Mereological universalists, according to whom every plurality of entities has a fusion, usually claim that most quantifications are restricted to ordinary entities. However, there is no evidence that our usual quantifications over ordinary objects are restricted. In this article I explore an alternative way of reconciling Mereological Universalism with our usual quantifications. I resort to a modest form of ontological expansionism and to the so-called interpretational modalities. Quantifications over ordinary objects are the initial stages of the expansion. From these initial (...) stages, expansions can proceed upwards (fusions of entities in the domain of quantification are added), downwards (parts of entities in the domain are added), and sidewards (entities which are mereologically disjoint from the entities in the domain are added). These expansions are driven by a variety of epistemic and pragmatic reasons and raise different kinds of problems. At each stage, a modalized version of Mereological Universalism is true. By contrast, only at some especially rich stages, standard, non-modalized Mereological Universalism is true as well. Among these especially rich stages, there is a final, metaphysically pre-eminent stage of mereological plenitude. In the last part of the article I discuss some problems and limitations of expansionism. (shrink)

The interpretation of Lewis‘s doctrine of natural properties is difficult and controversial, especially when it comes to the bearers of natural properties. According to the prevailing reading – the minimalist view – perfectly natural properties pertain to the micro-physical realm and are instantiated by entities without proper parts or point-like. This paper argues that there are reasons internal to a broadly Lewisian kind of metaphysics to think that the minimalist view is fundamentally flawed and that a liberal view, according to (...) which natural properties are instantiated at several or even at all levels of reality, should be preferred. Our argument proceeds by reviewing those core principles of Lewis‘s metaphysics that are most likely to constrain the size of the bearers of natural properties: the principle of Humean supervenience, the principle of recombination in modal realism, the hypothesis of gunk, and the thesis of composition as identity. (shrink)

I argue that it is not acceptable to restrict the claim that linguistic types are concrete entities (type-concretism) to some categories of linguistic types (such as words or proper names), while at the same time conceding that other categories of linguistic types (such as sentence types) are abstract entities. Moreover, I suggest a way in which type-concretism can be extended to every linguistic type, thereby responding to the so-called productivity objection to type-concretism, according to which, whenever tokens of a type (...) t are produced in different, causally isolated circumstances, then t needs to be identified by a certain form or structure. This extension of type-concretism detaches type-concretism from so-called originalism and gives rules a prominent role in type-concretism. (shrink)

Some tools introduced by Linnebo to show that mathematical entities are thin objects can also be applied to non-mathematical entities, which have been thought to be thin as well for a variety of reasons. In this paper, I discuss some difficulties and opportunities concerning the application of abstraction and interpretational modalities to mereological sums. In particular, I show that on one hand some prima facie attractive candidates for the role of an explanatory plural abstraction principle for mereological sums (in terms (...) of pluralities of summed entities) are not really explanatory; on the other hand, singular abstraction principles (in terms of single summed entities) are materially inadequate. Nonetheless, explanatory criteria of identity and conditions of existence for mereological sums are provided by classical extensional mereology independent of abstraction principles. Thus, given classical extensional mereology, the reasons why, according to Linnebo, mathematical abstracted entities are thin also hold for mereological sums. Finally, I contend that interpretational modalities can be used to characterise the process by which a subject adds sums of previously admitted entities to the domain of quantification. (shrink)

When the necessity of identity (NI) is combined with composition as identity (CAI), the contingency of composition (CC) is at risk. In the extant literature, either NI is seen as the basis for a refutation of CAI or CAI is associated with a theory of modality, such that: either NI is renounced (if counterpart theory is adopted); or CC is renounced (if the theory of modal parts is adopted). In this paper, we investigate the prospects of a new variety of (...) CAI, which aims to preserve both NI and CC. This new variety of CAI (CCAI, contingent composition as identity) is the quite natural product of the attempt to make sense of CAI on the background of a broadly Kripkean view of modality, such that one and the same entity is allowed to exist at more than one possible world. CCAI introduces a world-relative kind of identity, which is different from standard identity, and claims that composition is this kind of world-relative identity. CCAI manages to preserve NI and CC. We compare CCAI with Gibbard’s and Gallois’ doctrines of contingent identity and we show that CCAI can be sensibly interpreted as a form of Weak CAI, that is of the thesis that composition is not standard identity, yet is significantly similar to it. (shrink)

Aim of this paper is to analyse and assess two divergent understandings of metaphysical modality. On one hand, according to the absolutist conception, metaphysical modality is the extreme variety of objective modality and can be characterised in terms of all the varieties of objective modality: for example, p is metaphysically necessary if and only if p is necessary for every variety of objective necessity. The absolutist conception can also be framed in terms of counterfactual inevitability. On the other hand, according (...) to the essentialist conception of metaphysical modality, p is metaphysically necessary if and only if the truth of p is grounded by the essences of some entities. Based on the analysis of these two conceptions, I show that possible worlds are not helpful in characterising metaphysical modality. I finally suggest that in the light of a general principle about philosophical terminology, the essentialist conception has an edge over the absolutist one. (shrink)

According to strong composition as identity, the logical principles of one–one and plural identity can and should be extended to the relation between a whole and its parts. Otherwise, composition would not be legitimately regarded as an identity relation. In particular, several defenders of strong CAI have attempted to extend Leibniz’s Law to composition. However, much less attention has been paid to another, not less important feature of standard identity: a standard identity statement is true iff its terms are coreferential. (...) We contend that, if coreferentiality is dropped, indiscernibility is no help in making composition a genuine identity relation. To this aim, we analyse as a case study Cotnoir’s theory of general identity, in which indiscernibility is obtained thanks to a revisionary semantics and true identity statements are allowed to connect non-coreferential terms. We extend Cotnoir’s strategy for indiscernibility to the relation of comaternity, and we show that, neither in the case of composition nor in that of comaternity, indiscernibility contibutes to show that they are genuine identity relations. Finally, we compare Cotnoir’s approach with other versions of strong CAI endorsed by Wallace, Bøhn, and Hovda, and canvass the extent to which they violate coreferentiality. The comparative analysis shows that, in order to preserve coreferentiality, strong CAI is forced to adopt a non-standard semantic treatment of the singular/plural distinction. (shrink)

According to the so-called strong variant of Composition as Identity (CAI), the Principle of Indiscernibility of Identicals can be extended to composition, by resorting to broadly Fregean relativizations of cardinality ascriptions. In this paper we analyze various ways in which this relativization could be achieved. According to one broad variety of relativization, cardinality ascriptions are about objects, while concepts occupy an additional argument place. It should be possible to paraphrase the cardinality ascriptions in plural logic and, as a consequence, relative (...) counting requires the relativization either of quantifiers, or of identity, or of the is one of relation. However, some of these relativizations do not deliver the expected results, and others rely on problematic assumptions. In another broad variety of relativization, cardinality ascriptions are about concepts or sets. The most promising development of this approach is prima facie connected with a violation of the so-called Coreferentiality Constraint, according to which an identity statement is true only if its terms have the same referent. Moreover - even provided that the problem with coreferentiality can be fixed - the resulting analysis of cardinality ascriptions meets several difficulties. (shrink)

I give an account of what makes an event a coincidence. -/- I start by critically discussing a couple of other approaches to the notion of coincidence -- particularly that of Lando (2017) -- before developing my own view. The central idea of my view is that the correct understanding of coincidences is closely related to our understanding of the correct 'level' or 'grain' of explanation. Coincidences have a kind of explanatory deficiency — if they did not have this (...) deficiency they would not be coincidences. This deficiency, I claim, is the same explanatory deficiency as when we give low-level explanations of special science phenomena. Such explanations are typically too specific and not robust enough. I claim that there is this same badness in purported explanations of coincidences. -/- I cash out this idea sketching an account of explanatory goodness — an account of what makes explanations better or worse -- and using that to give a more precise account of coincidences. (shrink)