Boolean Mereology
Name
10992_2022_Article_9686.pdf
Size
1.25 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
340f98204d5145953b3ef12681ab125d
Author(s)
Wu, Xinhe
Date Issued
November 9, 2022
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Citation
Wu, Xinhe. 2022. "Boolean Mereology."
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Most ordinary objects - cats, humans, mountains, ships, tables, etc. - have indeterminate mereological boundaries. If the theory of mereology is meant to include ordinary objects at all, we need it to have some space for mereological indeterminacy. In this paper, we present a novel degree-theoretic semantics - Boolean semantics - and argue that it is the best degree-theoretic semantics for modeling mereological indeterminacy, for three main reasons: (a) it allows for incomparable degrees of parthood, (b) it enforces classical logic, and (c) it is compatible with all the axioms of classical mereology. Using Boolean semantics, we will also investigate the connection between vagueness in parthood and vagueness in existence/identity. We show that, contrary to what many have argued, the connection takes neither the form of entailment nor the form of exclusion.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-022-09686-0
