Segelberg on Unity and Complexity

In: Philosophy and Botany: Essays on Ivar Segelberg (2014). Helge Malmgren, Torgny Nordin, and Christer Svennerlind, eds., Stockholm: Thales.

Abstract: Complex things are things that consist of other things. Some complex things, such as e.g. sets or sums of things, cannot fail to exist once that which constitutes them exists. Call these things collections (Segelberg, (1999 [1945]: 47ff.). Other things, in fact most everyday things, are however such that their existence is not likewise necessitated by the existence of their constituents. Call these things the complex unities (ibid.). That there are both collections and complex unities and that these are entities of substantially different kinds is assumed as unproblematic (call this assumption DISTINCTION). The topic for discussion is instead the surprisingly difficult question of what makes the difference between the two.

Link to preprint here.