Proponents of mereological nihilism attempt to achieve a simpler metaphysical ideology,a more parsimonious ontology and a solution to paradoxes of composition by denyingthat composition occurs. There are no objects with proper parts, only mereologicalsimples. One criticism of nihilism is that it appears to render propositions in scientificand ordinary language false, such as ‘there is a chair here’. van Inwagen offers usparaphrases of the form ‘there are some simples here arranged chair-wise’ that allowour ordinary language to express a true statement, albeit ontologically imprecise.Bennet argues that this does not really answer the question of composition, it merelymoves it into another one. Instead of ‘when do the xs compose a y?’, the questionbecomes ‘what does the world have to be like for some xs to be arranged y-wise?’Tallant builds on her argument to make the stronger claim that nihilism ultimately fails.This essay examines his argument and contrasts it with Sider’s positive case fornihilism, finding that while Tallant poses a serious challenge to nihilism, it can be met.However, Sider’s replacement of composition with mathematical sets does not doenough to fully answer the challenge of Tallant.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-187520 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Jonsson, Jonathan |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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