1 from aristotle to analytic metaphysics – from frege to tarski: a critical introduction to...
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From Aristotle to Analytic Metaphysics – From Frege to Tarski:
A Critical Introduction to Ontology and First-Order Logic
Barry Smith
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Aristotle
author of The Categories
Aristotle
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From Species to Genera
canary
animal
bird
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Species Genera as Tree
canary
animal
bird fish
ostrich
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Species-genusgenus trees can be represented also as map-like partitions
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From Species to Genera
canary
animal
bird
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From Species to Genera
animal
bird
canarycanary
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Species Genera as Tree
canary
animal
bird fish
ostrich
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Species-Genera as Map/Partition
animal
bird
canary
ostrich
fish
canary
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If Aristotelian realism is right,
then such partitions are transparent to the reality beyond
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Tree and Map/Partition
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Alberti’s Grid
c.1450
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Coarse-grained Partition
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Fine-Grained Partition
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Scientific theories
comprehend in their underlying category systems veridical partitions of reality
often there are many veridical partitions of reality,
cross-cutting each other,
differing only in nuances)
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What is a gene?
GDB: a gene is a DNA fragment that can be transcribed and translated into a protein
Genbank: a gene is a DNA region of biological interest with a name and that carries a genetic trait or phenotype
(from Schulze-Kremer)
GO does not tell us which of these is correct, or indeed whether either is correct, and it does not tell us how to integrate data from the corresponding sources
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Question:
what other sorts of partitions have this feature of transparency?
the partitions of common sense (folk biology, folk physics, folk psychology ...)
Answer:
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Aristotle
the ontologist of common-sense reality
Aristotle
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The world we grasp in natural language
= the world as apprehended via that conceptualization we call common sense
= the normal environment (the niche) shared by children and adults in everyday perceiving and acting
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The world of mothers, milk, and mice ...
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The Empty Mask (Magritte)
mama
mouse
milk
Mount Washington
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our common-sense partition of the world of common sense is transparent
(common sense, like science, is [mostly*] true)
mothers exist ...
* “mostly” because of the problem of vagueness
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Problem of vagueness solved
by recognizing that our categories apply to reality in such a way as to respect an opposition
... between standard or focal or prototypical instances
... and non-standard or ‘fringe’ instances
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birds
ostrich
Natural categories have borderline cases
sparrow
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... they have a kernel/penumbra structure
kernel of focal
instances
penumbra of borderline cases
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animal
bird
canary
ostrich
fish
every cell in every common-sense partition is subject to this same kernel-penumbra structure:
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What is common-sense reality?
the mesoscopic space of everyday human action and perception
– a space centered on objects organized into hierarchies of species and genera
... and subject to prototypicality
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but more:
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in addition to objects (substances),
which pertain to what a thing is at all times at which it exists:
cow man rock planet
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the common-sense world contains also accidents
which pertain to how a thing is at some time at which it exists:
red hot suntanned spinning
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An accident
= what holds of a substance per accidens
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quid? substance quantum? quantity quale? qualityad quid? relationubi? placequando? timein quo situ? status/contextin quo habitu? habitusquid agit? actionquid patitur? passion
Nine Accidental Categories
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= relations of inherence(one-sided existential dependence)
John
hunger
Substances are the bearers of accidents
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Both substances and accidents
instantiate universals at higher and lower levels of generality
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siamese
mammal
cat
organism
substancespecies, genera
animal
instances
frog
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Common nouns
pekinese
mammal
cat
organism
substance
animal
common nouns
proper names
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siamese
mammal
cat
organism
substancetypes
animal
tokens
frog
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Our clarification
accidents to be divided into
two large and essential distinct families of
QUALITIES
and
PROCESSES
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There are universals
both among substances (man, mammal)
and among qualities (hot, red)
and among processes (run, movement)
There are universals also among spatial regions (triangle, room, cockpit)
and among spatio-temporal regions (orbit)
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Substance universals
pertain to what a thing is at all times at which it exists:
cow man rock planetVW Golf
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Quality universals
pertain to how a thing is at some time at which it exists:
red hot suntanned spinningClintophobic Eurosceptic
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Process universals
reflect invariants in the spatiotemporal world taken as an atemporal whole
football match
course of disease
exercise of function
(course of) therapy
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Processes and qualities, too, instantiate genera and species
Thus process and quality universals form trees
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Accidents: Species and instances
quality
color
red
scarlet
R232, G54, B24
this individual accident of redness (this token redness – here, now)
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substance
one substantial categoryJohn, man
nine accidental categorieshunger, your hunger, being hungryyour sun-tanyour being taller than Mary
accidents
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substance
place (in the Lyceum)
time (yesterday)
position (is sitting)
possession (has shoes on)
action (cuts)
passion (is cut)
quantity (two feet long)
quality (white)
relation (taller than)
John
accidents
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substance
Substances are the bearers of accidents
accidentsBearers
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substance
Substances are the bearers of accidents
accidents
John = relations of inherence(one-sided existential dependence)
Bearers
hunger
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s
substance
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Substance + Accident = State of Affairs
setting into relief
States of Affair
s
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instances
Prototypicality among instances too
albino frogalbino frog
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Aristotle 1.0
an ontology recognizing:substance tokensaccident tokenssubstance typesaccident types
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Not in a SubjectSubstantial
In a SubjectAccidental
Said of a SubjectUniversal, General,Type
Second Substances
man, horse, mammal
Non-substantial Universals
whiteness, knowledge
Not said of a Subject Particular, Individual,Token
First Substances
this individual man, this horse this mind, this body
Individual Accidents
this individual whiteness, knowledge of grammar
Aristotle’s Ontological Square (full)
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Aristotle’s Ontological Square
Substantial Accidental
Second substance
man
cat
ox
Second accident
headache
sun-tan
dread
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Aristotle’s Ontological Square
Substantial Accidental
Second substance
man
cat
ox
Second accident
headache
sun-tan
dread
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Aristotle’s Ontological Square
Substantial Accidental
Second substance
man
cat
ox
Second accident
headache
sun-tan
dread
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Aristotle’s Ontological Square
Substantial Accidental
Second substance
man
cat
ox
Second accident
headache
sun-tan
dread
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Aristotle’s Ontological Square
Substantial Accidental
Second substance
man
cat
ox
Second accident
headache
sun-tan
dread
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Some philosophers
accept only part of this ontology
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Standard Predicate Logic – F(a), R(a,b) ...
Substantial Accidental
Attributes
F, G, R
Individuals
a, b, c
this, that
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Bicategorial Nominalism
Substantial Accidental
First substance
this man
this cat
this ox
First accident
this headache
this sun-tan
this dread
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Process Metaphysics
Substantial Accidental
Events
Processes“Everything is flux”
Uni
vers
alP
artic
ular
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Aristotle 1.0
in fact however we need more than the ontological square
What is missing from Aristotle 1.0 asan ontology of common-sense reality?
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Is everything in common-sense reality either a substance or an accident?
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well, what about artefacts ?
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Standard Aristotelian theory of artefacts:
artefacts are mereological sums of substances
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Positive and negative parts
positivepart
negativepartor hole
(made of matter)
(not made of matter)
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quid? substance quantum? quantity quale? qualityad quid? relationubi? placequando? timein quo situ? status/contextin quo habitu? habitusquid agit? actionquid patitur? passion
Nine Accidental Categories
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Places
For Aristotle the place of a substance is the interior boundary of the surrounding body
(for example the interior boundary of the surrounding water where it meets a fish’s skin)
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What is missing from Aristotle?
Gibson: affordancesniches
Barker: behavior settings
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The metaphysics of holes
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Aristotle 1.5
an ontology ofsubstances + accidents+ holes (and other entities not made of matter)+ fiat and bona fide boundaries+ artefacts and environments
is true
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folk biology
Aristotelian folk biology, folk physics, folk psychology, etc., are true of the common-sense world as it currently exists
(they have nothing to offer regarding its pre-history, its long term evolution, its position in the cosmos)
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reference vs. theory
They have not much to offer, either, by way of good explanatory theories of the entities in their respective domains,
but they are transparent to those domainsnonetheless
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reference realism vs. theory realism
this distinction applied not only to science (against T. S. Kuhn et al.) but also to common sense (against sceptics of various stripes)
the sun exists, and has existed for a long time – the very same object
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Both scientific partitions and common-sense partitions
are based on reference-systems which have survived rigorous empirical tests
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The $64000 Question
How do those parts and dimensions of reality which we call the common-sense world
... relate to those parts and dimensions of reality which are studied by science?
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Aristotle 2000
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Universe/Periodic Table
animal
bird
canary
ostrich
fishfolk biology
partition of DNA space
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Universe/Periodic Table
animal
bird
canary
ostrich
fish
both are transparent partitions of one and the same reality
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many transparent partitions
at different levels of granularity
will operate with species-genus hierarchies
and with an ontology of substances (objects) and accidents (attributes, processes)
along the lines described by Aristotle
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relative hylomorphism
substances and accidents reappear in the microscopic and macroscopic worlds of e.g. molecular biology and astronomy
(Aristotelian ontological zooming)
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we do not assert
that every level of granularity is structured in substance-accident form -- perhaps there are pure process levels, perhaps there are levels structured as fields
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Perspectivalism
PerspectivalismDifferent partitions may represent cuts through the same reality which are skew to each other
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An organism is a totality of molecules
An organism is a totality of cells
An organism is a single unitary substance
... all of these express veridical partitions
An organism is a totality of atoms
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all express partitions which are transparent,
at different levels of granularity,
to the same reality beyond
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Coarse-grained Partition
what happens when a fringe instance arises ?
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Coarse-grained Partition
what happens when a fringe instance arises ?
Aristotle 1.0: you shrug your shoulders
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Aristotle 2000:you go out to find a finer grained partition which will recognize the phenomenon in question as prototypical
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The advance of science
is not an advance away from Aristotle towards something better.
Provided Aristotle is interpreted aright, it is a rigorous demonstration of the correctness of his ontological approach
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The Empty Mask (Magritte)
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Edmund Husserl
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Logical Investigations¸1900/01
the theory of part and whole
the theory of dependence
the theory of boundary, continuity and contact
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Formal Ontology
(term coined by Husserl)
the theory of those ontological structures
(such as part-whole, universal-particular)
which apply to all domains whatsoever
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Formal Ontology vs. Formal Logic
Formal ontology deals with the interconnections of things
with objects and properties, parts and wholes, relations and collectives
Formal logic deals with the interconnections of truths
with consistency and validity, or and not
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Formal Ontology vs. Formal Logic
Formal ontology deals with formal ontological structures
Formal logic deals with formal logical structures
‘formal’ = obtain in all material spheres of reality
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Formal Ontology and Symbolic Logic
Great advances of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein
Leibnizian idea of a universal characteristic
…symbols are a good thing
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Warning
don’t confuse Logical with Ontological Form
Russell
Part-whole is not a logical relation
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for Frege, Russell, Lesniewski,
Wittgenstein, Quine
Logic is a ‘Zoology of Facts’
Formal theories are theories of reality
with one intended interpretation
= the world
tragicallyafter starting off on the right road
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Logic took a wrong turn
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Logic took a wrong turn
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Tarski, Carnap, Putnam, Sowa, Gruber:
Forget reality!
Lose yourself in ‘models’!
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IFOMIS Ontology
is an ontology of reality
Standard Information Systems Ontologies
are ontologies of mere 'models'
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Standard Information Systems Ontologies:
programming real ontology into computers is hard
therefore: we will simplify ontology
and not care about reality at all
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IFOMIS Strategy
get real ontology right first
and then investigate ways in which this real ontology can be translated into computer-
useable form later
NOT ALLOW ISSUES OF COMPUTER-TRACTABILITY TO DETERMINE THE
CONTENT OF ONTOLOGY
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First order logic
F(a)
R(a,b)
F(a) v R(a,b)
Either a F’s or a stands in R to b
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Standard semantics
F stands for a propertya stands for an individual
properties belong to Platonic realm of forms
orproperties are sets of individuals for which
F(a) is true
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Fantology
The forms F(a) and R(a,b) [on either of these understandings] are the basic clue to ontology
(Confusion of logical form and ontological form)
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For the fantologist
“(F(a)”, “R(a,b)” … is the language for ontology
The fantologist sees reality as being made up of atoms plus abstract (1- and n-place) ‘properties’ or ‘attributes’
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Booleanism
if F stands for a property and G stands for a property
then
F&G stands for a property
FvG stands for a property
not-F stands for a property
FG stands for a property
and so on
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IFOMIS (Aristotelian) perspective
Sparse theory of propertiesor better: non-Boolean theory of
propertiesproperties come in two forms: as types
and as tokens (accidents)or better: do not use the word property at
all, talk rather of quality-universals and quality-instancesprocess-universals and process-instances
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IFOMIS syntax
variables x, y, z … range of
universals and particulars
predicates stand only for FORMAL relations such as instantiates, part-of, connected-to, is-a-boundary-of, is-a-niche-for, etc.
FORMAL relations are not extra ingredients of being
(compare jigsaw puzzle pieces and the relations between them)
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What about sets?
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Arguments against Set Theory
Lesniewski’s Argument: Even set theorists do not understand their own creations; thus they do not know how one important family of sets (the set of real numbers, for example) relates in size to other sets (the set of natural numbers, for example).
Still no generally accepted correct axiomatization of set theory,
Questions re Axiom of Choice, etc.
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There are skew partitions (true) of the same reality
for example reflecting different granularities of analysis. If we identify entities in the world with sets, we cannot do justice to the identity of one and the same object as partitioned on different levels.
Mereology, in contrast, can allow the simultaneous truth of:
An organism is a totality of cells.An organism is a totality of molecules.
France is the totality of its 7 regions.France is the totality of its 116 provinces.
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The application of set theory to a subject-matter
presupposes the isolation of some basic level of Urelemente, which make possible the simulation of the structures appearing on higher levels by means of sets of successively higher types. But there is no such basic level of Urelemente in many spheres to which we might wish to direct ontological analysis, and in many spheres there is no unidirectional (upward) growth of complexity generated by simple combination.
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Set theory reduces all complexity to combination or unification
Set theory is a general theory of the structures which arise when objects are conceived as being united together ad libitum on successively higher levels, each object serving as member or element of objects on the next higher level. This theory is of course of considerable mathematical interest. It is however an open question whether there is any theoretical interest attached to the possibility of such ad libitum unification from the perspective of ontology. For the concrete varieties of complexity which in fact confront us are subject always in their construction to quite subtle sorts of constraints, constraints which vary from context to context.
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Set theory
allows unrestricted (Boolean) combinations
therefore gives as far more objects than we need
{all red things, the number 6}
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Sets are abstract entities
Sets are therefore timeless (they don't change)Thus a philosopher who countenances them in his ground-floor ontology has already renounced the advantages of a theory which is committed only to changing realia. He is thereby left with the problem of connecting up the abstracta he countenances with the real entities with which they are in different ways associated.
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Against Set Theory as a Vehicle for Semantics
There are some who would argue that we can understand a theory (for example in logic) only when we have given a set-theoretic semantics for that theory.(This is rather like saying that we can understand French only when we have translated it into English; English is the only intrinsically understandable language.)And how, on this basis, can we understand the language of set theory itself?
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Truth for empirical sentences
has classically been understood in terms of a correspondence relation (i.e. of some sort of isomorphism) between a judgment or assertion on the one hand and a certain portion of reality on the other. But reality evidently does not come ready-parcelled into judgment-shaped portions Hence practitioners of logical semantics have treated not of truth as such (understood as truth to an autonomous reality), but of truth in a model, where the model is a specially constructed set-theoretic reality-surrogate.
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Other problems
If sets don't change, then a set-theoretical ontology cannot do justice the causal-historical continuous orderSince sets divide the world into elements (points) this implies a certain unfaithfulness to boundary phenomena/continuaCan’t do justice to gradations/prototypes
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Mereology can deal more adequately with real-world
collections
Consider the collection of trees that is a certain forst.
What is its cardinality?
Are two trees that share a common root system one or two?
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The standard set-theoretic account of the continuum
initiated by Cantor and Dedekind and contained in all standard textbooks of the theory of sets, will be inadequate for at least the following reasons:
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1.The experienced continuum does not sustain the sorts of cardinal number constructions imposed by the Dedekindian approach. The experienced continuum is not isomorphic to any real-number structure; indeed standard mathematical oppositions, such as that between a dense and a continuous series, here find no application.
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2. The set-theoretical construction of the continuum is predicated on the highly questionable thesis that out of unextended building blocks an extended whole can somehow be constructed. The experienced continuum, in contrast, is organized not in such a way that it would be built up out of particles or atoms, but rather in such a way that the wholes, including the medium of space, come before the parts which these wholes might contain and which might be distinguished on various levels within them.
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3. Set theory can yield at best a model of the experienced continuum and similar structures, not a theory of these structures themselves (for the latter are after all not sets).
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4. The application of set theory to a subject-matter presupposes the isolation of some basic level of Urelemente in such a way as to make possible a simulation of all structures appearing on higher levels by means of sets of successively higher types.
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5. The experienced continuum is in every case a concrete, changing phenomenon, a phenomenon existing in time, a whole which can gain and lose parts.
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Set theory leads to paradoxes
In mereology, paradoxes do not arise, since every collection is part of itself, and there cannot be a collection that is not a part of itself
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Mereology
allows a nicer treatment of both plurals and mass nouns than set theory.
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Mereology is much simpler than set theory
Whereas set theory has two distinct operators: element-of and subset-of,
mereology has only one basic operator: part-of
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Mereology makes no distinction between an individual and a
singleton set
nor between different ways of building up collections by level of nesting:
{a,b,c} is identical to {a, {{{b}}, {c}}}.
Nelson Goodman: "No distinction of individuals without distinction of content."