Abstract
It is a familiar and pervasive feature of thought and speech that often when we are able to refer to many distinct entities, x 1, x 2, ... , x n, we also seem able to refer to an entity y which in some loose sense we take to include or contain x 1, x 2, ... , x n. Let us say that in such cases y comprises x 1, x 2, ... , x n, and so describe y as a comprising entity. A tree, we may say then, comprises its cells. The set (in the ordinary, non-mathematical sense) whose members are the tree’s cells may also be said to comprise those cells. We usually consider the relation between the cells and the tree to be compose. The relation between the cells and the set of cells we normally take to be a different relation, are all the members of. However, these relations have general features in common which seem to justify our taking them as species of one and the same generic relation.
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Reference
Russell and Whitehead 1910; See also Goodman’s (1956, 199–203) criticism of the notion of a class.
Russell 1919, 183.
These two terms seem to be treated as synonymous by Armstrong 1978, 29ff.. His comments on p.31 suggest that he understands them in Goodman’s sense of `sum’ (or `sum-individual’ - see 1956, 201). Quine uses `heap’ in this sense in 1953, 114. For an earlier use of `aggregate’, see Russell 1903, 138–140. Both terms are common in commentary on Aristotle, as translations of the Greek `sôros’. Miller (1978, 112) argues that in some contexts, though not all, Aristotle uses sóros’ in a technical sense. The translation `aggregate’ seems to emphasize the technical sense - see particularly the account of the notion in Scaltsas 1994b, 66, and 1994a, 111. For further examples of the use of `heap’ and/or `aggregate’ in commentary on Aristotle, see e.g. Furth 1988, 294 (index item); Haslanger 1994, 140; Halper 1989, 139, 151; Bogaard 1979, 12.
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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Meirav, A. (2003). Concrete Comprising Entities. In: Wholes, Sums and Unities. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 97. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0209-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0209-6_2
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