereology is a theory of composition: it asks what it is to be a part making a whole, what it is to be a whole collecting its parts; in short, in what the relation of making or composing consists. The locus classicus for modern mereology is the third of Husserl’s Logical Investigations (‘On the Theory of Wholes and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Deleuze and Mereology: Multiplicity, Structure and Composition.Yannis Chatzantonis - 2011 - Dissertation, Dundee University
    This investigation constitutes an attempt towards (1) understanding issues and problems relating to the notions of one, many, part and whole in Parmenides and Plato; (2) extracting conditions for a successful account of multiplicity and parthood; (3) surveying Deleuzian conceptions and uses of these notions; (4) appraising the extent to which Deleuze’s metaphysics can answer some of these ancient problems concerning the status of multiplicity and the nature of mereological composition, that is, of the relations that pertain between parts and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Plurals and Mereology.Salvatore Florio & David Nicolas - 2020 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 50 (3):415-445.
    In linguistics, the dominant approach to the semantics of plurals appeals to mereology. However, this approach has received strong criticisms from philosophical logicians who subscribe to an alternative framework based on plural logic. In the first part of the article, we offer a precise characterization of the mereological approach and the semantic background in which the debate can be meaningfully reconstructed. In the second part, we deal with the criticisms and assess their logical, linguistic, and philosophical significance. We identify four (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  20. A taxonomy for the mereology of entangled quantum systems.Paul M. Näger & Niko Strobach - manuscript
    The emerging field of quantum mereology considers part-whole relations in quantum systems. Entangled quantum systems pose a peculiar problem in the field, since their total states are not reducible to that of their parts. While there exist several established proposals for modelling entangled systems, like monistic holism or relational holism, there is considerable unclarity, which further positions are available. Using the lambda operator and plural logic as formal tools, we review and develop conceivable models and evaluate their consistency and distinctness. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  21. Ontology (Science).Barry Smith - 2008 - In Carola Eschenbach & Mike Grüninger (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference (FOIS 2008). Amsterdam: IOS Press. pp. 21-35.
    Increasingly, in data-intensive areas of the life sciences, experimental results are being described in algorithmically useful ways with the help of ontologies. Such ontologies are authored and maintained by scientists to support the retrieval, integration and analysis of their data. The proposition to be defended here is that ontologies of this type – the Gene Ontology (GO) being the most conspicuous example – are a part of science. Initial evidence for the truth of this proposition (which some will find self-evident) (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  22. Quantum Gravity and Mereology: Not So Simple.Sam Baron & Baptiste Le Bihan - 2022 - Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1):19-40.
    A number of philosophers have argued in favour of extended simples on the grounds that they are needed by fundamental physics. The arguments typically appeal to theories of quantum gravity. To date, the argument in favour of extended simples has ignored the fact that the very existence of spacetime is put under pressure by quantum gravity. We thus consider the case for extended simples in the context of different views on the existence of spacetime. We show that the case for (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. Somewhere Together: Location, Parsimony and Multilocation.Roberto Loss - 2021 - Erkenntnis (2):1-17.
    Most of the theories of location on the market appear to be ideologically parsimonious at least in the sense that they take as primitive just one locative notion and define all the other locative notions in terms of it. Recently, however, the possibility of some exotic metaphysical scenarios involving gunky mixtures and extended simple regions of space has been argued to pose a significant threat to parsimonious theories of locations. The aim of this paper is to show that a theory (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  24. The World Just Is the Way It Is.David Builes - 2021 - The Monist 104 (1):1-27.
    What is the relationship between objects and properties? According to a standard view, there are primitive individuals that ‘instantiate’ or ‘have’ various properties. According to a rival view, objects are mere ‘bundles’ of properties. While there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of primitive individuals, there are also a number of challenges that the bundle theorist faces. The goal of this paper is to formulate a view about the relationship between objects and properties that avoids many of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  25. The Circular Theory.Ilexa Yardley - 2017 - Https://Medium.Com/the-Circular-Theory/.
    Zero and one is circumference and diameter. Literally. And, figuratively.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Why Composition Matters.Andrew M. Bailey & Andrew Brenner - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (8):934-949.
    Many say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  27. The concreteness of objects: an argument against mereological bundle theory.Uriah Kriegel - 2021 - Synthese 199 (1-2):5107-5124.
    In a series of publications, L. A. Paul has defended a version of the bundle theory according to which material objects are nothing but mereological sums of ‘their’ properties. This ‘mereological’ bundle theory improves in important ways on earlier bundle theories, but here I present a new argument against it. The argument is roughly this: Material objects occupy space; even if properties have spatial characteristics, they do not quite occupy space; on no plausible construal of mereological composition does a mereological (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  28. Quantum Considerations in the Metaphysics of Levels.Ryan Miller - 2024? - Dissertation, Université de Genève
    Amie Thomasson challenges advocates of layered conceptions of reality to explain “how layers are distinguished” and “what holds them together” by “examining the world” (2014). One strategy for answering such questions is mereological, treating inter-layer relations as parthood relations, where layers exist whenever composition does, and the number of layers will be equivalent to the number of answers to Peter Van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question, while answers to his General Composition Question explain what holds the layers together (1987). Various answers (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. From Ideal Worlds to Ideality.Craig Warmke - 2023 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (1):114-134.
    In common treatments of deontic logic, the obligatory is what is true in all deontically ideal possible worlds. In this article, I offer a new semantics for Standard Deontic Logic with Leibnizian intensions rather than possible worlds. Even though the new semantics furnishes models that resemble Venn diagrams, the semantics captures the strong soundness and completeness of Standard Deontic Logic. Since, unlike possible worlds, many Leibnizian intensions are not maximally consistent entities, we can amend the semantics to invalidate the inference (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. In His Voice: Maurice Blanchot's Affair with the Neutral.David Appelbaum - 2015 - Albany: State University of New York Press.
    Narcissus -- The mirror -- Death as instance -- Echo -- Voice eo ipso.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Against Mereological Panentheism.Oliver D. Crisp - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (2):23-41.
    In this paper I offer an argument against one important version of panentheism, that is, mereological panentheism. Although panentheism has proven difficult to define, I provide a working definition of the view, and proceed to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, mereological accounts of panentheism have serious theological drawbacks. I then explore some of these theological drawbacks. In a concluding section I give some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  32. Drawing Boundaries.Barry Smith - 2019 - In Timothy Tambassi (ed.), The Philosophy of GIS. New York: Springer. pp. 137-158.
    In “On Drawing Lines on a Map” (1995), I suggested that the different ways we have of drawing lines on maps open up a new perspective on ontology, resting on a distinction between two sorts of boundaries: fiat and bona fide. “Fiat” means, roughly: human-demarcation-induced. “Bona fide” means, again roughly: a boundary constituted by some real physical discontinuity. I presented a general typology of boundaries based on this opposition and showed how it generates a corresponding typology of the different sorts (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  33. Conservation of the Circle: Core Dynamic in Nature.Ilexa Yardley - 2017 - Https://Medium.Com/the-Circular-Theory/.
    Zero and one is circumference and diameter. Literally. And, figuratively.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  34. Hylomorphism and Part-Whole Realism.William Jaworski - 2019 - Ancient Philosophy Today 1 (1):108-127.
    Mereonominalism, holonominalism, and part-whole realism represent competing views on the metaphysics of parts and wholes. Mereonominalism claims that what parts exist is a function of the concepts we use in describing composite wholes. Holonominalism claims that what composite wholes exist is a function of the concepts we use in describing things that can qualify as parts. Part-whole realism claims that parts and wholes exist independent of our concepts. I argue that all three views face problems, but that the problem facing (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  35. The nonclassical mereology of olfactory experiences.Błażej Skrzypulec - 2019 - Synthese 198 (1):867-886.
    While there is a growing philosophical interest in analysing olfactory experiences, the mereological structure of odours considered in respect of how they are perceptually experienced has not yet been extensively investigated. The paper argues that odours are perceptually experienced as having a mereological structure, but this structure is significantly different from the spatial mereological structure of visually experienced objects. Most importantly, in the case of the olfactory part-structure, the classical weak supplementation principle is not satisfied. This thesis is justified by (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  36. Vedrørende Husserls lære om helheterog deler.Petter Sandstad - 2018 - Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 53 (2-3):150-164.
    A Norwegian translation is here offered of Eugenie Ginsberg’s paper «Zur Husserlschen Lehre von den Ganzen und den Teilen» (in Archiv für systematische Philosophie und Soziologie 32, 1929, 108–120). The paper discusses Husserl’s six theorems from Logical Investigations III, §14. Ginsberg provides new proofs for theorems 1 and 3, and also endorses theorem 5. In contrast, a counter example is given to theorems 2, 4, and 6: However, proofs are supplied for a modified version of these theorems. Furthermore, an additional (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. The paradox of decrease and dependent parts.Alex Moran - 2018 - Ratio 31 (3):273-284.
    This paper is concerned with the paradox of decrease. Its aim is to defend the answer to this puzzle that was propounded by its originator, namely, the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. The main trouble with this answer to the paradox is that it has the seemingly problematic implication that a material thing could perish due merely to extrinsic change. It follows that in order to defend Chrysippus’ answer to the paradox, one has to explain how it could be that Theon is (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  38. The Earth and the Aleph.Josh Parsons - manuscript
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  39. Towards a Hylomorphic Solution to the Grounding Problem.Kathrin Koslicki - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements to Philosophy 82:333-364.
    Concrete particular objects (e.g., living organisms) figure saliently in our everyday experience as well as our in our scientific theorizing about the world. A hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects holds that these entities are, in some sense, compounds of matter (hūlē) and form (morphē or eidos). The Grounding Problem asks why an object and its matter (e.g., a statue and the clay that constitutes it) can apparently differ with respect to certain of their properties (e.g., the clay’s ability to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  40. Theseus, Imparting and Exparting.Wylie Breckenridge - manuscript
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. La Multiplicidad de los Entes según Tomás de Aquino.Fernando Riofrío Zúñiga - 2017 - Saarbrüken, Germany: Editorial Académica Española. OmniScriptum.
    These PhD Dissertation published as a book is a research on Metaphysics about the problem of Multiplicity explained by its principles on the grounds of Aristotle's Metaphysics focused on substance and metaphysical thought of Aquinas. According to Aquinas the multitude of forms are the cause of multiplicity of beings. Super Boethium De Trinitate has an importan treatment of matter and form as causes of substantial identity, of substance's non-being and something else and be a this. Therefore the multiplicity of beings (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. A visual representation of part-whole relationships in BFO-conformant ontologies.Jose M. Parente de Oliveira & Barry Smith - 2017 - In Á Rocha, A. M. Correia, H. Adeli, L. P. Reis & S. Costanzo (eds.), Recent Advances in Information Systems and Technologies (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 569). New York: Springer. pp. 184-194.
    In the visual representation of ontologies, in particular of part-whole relationships, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations, and we propose instead a new representation of part-whole structures for ontologies, and describe the results of experiments designed to show the effectiveness of this new proposal especially as concerns reduction of visual complexity. The proposal is developed to serve visualization of ontologies conformant to the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. A diagrammatic representation for entities and mereotopological relations in ontologies.José M. Parente de Oliveira & Barry Smith - 2017 - In CEUR, vol. 1908.
    In the graphical representation of ontologies, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations. We focus here on a problem in the graph-based representation of ontologies in complex domains such as biomedical, engineering and manufacturing: lack of mereotopological representation. Based on such limitation, we proposed a diagrammatic way to represent an entity’s structure and various forms of mereotopological relationships between the entities.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Non-concrete parts of material objects.Michael Tze-Sung Longenecker - 2018 - Synthese 195 (11):5091-5111.
    This article offers a novel solution to the problem of material constitution: by including non-concrete objects among the parts of material objects, we can avoid having a statue and its constituent piece of clay composed of all the same proper parts. Non-concrete objects—objects that aren’t concrete, but possibly are—have been used in defense of the claim that everything necessarily exists. But the account offered shows that non-concreta are independently useful in other domains as well. The resulting view falls under a (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  45. La verità e il campo visivo.Barry Smith - 1999 - Paradigmi 17:49-62.
    L'articolo usa la teoria delle parti, del tutto e dei contomi per elaborare alcune relazioni cruciali tra la «psicologia ecologica» di J.J. Gibson e la fenomenologia di Husserl. Presenta, inoltre, una teoria ontologica dei contomi spaziali e delle entita spazialmente estese, applicandola al cam po visivo, qui concepito come un' entita spazialmente estesa dipendente dal soggetto che percepisce. Su questa base e possibile formulare un nuovo tipo di definizione teoretico-correspondentista della verita per gli enunciati del linguaggio naturale.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  46. Zeno’s paradox for colours.Barry Smith - 2000 - In O. K. Wiegand, R. J. Dostal, L. Embree, J. Kockelmans & J. N. Mohanty (eds.), Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, and Logic. Dordrecht. pp. 201-207.
    We outline Brentano’s theory of boundaries, for instance between two neighboring subregions within a larger region of space. Does every such pair of regions contain points in common where they meet? Or is the boundary at which they meet somehow pointless? On Brentano’s view, two such subregions do not overlap; rather, along the line where they meet there are two sets of points which are not identical but rather spatially coincident. We outline Brentano’s theory of coincidence, and show how he (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Engineering ontologies: Foundations and theories from philosophy and logical theory.Nicola Guarino & Barry Smith - 2006 - In SemanticMining: Semantic Interoperability and Data Mining in Biomedicine (NoE 507505). 1 Deliverable D.21.2. pp. 1-13.
    Ontology as a branch of philosophy is the science of what is, of the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes and relations in every area of reality. ‘Ontology’ is often used by philosophers as a synonym for ‘metaphysics’ (literally: ‘what comes after the Physics’), a term which was used by early students of Aristotle to refer to what Aristotle himself called ‘first philosophy’. The term ‘ontology’ (or ontologia) was itself coined in 1613, independently, by two philosophers, Rudolf Göckel (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Partial Content and Expressions of Part and Whole. Discussion of Stephen Yablo: Aboutness.Friederike Moltmann - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (3):797-808.
    In 'Aboutness' (MIT Press 2014), Yablo argues for the importance of the notions of partial content and partial truth. This paper argues that they are involved in a much greater range of entities than acknowledged by Yablo. The paper also argues that some of those entities involve a notion of partial satisfaction as well as partial existence (validity).
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  49. Gustav Bergmann, New Foundations of Ontology. [REVIEW]Barry Smith - 1995 - Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 3:304-306.
    The formal ontology here presented is what we might call a typed combinatorial Meinongian mereology. Its author seeks to formulate the laws, here called ‘canons’, regulating how entities can combine together in wholes of different sorts. The method, as in Bergmann’s earlier works, involves the construction of an ideal language of such a sort that the analysis of complex wholes can be achieved by transforming our natural-language representations of reality into what we might think of as artificial characteristic maps or (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Cosmic Loops.Daniel Nolan - 2018 - In Ricki Bliss & Graham Priest (eds.), Reality and Its Structure. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 91-106.
    This paper explores a special kind of loop of grounding: cosmic loops. A cosmic loop is a loop that intuitively requires us to go "around" the entire universe to come back to the original ground. After describing several kinds of cosmic loop scenarios, I will discuss what we can learn from these scenarios about constraints on grounding; the conceivability of cosmic loops; the possibility of cosmic loops; and the prospects for salvaging local reflexivity, asymmetry and transitivity of grounding in a (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
1 — 50 / 452