Two Notes on Composition
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John Biro
Abstract
If, as some philosophers maintain, there are no composites, we do not have to ask whether, as others hold, composition is identity. Here I argue that both groups are wrong: there are composites, and composition is not identity. I examine one argument for excluding composites from our ontology, based on their alleged causal redundancy. I give reason to think that composites are ineliminable in causal explanations of macroscopic effects. I go on to argue that the relation between composites and their components is not one of identity.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- In Praise of Externalism? Spaulding, Dewey, and the Logic of Relations
- Relations in the Metaphysics of Science
- Fictional Universal Realism
- Grounding and the Existence of God
- Inquiry & Ordinary Truthmakers
- Haecceity Mereology
- Not Just Many Worlds but Many Universes? A Problem for the Many Worlds View of Quantum Mechanics
- The Ontological Distinction between Persons and Their Bodies
- A Mental-Physical-Self Topology: The Answer Gleaned From Modeling the Mind-Body Problem
- Encoding in Conceivability-Contexts: Zalta’s Theory of Intentionality versus Bourgeois-Gironde’s Notion of Quasi-encoding
- Presentism & Passage
- Metaphysical Compatibilism and the Ontology of Trans-World Personhood: A Neo-Lewisian Argument for the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge (Determinism) and Metaphysical Free Will
- The Question of Transcendence and Constraint in a Panartifactual Account of Being, Knowing and Making
- Can Non-Causal Explanations Answer the Leibniz Question?
- Two Notes on Composition
- Can Causal Powers Cause Their Effects?
- A “Nouvelle Métaphysique Thomiste” or Simply Neo-Cayetanism?
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- In Praise of Externalism? Spaulding, Dewey, and the Logic of Relations
- Relations in the Metaphysics of Science
- Fictional Universal Realism
- Grounding and the Existence of God
- Inquiry & Ordinary Truthmakers
- Haecceity Mereology
- Not Just Many Worlds but Many Universes? A Problem for the Many Worlds View of Quantum Mechanics
- The Ontological Distinction between Persons and Their Bodies
- A Mental-Physical-Self Topology: The Answer Gleaned From Modeling the Mind-Body Problem
- Encoding in Conceivability-Contexts: Zalta’s Theory of Intentionality versus Bourgeois-Gironde’s Notion of Quasi-encoding
- Presentism & Passage
- Metaphysical Compatibilism and the Ontology of Trans-World Personhood: A Neo-Lewisian Argument for the Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge (Determinism) and Metaphysical Free Will
- The Question of Transcendence and Constraint in a Panartifactual Account of Being, Knowing and Making
- Can Non-Causal Explanations Answer the Leibniz Question?
- Two Notes on Composition
- Can Causal Powers Cause Their Effects?
- A “Nouvelle Métaphysique Thomiste” or Simply Neo-Cayetanism?
