In this work, the author formulates a critique of widely accepted mereological assumptions, presents a new conception of wholes as 'Unities', and demonstrates the advantages of this new conception in treating a variety of metaphysical puzzles (such as that of Tibbles the cat). More generally he suggests that conceiving wholes as Unities offers us a new way of understanding the world in non-reductive terms.

Inhalt

Preface. 1: Introduction. I. Plato's Challenge. II. Two Approaches to Wholes and Parts. III. Illustration of the Idea of a Three-Tiered Whole. IV. The Theoretical Context. V. Outline of the Argument. Part One: Wholes. 2: Concrete Comprising Entities. I. Preliminaries.II. Ways of Being One. Appendix: Plural Quantification. 3: Types of Comprising Entities. I. Collective and Distributive Classes. II. Distributive Classes and Concreteness. III. Collections. 4: Theory and Pre-theory of Wholes. I. The Pre-theoretical Conception. II. Preliminaries to a Theoretical Conception. Part Two: Sums. 5: Classical and Neoclassical Mereology. I. Principles of Classical and Neoclassical Mereology. II. Limitations of the Notion of a Classical Sum. III. Flexibility of the Notion of a Neoclassical Sum. 6: Traditional Higher Wholes as Sums. I. Organic Wholes and Gestalts. II. Features of Organic Wholes and Gestalts. III. Organic Wholes and Gestalts as Sums. 7: Criticism of the Notion of a Neoclassical Sum. I. Conditioned Sums. II. Non-unique Sums. III. Mereologically Varying Sums. 8: Sums, Collections and All the Parts. I. Inherent Limitation in the Notion of a Sum. II. Classical Sums as Identical to their Parts. Part Three: Unities. 9: A Theory of Unities. I. Introduction. II. Unities and Collections. III. Principles for a Theory of Unities. Appendix: Proofs of Theorems. 10: Further Elaborations and Applications. I. Perspectives on the Theory of Unities. II. Applying a Theory of Unities. III. The Paradox of Tibbles. Bibliography. Index.