Mereological Nihilism and Puzzles about Material Objects

Abstract

Mereological nihilism is the view that no objects have proper parts. Despite how counter‐intuitive it is, it is taken quite seriously, largely because it solves a number of puzzles in the metaphysics of material objects – or so its proponents claim. In this article, I show that for every puzzle that mereological nihilism solves, there is a similar puzzle that (a) it doesn’t solve, and (b) every other solution to the original puzzle does solve. Since the solutions to the new puzzles apply just as well to the old puzzles, the old puzzles provide no motivation to be a mereological nihilist.

Extended Simples, Unextended Complexes

“…27 and 28, being extended or unextended is predicated only of spatial entities, regions or things that are exactly located at regions. 40 As we saw, Pickup thinks that things that are not in space count, by default, as unextended. I disagree: what we should say in those cases is that the entity in question has no extension.…”

“…m is not μ, but we still get a metrical notion of extension. 40 In fact, it is meaningful to apply extension only at spatial entities that have exact locations corresponding to Lebesgue-measurable sets. Some might argue that this a drawback.…”

Why Composition Matters

“…supports the view that disputes over Comp themselves have wide-ranging implications. At the very least, given the sheer number and variety of connections we've identified between Comp and other substantive disputes, it seems to us very doubtful 43 In this connection, see Brenner (2015a, 2015b, Korman (2016) and Rettler (2018). 44 Van Inwagen (1990, chapd.…”