Abstract

This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form of mereological nihilism.

Highlights

  • Are there some things that form the bottom of reality or is the world bottomless? This question is often framed in terms of mereology

  • The first premise of the argument follows from every reasonable definition of nihilism

  • The second premise seems undeniable when one thinks of bottomlessness in terms of mereology

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Summary

A bottomless world

Are there some things that form the bottom of reality or is the world bottomless? This question is often framed in terms of mereology. Is every thing made of atoms, objects that have no proper parts? Are there gunky objects, objects such that every part of them has a proper part?1 From the perspective of the mereologist, a scenario is bottomless just in case there is nothing (for an empty scenario does not seem to have a bottom) or there is a thing that is not an atom or composed of atoms. It should be noted that this paper exclusively deals with what one might call objectual bottomlessness. Propertybottomlessness is not the topic of this paper.. Framing the question of whether the world has a bottom in terms of mereology has a downside for mereological nihilists, philosophers who hold that no object is a proper

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Conclusion
Formalizing irreducibly collective existence
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Primitively plural quantification and mereology
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How to speak of irreducibly collective pluralities?
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The conceptual coherence of ICE
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Full Text
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