Description
This volume offers a fresh exploration of the parts–whole relations within a power and among powers. While the metaphysics of powers has been extensively examined in the literature, powers have yet to be studied from the perspective of their mereology.
Powers are often assumed to be atomic, and yet what they can do—and what can happen to them—is complex. But if powers are simple, how can they have complex manifestations? Can powers have parts? According to which rules of composition do powers compose into powers? Given the centrality of powers in current scientific as well as philosophical thought, recognizing and understanding the ontological differences between atomic and mereologically complex powers is important, for both philosophy and science. The first part of this book explores how powers divide; the second part, how powers compose. The final part showcases some specific study cases in the domains of quantum mechanics and psychology.
Powers, Parts and Wholes will be of interest to professional philosophers and graduate students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science and logic.
Table of Contents
Introduction Christopher J. Austin, Anna Marmodoro, and Andrea Roselli
Part 1: Parts of Powers
1. Carving up the Network of Powers A.J. Cotnoir
2. Parts and Grounds of Powers: A Logic and Ground-Theoretic Mereology for Power Ontologies Robert C. Koons
3. Complex Powers: Making Many One Christopher J. Austin
4. Powers as Mereological Lawmakers Michael Traynor
5. Determinable Dispositions Nick Kroll
Part 2: Composition of Powers
6. What There Is and What There Could Be: Mereology, Causality, and Possibility in an Ontology of Powers Sophie R. Allen
7. What Can Causal Powers do for Interventionism? The Problem of Logically Complex Causes Vera Hoffmann-Kolss
8. Collective Powers Xi-Yang Guo and Matthew Tugby
9. The Special-Power Composition Question and the Powerful Cosmos Joaquim Giannotti
10. The Composition of Naïve Powers Michele Paolini Paoletti
Part 3: Power Mereology in Science
11. Quantum Dispositions and the Simple Theory of Property Composition Matteo Morganti
12. Dispositions, Mereology and Panpsychism: The Case for Phenomenal Properties Simone Gozzano
