Mereology: A Philosophical Introduction

Giorgio Lando is a Junior Professor at the University of L'Aquila, Italy. Some of his works are published in Erkenntnis, The Monist, and Synthese.

• Introduction Part I: The Methodology of Mereological Monism 1. Natural Language, Literal Parthood, and Philosophical Mereology 2. Mereological Monism: A Desirable Philosophical Thesis 3. Is Mereology Formal? 4. Transitivity and Other Features Part II: Extensionalism 5. Hyperextensionality and Nominalism about Structure 6. What Extensionalism Says 7. Extensionalism and Concrete Entities 8. Extensionalism and Abstract Entities9. The Alternatives to ExtensionalismPart III: Unrestricted Composition 10. Mereological Fusion and Plural Logic 11. The Definition of Fusion 12. Allegedly Counterintuitive Entities 13. The Argument from Vagueness 14. Unrestricted Composition and MetaontologyAppendix: Mereological Monism, Without Composition as Identity References Index

The book is carefully and clearly written, and the arguments are presented in a fair and even-handed way … [It] is certainly suitable for use as a textbook in graduate seminars on the metaphysics of parts and wholes, but it is also accessible enough that it could also be used in upper-division undergraduate metaphysics classes. Philosophers who are curious to see what some of the main issues in the metaphysics of parts and wholes are would also profit from reading this book.