Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T04:21:19.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mereological Composition in Analytic and Buddhist Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2021

NICHOLAOS JONES Open the ORCID record for NICHOLAOS JONES [Opens in a new window]
NICHOLAOS JONES*
Affiliation:
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLEnick.jones@uah.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Comparing Buddhist and contemporary analytic views about mereological composition reveals significant dissimilarities about the purposes that constrain successful answers to mereological questions, the kinds of considerations taken to be probative in justifying those answers, and the value of mereological inquiry. I develop these dissimilarities by examining three questions relevant to those who deny the existence of composite wholes. The first is a question of justification: What justifies denying the existence of composite wholes as more reasonable than affirming their existence? The second is a question of ontology: Under what conditions are many partless individuals arranged composite-wise? The third is a question of reasonableness: Why, if there are no composites available to experience, do “the folk” find it reasonable to believe there are? I motivate each question, sketch some analytic answers for each, develop in more detail answers from the Theravādin Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa, and extract comparative lessons.

Keywords

Buddhaghosacooperative behaviornihilismsoteriologyTheravāda Buddhism
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Summer 2021 , pp. 173 - 194
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I thank the journal's referees for their helpful comments. When possible, I cite to English translations of ancient Buddhist texts. In doing so, I include, for specialists, the standard book, chapter, or other identifying information in addition to the page numbers of these modern editions.

References

Antognazza, Maria Rosa. (2015) ‘The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of Its History’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23, 161–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asaṅga. (2001) Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching. Translated by Boin-Webb, Sara. Fremont: Asian Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Baron, Sam. (2018) ‘A Formal Apology for Metaphysics’. Ergo, 5, 1030–60.Google Scholar
Basu, B. D., ed. (1913) The Nyāya Sutras of Gotama. Translated by Vidyâbhuṣana, Mahâmahopâdhyâya Satiśa Chandra. Allahabad: Panini Office.Google Scholar
Bennett, Karen. (2009) ‘Composition, Colocation, and Metaontology’. In Chalmers, David J., Manley, David, and Wasserman, Ryan (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology (New York: Oxford University Press), 38–76.Google Scholar
Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. (2000) The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Vol. 1. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya. (2010) The Path of Purification/Visuddhimagga. Translated by Ñáóamoli, Bhikkhu. 4th ed. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.Google Scholar
Caulton, Adam. (2016) ‘Is Mereology Empirical? Composition for Fermions’. In Bigaj, Tomasz and Wüthrich, Christian (eds.), Metaphysics in Contemporary Physics (Leiden: Brill), 293–322.Google Scholar
Elder, Crawford L. (2007) ‘On the Phenomenon of “Dog-Wise Arrangement”’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 74, 132–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganeri, Jonardan. (2017) Attention, Not Self. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garfield, Jay L. (2006) ‘Reductionism and Fictionalism: Comments on Siderits's Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy’. APA Newsletter on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies, 6, 1–7.Google Scholar
Heim, Maria. (2013) The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jizang [吉藏], . (n.d.) Commentary on the Middle Way/ Zhongguan lun shu 中觀論疏 . Taishō Shinshū Daizokyō [Taishō Buddhist Canon], volume 42, text 1824.Google Scholar
Kantin, Holly. (2020) ‘Why Compositional Nihilism Dissolves Puzzles’. Synthese, 197.10, 4319–4340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapstein, Matthew T. (2013) ‘“Spiritual Exercises” and Buddhist Epistemologists in India and Tibet’. In Emmanuel, Steven M. (ed.), A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell), 270–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korman, Daniel Z. (2009) ‘Eliminativism and the Challenge from Folk Belief’. Noûs, 43, 242–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovacs, David Mark. (2019) ‘How to be an Uncompromising Revisionary Ontologist’. Synthese. Published ahead of print, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02196-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippitt, John. (2009) ‘True Self-Love and True Self-Sacrifice’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 66, 125–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahāthera, Paravahera Vajirañāṇa and Bomhard, Allen R.. (2010) Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice: A General Exposition According to the Pāḷi Canon of the Theravādin School. Charleston: Charleston Buddhist Fellowship.Google Scholar
Mārandiuc, Natalie. (2018) The Goodness of Home: Human and Divine Love and the Making of the Self. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton. (2001) Objects and Persons. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nāgārjuna, . (2010) Nāgārjuna's Middle Way: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Translated by Siderits, Mark and Katsura, Shōryū. Boston: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Ñāṇamoli, Bhikkhu, and Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. (1995) The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikāya. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.Google Scholar
Partridge, Brian L. (1982) ‘The Structure and Function of Fish Schools’. Scientific American, 246, 114–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perrett, Roy W. (1999) ‘Is Whatever Exists Knowable and Nameable?’ Philosophy East and West, 49, 401–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Karl H. (2004) Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol. 2, Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika before Gangesa. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.Google Scholar
Rhys Davids, T. W., trans. (1890) The Questions of King Milinda. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rose, David, and Schaffer, Jonathan. (2017) ‘Folk Mereology is Teleological’. Noûs, 51, 238–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Gideon, and Dorr, Cian. (2002) ‘Composition as a Fiction’. In Gale, Richard M. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics (Malden: Blackwell), 151–74.Google Scholar
Sauchelli, Andrea. (2016) ‘Buddhist Reductionism, Fictionalism about the Self, and Buddhist Fictionalism’. Philosophy East and West, 66, 1273–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, Theodore. (1993) ‘Van Inwagen and the Possibility of Gunk’. Analysis, 53, 285–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, Theodore. (2013) ‘Against Parthood’. In Bennett, Karen and Zimmerman, Dean W. (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 8 (New York: Oxford University Press), 237–93.Google Scholar
Siderits, Mark. (2007) Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Soames, Scott. (2003) Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1, The Dawn of Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonnenschein, Carlos, and Soto, Ana M.. (2008) ‘Theories of Carcinogenesis: An Emerging Perspective’. Seminars in Cancer Biology, 18, 372–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stark, Findlay. (2020) ‘The Reasonableness in Recklessness’. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 14, 9–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Struhl, Karsten J. (2010) ‘No (More) Philosophy without Cross-Cultural Philosophy’. Philosophy Compass, 5, 287–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tallant, Jonathan. (2014) ‘Against Mereological Nihilism’. Synthese, 191, 1511–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vicsek, Tamás, Czirók, András, Ben-Jacob, Eshel, Cohen, Inon, and Shochet, Ofer. (1995) ‘Novel Type of Phase Transition in a System of Self-Driven Particles’. Physical Review Letters, 75, 1226–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Inwagen, Peter. (1990) Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Van Norden, Bryan W. (2017) Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Ashley J. W., Sumpter, David J. T., Couzin, Iain D., Hart, Paul J. B., and Krause, Jens. (2008) ‘Quorum Decision-Making Facilitates Information Transfer in Fish Shoals’. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 6948–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wonderly, Monique Lisa. (2016) ‘On Being Attached’. Philosophical Studies, 173, 223–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1984) Culture and Value. Translated by Winch, Peter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar