Parts and Wholes

Philosophy can be characterized as the art of radical questioning. And the more fundamental the target of a question is, the more radical is that question. In this respect, ‘what is there?’ certainly belongs to the top five. In 1953, W.V.O. Quine published his famous “On What There Is,” where he notes—after stressing the simplicity of the question and the difficulty to answer it—that “the issue has stayed alive down the centuries.” True! And while this question still puzzles philosophers today, the present series draws inspiration from Quine’s prodding to the problem’s long history and takes up the issue in the past tense. More precisely, with its focus ‘on what there was,’ the series aims to explore how philosophers around the Mediterranean during the formative period of Western thought, i.e., between approximately 500 and 1650 CE, conceived of the ontological furniture of the world.

Introduction to the Series
Laurent Cesalli and Nadja Germann

Introduction
Andrew W. Arlig

Part I: Historical Perspectives

A Brief Introduction to Boethian Mereology
Andrew W. Arlig

Part II: Case Studies

Abelard’s Early Mereology. Wholes and Parts in the Dialectica
Peter King

The Collectio-Theory of Universals and the Semantics of Collective Nouns
Irène Rosier-Catach

The Soul and its Parts
Dominik Perler

Parts, Wholes, and the Elements in Some Medieval Philosophers
Thomas M. Ward

When a Part is not a Part. Hylomorphic Emanationist Mereology in Ibn Gabirol
Sarah Pessin

Part III: Texts and Translations

Types of Wholes and Parts
Andrew W. Arlig

Connected Wholes and the Priority of the Part
Peter King

Wholes, Aggregates and Collective Nouns
Andrew W. Arlig and Irène Rosier-Catach

Mereological Structures in the Soul
Andrew W. Arlig

The ‘Virtual’ Presence of Elements and Non-mereological Composition
Andrew W. Arlig and Thomas M. Ward

Prime Matter as an Essential Part of Substances
Andrew W. Arlig