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Theories of wholes and parts, as I have said, offer particular ways of understanding corresponding pre-theoretical notions. A consideration of comprising entities in general in Part One has suggested that more than one such way may be available, that more than one sort of comprising entity may serve as a model in terms of which to interpret the pre-theoretical notions of whole and part. We now turn to the more detailed discussion of theories which take collective classes as their model. In the context of such theories collective classes are usually called 'sums", and the theories may thus be described as theories which conceive wholes as sums. Every such theory proposes to present systematically the connections between the various pre-theoretical notions associated with wholes, and especially those of being a part or a proper part, of being a whole, and of the parts making up the whole. The latter notion is interpreted as that of the parts composing the whole, where the relation compose is given a precise analysis in terms of the relation is a part of or is a proper part of. Thus, in describing wholes and the parts which make up those wholes, these theories speak of sums and the parts which compose them.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-0209-6_5

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