Mereological Nihilism

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists , and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy.

Mereological atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atomic parts, i.e., parts lacking proper parts. Standardly, this thesis is characterized by an axiom that says, more simply, that everything has atomic parts. Anthony Shiver (2015) has argued that this characterization is satisfied by models that are not atomistic, and is therefore inadequate. I argue that Shiver’s conclusion can and ought to be resisted, for (i) the models in question are atomistic in the intended sense, and (ii) even though the standard characterization does not say that everything is composed of atoms, it implies so. If there is a sense in which the relevant models are problematic, it lies elsewhere.

It is customary practice to define ‘x is composed of the ys’ as ‘x is a sum of the ys and the ys are pairwise disjoint (i.e., no two of them have any parts in common)’. This predicate has played a central role in the debate on the special composition question and on related metaphysical issues concerning the mereological structure of objects. In this note we show that the customary characterization is nonetheless inadequate. We do so by constructing a mereological model where everything qualifies as composed of atoms even though some elements in the domain are gunky, i.e., can be divided indefinitely into smaller and smaller proper parts.

Mereological nihilism is the thesis that composition never occurs. Some philosophers have thought that science gives us compelling evidence against nihilism. In this article I respond to this concern. An initial challenge for nihilism stems from the fact that composition is such a ubiquitous feature of scientific theories. In response I motivate a restricted form of scientific anti-realism with respect to those components of scientific theories which make reference to composition. A second scientifically based worry for nihilism is that certain specific scientific phenomena might require ineliminable quantification over composite objects. I address these concerns, and argue that there seem to be nihilist-friendly construals of the scientific phenomena in question.

Gabriele Contessa has recently introduced and defended a view he calls ‘non-eliminative nihilism’.  Non-eliminative nihilism (NEN, henceforth) is the conjunction of mereological nihilism and non-eliminativism about ordinary objects.  Mereological nihilism (nihilism) is the thesis that composite objects do not exist, where something is a composite object just in case it has proper parts.  Eliminativism about ordinary objects (eliminativism) denies that ordinary objects exist.  Eliminativism thus implies, for example, that there are no galaxies, planets, stars, ships, tables, books, organisms, cells, molecules, or atoms.  Non-eliminativism is the denial of eliminativism.  Thus, NEN is the intriguing thesis that although composite objects do not exist, ordinary objects do.  In this essay, I, first, summarize Contessa’s core support for NEN.  Second, I describe two flaws in that support when it comes to organismic terms (e.g., ‘amoeba’, ‘cat’, and ‘human’).  Third, I consider and reject two possible responses on behalf of NEN’s defenders.  Fourth, I show how the flaws cast doubt upon NEN itself.  Finally, I offer reasons to think that if nihilism is true, then the folk (including scientists) have probably been trying to fix the reference of organismic terms to apparent objects within illusions.

Nihilists cannot make their position square with common sense simply by paraphrasing away the apparent ontological commitments in ordinary language. I argue for this claim by analogy. Paraphrase atheism says there is no God, but tries to square the truth of atheism with ordinary religious sentences by paraphrasing away apparent ontological commitments. But, obviously, paraphrase does not reconcile atheism with ordinary language about God. Therefore, paraphrase does not reconcile nihilism with ordinary language about tables and books, since paraphrase nihilism is like paraphrase atheism in the relevant ways.

In this paper I explore the possibility of spatially extended mereological simples, i.e. of objects which have no proper parts and occupy an area of space which consists of more than one point of space. Various metaphysicians have defended the possibility of such simples recently. Such accounts face an objection which goes back at least to Descartes. Two different strategies have been pursued to defend the possibility of extended mereological simples against this objection. One strategy is to give up the Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts (DAUP) which roughly states that any spatially extended object has parts that correspond to the parts of the region that it occupies. The other strategy is to give up the idea that space is continuous and instead adopt the idea of smallest discreet packages of space. This second strategy only saves a specific type of extended simples, namely simples of the size of those smallest packages of space. In this paper I propose a third way to respond to the objection. This way is based on a positive account of how a simple object can be extended and allows us to retain DAUP and leave the question open whether space is continuous or discreet. And it allows simples of any size. The cost is that it introduces modifications of the geometry of space.

Mereological nihilists hold that composition never occurs, so that nothing is ever a proper part of anything else. Substance dualists generally hold that we are each identical with an immaterial soul. In this paper I argue that every popular objection to substance dualism has a parallel objection to composition. This thesis has some interesting implications. First, many of those who reject composition, but accept substance dualism, or who reject substance dualism and accept composition, have some explaining to do. Second, one popular objection to mereological nihilism, one which contends that mereological nihilism is objectionable insofar as it is incompatible with the existence of people, is untenable.

Mereological nihilism is the thesis that composite objects -- objects with proper parts -- do not exist. Nihilists generally paraphrase talk of composite objects F into talk of there being "xs arranged F-wise" (for example, while nihilists deny that there are tables, they concede that there are "xs arranged table-wise"). Recently several philosophers have argued that nihilism is defective insofar as nihilists are either unable to say what they mean by such phrases as "there are xs arranged F-wise," or that nihilists are unable to employ such phrases without incurring significant costs, perhaps even undermining one of the chief motivations for nihilism. In this paper I defend nihilism against these objections. A key theme of the paper is this: if nihilists need to employ such phrases as "there are xs arranged F-wise," non-nihilists will need to do so as well. Accordingly, any costs incurred by the nihilist when she employs such phrases will be shared by everyone else. What's more, such phrases are intelligible when employed by the nihilist, as well as when they are employed by the non-nihilist, insofar as analyses of such phrases will not essentially involve mereological concepts incompatible with nihilism.

"Ted Sider argues that nihilism about objects is incompatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk and takes this point to show that nihilism is flawed. I shall describe one kind of nihilism able to answer this objection. I believe that most of the things we usually encounter do not exist. That is, I take talk of macroscopic objects and macroscopic properties to refer to sets of fundamental properties, which are invoked as a matter of linguistic convention. This view is a kind of nihilism: it rules out the existence of objects; that is, from an ontological point of view, there are no objects. But unlike the moderate nihilism of Mark Heller, Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks that claims that most objects do not exist, I endorse a radical nihilism according to which there are no objects in the world, but only properties instantiated in spacetime. As I will show, radical nihilism is perfectly compatible with the metaphysical possibility of gunk. It is also compatible with the epistemic possibility that we actually live in a gunk world. The objection raised by Ted Sider only applies to moderate nihilism that admits some objects in its ontology.
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In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called ‘(Strong) Composition as Identity’ (‘CAI’): the ‘wall-bricks-and-atoms problem’ (‘WaBrA problem’), and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call ‘Atomic Composition as Identity’ (‘ACAI’) which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the (proper) plurality of atoms it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider’s (in: Baxter D, Cotnoir A (eds) Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 211–221, 2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that (pace Calosi in Philos Q 66(263):219–235, 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an ‘atomic comprehension principle’ which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the ‘one of’ relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi (J Philos 95:163–190, 1999a, in: Baxter D, Cotnoir A (eds) Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 169–191, 2014) and Calosi (Log Log Philos 25(3):429–443, 2016b, Am Philos Q 55(3):281–292, 2018) but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many.

Eliminativists sometimes invoke evolutionary debunking arguments against ordinary object beliefs, either to help them establish object skepticism or to soften the appeal of commonsense ontology. I argue that object debunkers face a self-defeat problem: their conclusion undermines the scientific support for one of their premises, because evolutionary biology depends on our object beliefs. Using work on reductionism and multiple realizability from the philosophy of science, I argue that it will not suffice for an eliminativist debunker to simply appeal to some object-free surrogate theory of evolution that results from converting any scientific proposition about some object K into a proposition about simples arranged K-wise. In the process, I examine some hazards peculiar to eliminative reductions of scientific theories, and propose a trilemma for eliminativists who attempt to recoup generality for ontologically sparse reducing theories by appealing to pluralities of simples arranged K-wise. The paper is intended to define and develop the object debunker’s self-defeat problem for further study, and to clarify some of the ways sparse and abundant ontologies interact with scientific theory.

Mereological nihilism (henceforth just "nihilism") is the thesis that composition never occurs. Nihilism has often been defended on the basis of its theoretical simplicity, including its ontological simplicity and its ideological simplicity (roughly, nihilism's ability to do without primitive mereological predicates). In this paper I defend nihilism on the basis of the theoretical unification conferred by nihilism, which is, roughly, nihilism's capacity to allow us to take fewer phenomena as brute and inexplicable. This represents a respect in which nihilism enjoys greater theoretical simplicity than its rivals which has not yet been explored, and which is immune to many of the objections which have been leveled against previous arguments for nihilism from nihilism's theoretical simplicity. Composition as identity might be thought to confer a similar degree of theoretical unification as nihilism. I end the paper by arguing that this is not the case.

Philosophers sometimes give arguments that presuppose the following principle: two theories can fail to be empirically equivalent on the sole basis that they present different "thick" metaphysical pictures of the world. Recently, a version of this principle has been invoked to respond to the argument that composite objects are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This response claims that our empirical evidence distinguishes between ordinary and composite-free theories, and it empirically favors the ordinary ones (Hofweber 2016, 2018). In this paper, I ask whether this response to the dispensability argument is tenable. I claim that it is not. This is because it presupposes an indefensible thesis about when two empirical consequences are distinct or the same. My argument provides some insight into what our empirical consequences are, and I conclude that empirical evidence is radically metaphysically neutral. This gives us some insight into the significant content o...

In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called '(Strong) Composition as Identity' ('CAI'): the 'wall-bricks-and-atoms problem' ('WaBrA problem'), and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call 'Atomic Composition as Identity' ('ACAI') which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the (proper) plurality of atoms it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider's (2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that (pace Calosi 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an 'atomic comprehension principle' which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the 'one of' relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi (1999a, 2014) and Calosi (2016b, 2018) but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many.

According to Composition is Identity, a whole is literally identical to the plurality of its parts. According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note, it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi.

The main idea of this thesis is multi-descriptional physicalism. According to it, only physical entities are elements of our ontology, and there are different ways to describe them. Higher-level vocabularies (e.g., mental, neurological, biological) truly describe reality. Sentences about higher-level entities are made true by physical entities. Every chapter will develop multi-descriptional physicalism or defend it from objections. In chapter 1, I will propose a new conceptual reductive account that conceptually reduces higher-level entities to physical entities. This conceptual reductive account combines resources from Heil’s truthmaker theory and either a priori physicalism or a posteriori physicalism. In chapter 2, I apply this conceptual reductive account to various debates. Physicalism, the multiple-realisability argument, the prototype theory of concepts, and truthmaker explanations will be discussed. In chapter 3, I will argue that a major aim of metaphysics should be to discover which entities are fundamental and explain why they suffice for the existence of derivative entities. In chapter 4, I will propose a new way to explain why sentences apparently about composite objects are true even though there are no composite objects. It combines resources from Cameron’s truthmaker theory and van Inwagen’s paraphrase strategy. In chapter 5, I will argue that the intuition that the mind and the body are very different does not show that the mind is distinct from the body. This intuition can be explained away by mentioning our dispositions to give non-physical explanations when we are ignorant of physical facts. In chapter 6, I will examine two arguments for the existence of a metaphysically independent level, and I will argue that only a modified version of one of them succeeds. I will argue that methodological principles support the view that there is a metaphysically independent level.

According to Craig Callender (in his paper 'Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics'), it's the case that

“mainstream analytic metaphysics has moved further away from scientific concerns at the same time that philosophy of science has moved closer to science”.

Callender's position, prima facie, is very similar to that expressed by the logical positivists (in the 1930s and 1940s) when it it came to various (or all!) metaphysical disputes. Callender also writes:

“The reason is that it's hard to imagine what feature of reality determines whether a fist is a new object or not. How would the world be different if hands arranged fist-like didn't constitute new objects?”

The begged answer is: *No difference whatsoever.*

Since logical positivists have just been mentioned, it seems clear that Callender is also asking for a kind of positivist answer to his questions. That is, he's asking if these questions can be answered by experience. The analytic metaphysician, of course, would say that such questions are themselves... well, *meaningless*. Of course experience is irrelevant to these questions. Or, at the very least, experience alone can't answer them. Indeed experience alone couldn't even answer any of the logical positivists' questions. Experience alone can't answer any question.

Not that those who have a problem with analytic metaphysics also have a problem with metaphysics when it's seen more generally. Callender puts the case that one can be against much/all of what's called analytic metaphysics and yet still not be against metaphysics itself. Moreover, it's not only that one must accept metaphysics even when one also places science in an/the important position. It's simply that one simply can't avoid metaphysics – not even in science itself.

Not all analytic metaphysicians ignore science. Take Ted (Theodore) Sider. Sider doesn't ignore or disparage science. Or, rather, he sees (much?) analytic metaphysics as being “quasi-scientific”. It may also be interesting to mention panpsychism here. Panpsychists (or at least some of them) have the same position as Sider on this aspect of the debate. They see their own theories as being *quasi-scientific*.

So let's take a few seemingly extreme positions in analytic metaphysics (or plain metaphysics, for that matter). Peter van Inwagen, for example, believes that only elementary particles and living organisms exist. That is, he believes that cups, tables, planets, etc. don't exist. Mereological nihilists also believe that only elementary particles exist; or that they're the only genuine objects. Mereological universalists, on the other hand, believe that any arbitrary combination of otherwise separate objects can - or do - constitute a further object. That means that your own arse and the sun above it can (or do) constitute a single object. It's the nature of these metaphysical beliefs which are often deemed to be “bizarre” and “trivial”. (Can the trivial and bizarre exist side by side?)