At 05:21 PM 11/27/2005, you wrote:
>Barry,
>
>
> > Building Rome one brick at a time:
> >
> > Will John accept for UF the following definition of
> > part_of between types A and B:
> >
> > A part_of B =def every instance of A is PART of some
> > instance of B
> >
> > where PART is the usual, mereological, instance-level
> > relation of [proper or improper] parthood, as for
> > instance between John's heart and John's body? (01)
>That's an excellent question, and controversial
>as well:
>
>This leads us to the old question: Is a keyhole a
>part of a house? Most people (and ontologies) would
>agree that a door is part of a house, that a lock is
>part of a door, and that a keyhole is part of a lock. (02)
>But they might hesitate at keyhole for more than one
>reason: unlimited transitivity of the informal English
>"part of" is not universally accepted, and holes raise
>ontological issues that are peculiar to "things" that
>"consist of" of an absence of stuff.
But there is an even simpler way of eliminating this example (in
light of the proposed definition): (03)
not all keyholes are keyholes in houses; some are keyholes in police
stations, etc. (04)
Thus our question should more properly relate to: (05)
house-keyhole part_of house (06)
I have no problem at all in asserting that every instance of the
former is a mereological part of some instance of the latter. I also
have no problem accepting holes as full-fledged entities, and I have
yet to see a convincing example which would make me doubt the
transitivity of parthood on either the type or instance levels. (07)
However, even if, in the interests of maximizing neutrality, we
accept a more general mereological parthood relation which is
non-transitive, then I think the above definition for part_of on the
level of types, would still work, wouldn't it? Note that it is a
definition, not an axiom. (08)
BS (09)
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