Working parts: Reply to Mellor

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62:81-106 (2008)
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Abstract

Two kinds of explanation might be put forward. The first goes like this: the necessary connection between the location of a whole and the location of its parts holds because the location of the whole is nothing but the collective location of its parts. The second style of explanation goes like this: the connection holds because what it is for a material whole to have something as a part, is (perhaps among other things) for the whole to contain the part.

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Robert Williams
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Toward a Commonsense Answer to the Special Composition Question.Chad Carmichael - 2015 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3):475-490.
Composition.Daniel Z. Korman & Chad Carmichael - 2016 - Oxford Handbooks Online.
On Mereology and Metricality.Zee R. Perry - 2023 - Philosophers' Imprint 23.
Lewis on Reference and Eligibility.J. R. G. Williams - 2015 - In Barry Loewer & Jonathan Schaffer (eds.), A companion to David Lewis. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 367-382.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Material beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Parts: a study in ontology.Peter M. Simons - 1987 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Parts: A Study in Ontology.Peter Simons - 1987 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
New Work For a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1983 - In D. H. Mellor & Alex Oliver (eds.), Properties. Oxford University Press.

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