Mereology and ideology

Brenner, Andrew

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02527-9

Synthese

2020

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02527-9

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Mereology and ideology

Andrew Brenner

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2022

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Cited by 4 publications

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“…For there would only be physical simples. 4 • Insofar as they eschew a parthood operator, and make do only with an operator for set membership, minimal ontologies may also maximize ideological or conceptual simplicity (Sider 2013;Brenner 2021).…”

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How to minimize ontological commitments: a grounding-reductive approach

Sass

2022

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Some revisionary ontologies are highly parsimonious: they posit far fewer entities than what we quantify over in ordinary discourse. The most radical examples are minimal ontologies, on which physical simples are the only things that exist. Highly parsimonious ontologies, and especially minimal ones, face the challenge of either accounting for the truth of our ordinary quantificational discourse, or paraphrasing such discourse away. Common strategies for addressing this challenge include classical reduction (by means of formal derivation and postulates), paraphrase nihilism, and a distinction between ontological and existence commitments. I argue, however, that these strategies are either implausible or fail to provide truth conditions consistent with minimal or parsimonious ontologies. I then discuss, defend, and suggest ways to strengthen an alternative framework for reduction, on which the sentences of reducing theories ground those of reducible theories. Relative to the other options for defending minimal ontology, a strengthened grounding-reductive approach can (in principle) provide more defensible truth conditions for minimal ontology, better preserve scientific realist intuitions, set a more attainable standard for reduction, and allow our existence commitments to be more responsive to empirical evidence and scientific expertise. As a result, I argue that minimal ontology becomes more defensible-though not certain-on a grounding-reductive framework. But even if minimal ontology were wrong, the grounding-reductive framework makes other parsimonious but non-minimal ontologies more plausible. Minimal OntologyConsider the following argument: MIN:(1) The only entities whose existence we're committed to are those required to make true the sentences of our best theory(2) The only entities required to make true the sentences of our best theory are physical simples(3) Therefore, the only entities whose existence we're committed to are physical simples

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How to minimize ontological commitments: a grounding-reductive approach

Sass

2022

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Irreducibly collective existence and bottomless nihilism

Werner

2022

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This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form of mereological nihilism.

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Ideological innocence

Rubio

2022

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Mereology and ideology

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

How to minimize ontological commitments: a grounding-reductive approach

How to minimize ontological commitments: a grounding-reductive approach

Irreducibly collective existence and bottomless nihilism

Ideological innocence

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