•  8
    Mereology
    Philosophical Quarterly 73 (3): 855-858. 2017.
    The blurb on the back cover claims that in this book, it is possible to find all the tools needed to ‘theorize about all things mereological’. The book fulfills.
  •  184
    Metaphysical Modality, without Possible Worlds
    In Francesco Ademollo, Fabrizio Amerini & Vincenzo De Risi (eds.), Thinking and Calculating, Springer. pp. 385-408. 2022.
    Aim of this paper is to analyse and assess two divergent understandings of metaphysical modality. On one hand, according to the absolutist conception, metaphysical modality is the extreme variety of objective modality and can be characterised in terms of all the varieties of objective modality: for example, p is metaphysically necessary if and only if p is necessary for every variety of objective necessity. The absolutist conception can also be framed in terms of counterfactual inevitability. On…Read more
  •  259
    Some tools introduced by Linnebo to show that mathematical entities are thin objects can also be applied to non-mathematical entities, which have been thought to be thin as well for a variety of reasons. In this paper, I discuss some difficulties and opportunities concerning the application of abstraction and interpretational modalities to mereological sums. In particular, I show that on one hand some prima facie attractive candidates for the role of an explanatory plural abstraction principle f…Read more
  •  190
    Mereological monism and Humean supervenience
    Synthese 197 (11): 4745-4765. 2016.
    According to Lewis, mereology is the general and exhaustive theory of ontological composition, and every contingent feature of the world supervenes upon some fundamental properties instantiated by minimal entities. A profound analogy can be drawn between these two basic contentions of his metaphysics, namely that both can be intended as a denial of emergentism. In this essay, we study the relationships between Humean supervenience and two philosophical spin-offs of mereological monism: the possi…Read more
  •  513
    Expansionism and Mereological Universalism
    Theoria 86 (2): 187-219. 2020.
    Mereological universalists, according to whom every plurality of entities has a fusion, usually claim that most quantifications are restricted to ordinary entities. However, there is no evidence that our usual quantifications over ordinary objects are restricted. In this article I explore an alternative way of reconciling Mereological Universalism with our usual quantifications. I resort to a modest form of ontological expansionism and to the so-called interpretational modalities. Quantification…Read more
  •  9
    Composition, Counterfactuals, Causation
    with Massimiliano Carrara and Roberto Ciuni
    Humana Mente 4 (19). 2011.
  •  274
    A Uniform, Concretist Metaphysics for Linguistic Types
    Metaphysica 20 (2): 195-221. 2019.
    I argue that it is not acceptable to restrict the claim that linguistic types are concrete entities (type-concretism) to some categories of linguistic types (such as words or proper names), while at the same time conceding that other categories of linguistic types (such as sentence types) are abstract entities. Moreover, I suggest a way in which type-concretism can be extended to every linguistic type, thereby responding to the so-called productivity objection to type-concretism, according to wh…Read more
  •  462
    Composition, Indiscernibility, Coreferentiality
    Erkenntnis 81 (1): 119-142. 2016.
    According to strong composition as identity, the logical principles of one–one and plural identity can and should be extended to the relation between a whole and its parts. Otherwise, composition would not be legitimately regarded as an identity relation. In particular, several defenders of strong CAI have attempted to extend Leibniz’s Law to composition. However, much less attention has been paid to another, not less important feature of standard identity: a standard identity statement is true …Read more
  •  29
    Parthood and composition are everywhere. The leg of a table is part of the table, the word "Christmas" is part of the sentence "I wish you a merry Christmas", the 13th century is part of the Middle Ages. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg compose Benelux, the body of a deer is composed of a huge number of cells, the Middle Ages are composed of the Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, and Late Middle Ages. Is there really a general theory covering every instance of parthood and composition?…Read more
  •  842
    When the necessity of identity (NI) is combined with composition as identity (CAI), the contingency of composition (CC) is at risk. In the extant literature, either NI is seen as the basis for a refutation of CAI or CAI is associated with a theory of modality, such that: either NI is renounced (if counterpart theory is adopted); or CC is renounced (if the theory of modal parts is adopted). In this paper, we investigate the prospects of a new variety of CAI, which aims to preserve both NI and CC.…Read more
  •  528
    Natural Properties, Supervenience, and Mereology
    Humana Mente 4 (19): 79-104. 2011.
    The interpretation of Lewis‘s doctrine of natural properties is difficult and controversial, especially when it comes to the bearers of natural properties. According to the prevailing reading – the minimalist view – perfectly natural properties pertain to the micro-physical realm and are instantiated by entities without proper parts or point-like. This paper argues that there are reasons internal to a broadly Lewisian kind of metaphysics to think that the minimalist view is fundamentally flawed …Read more
  •  807
    Composition and Relative Counting
    Dialectica 71 (4): 489-529. 2017.
    According to the so-called strong variant of Composition as Identity (CAI), the Principle of Indiscernibility of Identicals can be extended to composition, by resorting to broadly Fregean relativizations of cardinality ascriptions. In this paper we analyze various ways in which this relativization could be achieved. According to one broad variety of relativization, cardinality ascriptions are about objects, while concepts occupy an additional argument place. It should be possible to paraphrase t…Read more
  •  332
    Russell's Relations, Wittgenstein's Objects, and the Theory of Types
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy (2): 21-35. 2012.
    We discuss a previously unnoticed resemblance between the theory of relations and predicates in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [TPLA] by Russell and the theory of objects and names in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP] by Wittgenstein. Points of likeness are detected on three levels: ontology, syntax, and semantics. This analogy explains the prima facie similarities between the informal presentation of the theory of types in TPLA and the sections of the TLP devoted to this same topic. E…Read more
  • Book Review (review)
    Epistemologia 34 159-162. 2011.
  •  114
    Transcendental Disagreement
    The Monist 97 (4): 592-620. 2014.
    In metaphysical theorizing, it is common to use expressions whose function is that of denoting or being true of absolutely everything. Adopting a scolastic term, these may be called ‘transcendentals’. Different metaphysical theories may adopt different transcendentals, the most usual candidates being ‘thing’, ‘entity’, ‘object’, ‘be’, ‘exist’, and their counterparts in various languages dead or alive. We call ‘transcendental disagreement’ any dissent between philosophical theories or traditions …Read more
  •  95
    Natural Properties and Atomicity in Modal Realism
    Metaphysica 16 (1): 103-122. 2015.
    The paper pinpoints certain unrecognized difficulties that surface for recombination and duplication in modal realism when we ask whether the following inter-world fixity claims hold true: 1) A property is perfectly natural in a world iff it is perfectly natural in every world where it is instantiated; 2) Something is mereologically atomic in a world iff all of its duplicates in every world are atomic. In connection to 1), the hypothesis of idlers prompts four variants of Lewis’s doctrine of per…Read more
  •  421
    Tractarian Ontology: Mereology or Set Theory?
    Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 12 (2): 24-39. 2007.
    I analyze the relations of constituency or ``being in'' that connect different ontological items in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus by Wittgenstein. A state of affairs is constituted by atoms, atoms are in a state of affairs. Atoms are also in an atomic fact. Moreover, the world is the totality of facts, thus it is in some sense made of facts. Many other kinds of Tractarian notions -- such as molecular facts, logical space, reality -- seem to be involved in constituency relati…Read more
  •  351
    Assertion and Affirmation in the Early Wittgenstein
    Wittgenstein-Studien 2 (1): 21-47. 2011.
    The Tractatus rejects the sign of assertion as "logically meaningless", but the rejection of the sign did not lead Wittgenstein to reject the corresponding notion. I show the presence and the importance in the early Wittgenstein of a notion keenly similar to Fregean and Russellian logical assertion. I propose to call this notion "affirmation." The preparatory writings and the TLP present different theories about affirmation. The correct understanding of the nature and purpose of affirmation p…Read more