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Analysis Advance Access published online on October 5, 2009
Analysis, doi:10.1093/analys/anp141
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

An argument against an argument against the necessity of universal mereological composition

Duncan Watson

University of Leeds Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK phl5dw@leeds.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Einar Bohn (2009) aims to refute the claim that universal mereological composition (UMC) is necessarily true. Bohn's argument relies on the claim that there's a possible world at which every object is a proper part of some other object: Bohn's argument for this claim is invalid. The most natural attempts to strengthen Bohn's argument are question-begging.


   1. Bohn's argument against the necessity of UMC
 
UMC is the claim that any collection of objects composes a further object. If UMC is true then there must be a universal object – an object that is the composition of all other objects and that is itself not a proper part of any other object.

Bohn (2009: 28) asks us to imagine a world that contains something like our universe except that this universe is contained in a particle of some bigger universe, which in turn is contained in a particle of some bigger still universe and so . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   2. Against Bohn's argument against the necessity of UMC
 

   3. Potential responses
 

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