Beyond atomism

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Contemporary metaphysicians have been drawn to a certain attractive picture of the structure of the world. This picture consists in classical mereology, the priority of parts over wholes, and the well-foundedness of metaphysical priority. In this short note, I show that this combination of theses entails superatomism, which is a significant strengthening of mereological atomism. This commitment has been missed in the literature due to certain sorts of models of mereology being
overlooked. But the entailment is an important one: we must either accept superatomism or reject one (or other) of the most widespread theses of contemporary metaphysics.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)67-72
Number of pages6
JournalThought: A Journal of Philosophy
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2013

Keywords

  • Ontology
  • Dependence
  • Priority
  • Grounding
  • Mereology
  • Parthood
  • Well-foundedness
  • Atomism
  • Gunk
  • Monism

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