A topological theory of fundamental concrete particulars

Abstract

Fundamental concrete particulars are needed to explain facts about non-fundamental concrete particulars. However, the former can only play this explanatory role if they are properly discernible from the latter. Extant theories of how to discern fundamental concreta primarily concern mereological structure. Those according to which fundamental concreta can bear, but not be, proper parts are motivated by the possibilities that all concreta bear proper parts (mereological “gunk”) and that some properties of wholes are not fixed by the properties of their proper parts (“emergence”). In response, theorists who hold that the fundamental concrete particulars can be proper parts may appeal to the possibility that every concrete particular is a proper part—that there is no mereologically maximal whole world (mereological “junk”), as well as to the intuition that fundamental concreta are qualitatively homogeneous “blocks” from which non-fundamental concreta are built. After motivating the plausibility of gunk and junk, the present essay proposes a constraint on fundamental concrete particulars based on topology instead of mereology: the fundamental concrete particulars must be appropriately connected. This constraint has the unique advantage of consistency with each of gunk, emergence, junk, and the building block intuition.