Achille C. Varzi - Böcker

Is a whole something more than the sum of its parts? Are there things composed of the same parts? If you divide an object into parts, and divide those parts into smaller parts, will this process ever come to an end? Can something lose parts or gain new ones without ceasing to be the thing it is? Does any multitude of things (including disparate things such as you, this book, and the tail of a cat) compose a whole of some sort? Questions such as these have occupied us for at least as long as philosophy has existed. They define the field that has come to be known as mereology-the study of all relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole-and have deep and far-reaching ramifications in metaphysics as well as in logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and beyond. In Mereology, A. J. Cotnoir and Achille C. Varzi have compiled decades of advanced research into a comprehensive, up-to-date, and formally rigorous picture. The early chapters cover the more classical aspects of mereology; the rest of the book deals with variants and extensions. Whether you are an established professional philosopher, an interested student, or a newcomer, inside you will find all the tools you need to join this ever-evolving field of inquiry and theorize about all things mereological.

Is a whole something more than the sum of its parts? Are there things composed of the same parts? If you divide an object into parts, and divide those parts into smaller parts, will this process ever come to an end? Can something lose parts or gain new ones without ceasing to be the thing it is? Does any multitude of things (including disparate things such as you, this book, and the tail of a cat) compose a whole of some sort? Questions such as these have occupied us for at least as long as philosophy has existed. They define the field that has come to be known as mereology-the study of all relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole-and have deep and far-reaching ramifications in metaphysics as well as in logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and beyond. In Mereology, A. J. Cotnoir and Achille C. Varzi have compiled decades of advanced research into a comprehensive, up-to-date, and formally rigorous picture. The early chapters cover the more classical aspects of mereology; the rest of the book deals with variants and extensions. Whether you are an established professional philosopher, an interested student, or a newcomer, inside you will find all the tools you need to join this ever-evolving field of inquiry and theorize about all things mereological.

This volume is a study of the foundations of model-theoretic semantics. Its central thesis is that one does not need to assume a perfect structural fit between languages and their models in order to characterize the basic semantic notions. In particular, truth-value gaps and gluts can be explained away as local phenomena that do not bring logical disaster in their wake. Varzi's detailed account is based on a generalization of supervaluationary techniques and is illustrated with reference to a range of different types of examples, from sentential logic to type theory.

This book is a study of the foundations of model-theoretic semantics. Its central thesis is that one does not need to assume a perfect structural fit between languages and their models in order to characterise the basic semantic notions. In particular, truth-value gaps and gluts can be explained away as local phenomena that do not bring logical disaster in their wake. Varzi's detailed and original account is based on a generalisation of supervaluationary techniques and is illustrated with reference to a range of different types of examples, from sentential logic to type theory. Audience: The book is self-contained and will appeal to philosophers, logicians, linguists and computer scientists.