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95 - Achille Varzi: What Is Mereology?

95 - Achille Varzi: What Is Mereology?

Robinson's Podcast vor 3 Jahren

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3:45:16

Achille Varzi is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at
Columbia University and Bruno Kessler Honorary Professor at the
University of Trento. He is a renowned metaphysicist and
logician, and widely regarded as the world’s leading mereologist.
Achille—or Varzi, as he is affectionately known around the halls
of Columbia’s philosophy department—is also an immensely
important philosophical figure for Robinson, and a prior denizen
of this podcast multiverse (see episode 47 for Achille’s
introduction to metaphysics and nominalism). In this installment,
however, Robinson and Varzi delve deep into the history, logic,
and metaphysics of mereology, the theory of parts and the
parthood relation. For a more in-depth and rigorous discussion of
the material covered in this episode (because yes, this is in
fact possible!), check out Achille and A.J. Cotnoir’s fantastic
monograph on the subject, linked below:

Mereology (Oxford, 2021): https://a.co/d/gFKrO3U

Mereology (SEP): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology/

Achille’s Website: http://www.columbia.edu/~av72/

Correction: Achille mistakenly refers to Verity Harte, author of
Plato on Parts and Wholes, as Valery Harte.

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

1:02 Introduction

4:44 Achille’s Start in Mereology

8:19 The Etymology of Mereology

18:00 What is Mereology?

20:03 Ancient Mereology

30:04 Medieval Mereology and the Liar Paradox

47:33 Husserl’s Formal Ontology

1:10:28 Leśniewski and the Formalization of Mereology

1:21:25 Whitehead, Leonard & Goodman, and the History of
Mereology

1:34:26 The Language of Mereology

1:39:44 Mereology and the Axiomatic Method

1:47:46 More on the Language of Mereology

1:52:37 The Mereological Formalism

2:16:42 Composition

2:29:35 Misconceptions about Mereological Fusion

3:01:10 Gunk, Junk, and Hunk

3:10:15 Applications of Mereology

3:15:50 Mereological Pluralism

3:31:43 Mereotopology and the Ordering Axioms

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of
mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations
with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and
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