Abelian mereology

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Abstract

In classical extensional mereology, composition is idempotent: if x is part of y, then the sum of x and y is identical to y. In this paper, I provide a systematic and coherent formal mereology for which idempotence fails. I first discuss a number of purported counterexamples to idempotence that have been put forward in the literature. I then discuss two recent attempts at sketching non-idempotent formal mereology due to Karen Ben-nett and Kit Fine. I argue that these attempts are incomplete, however, and there are many open issues left unresolved. I then construct a class of models of a non-idempotent mereology using multiset theory, consider their algebraic structure, and show how these models can shed light on the open issues left from the previous approaches.

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APA

Cotnoir, A. J. (2015). Abelian mereology. Logic and Logical Philosophy, 24(4), 429–447. https://doi.org/10.12775/LLP.2015.006

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