Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation - Hardcover

Casati, Roberto; Varzi, Achille C.

3.75

12 ratings by Goodreads

9780262032667: Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 026203266X ISBN 13: 9780262032667

Publisher: Bradford Books, 1999

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Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay between mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and compactness), and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their wholes? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.

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About the Author:

Roberto Casati is a Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Achille C. Varzi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. They are the authors of Holes and Other Superficialities (MIT Press, 1994).

Review:

"This is a lively and original survey of a broad and excitingterritory. The scholarship is impeccable, the literature treated isup-to-date and thoroughly addressed, and the authors dealinterestingly with cutting-edge problems at the borderlines ofphilosophy and cognitive science." Barry Smith , State University of New York at Buffalo

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