Parts of Classes

David K. Lewis

Wiley-Blackwell

1991

168 páginas

5h 36m

ISBN-10: 063117656X

Does the notion of part and whole have any application to classes? Lewis argues that it does, and that the smallest parts of any class are its one-membered "singleton" subclasses. That results in a reconception of set theory. The set-theoretical making of one out of many is just the composition of one whole out of many parts. But first, one singleton must be made out of its one member - this is the distinctively set-theoretical primitive operation. Thus set theory is entangled, with mereology: the theory of parts and wholes.