Kotryna Elijosiute
Università della Svizzera italiana
This paper argues that ordinary wholes, such as cats and tables, are not fusions, but hylomorphic entities. In the first part of the paper, I will present the criteria for a theory of wholes by looking into some of the problems pure mereologists face.
After setting the criteria, I will discusss an alternative hylomorphic model, proposed by Kit Fine and show that this view is a good candidate for fulfilling the given criteria. Following that, I will deviate from Fine’s view on these points: firstly, Fine claims that matter (base) serves a primary role in defining the whole, while gloss modifies or qualifies it. I suggest that the gloss plays the vital part in the definition and persistence of the object, while the material part only fulfils the conditions set by the gloss. Secondly, all wholes are variably embodied, while rigid embodiment is not a primitive relation and can be explained in terms of variable embodiment.
Then, given the importance of glosses, I elaborate on the discussion of the composition of wholes by arguing that there is an additional layer of composition involving only glosses, and show that it also requires structure. This is done by using examples of attributative adjectives (glosses) applied to the base in different order and contrastinc these cases between themselves to demonstrate the differences in resulting wholes. Thus, in Fine’s hylomorphism there are two levels of composition: the first is between the gloss and the base, and the seccond is between glosses (if more than one gloss is applied). Since, the latter has not yet been explored in the literature, I propose to formalise gloss composition equivalently to the composition of functions.
Lastly, this paper will address few of the most pressing objections to this view: ontological inflation, persistence after losing properties, and categorising wholes.”
Chair: tba
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SOPhiA 2026 