Time: Fri 5 Jun 2026, at 15:10

Place: Room 106, Building 2, Lee Shau Kee Humanities Hall

Speaker: Achille C. Varzi, Columbia University

This event is part of the Seminar Series on Frontier Issues in Logic.

Abstract:

Mereology—the formal theory of parthood relations—has become a central area of inquiry not only in metaphysics, but also in logic, the foundations of mathematics, and the philosophy of science, indeed in every field where part-whole theorizing plays a fundamental role. This talk will provide a critical survey and a state-of-the-art assessment of the principal developments in the field, with particular emphasis on the motivations and prospects of the theory known as Classical Mereology.