Composition, Identity and Ontological Parsimony

The relation of wholes to their parts is one of the fundamental themes of metaphysics of composition. Are wholes nothing over and above their parts? Are wholes and their parts identical? The thesis so-called “composition as identity” is a positive answer to the two last equivalent answers. However, there are two versions of the theses: the weak version and the strong version. According to the weak version, the relation of wholes to their parts is not the identity in a strict and logical sense. But that relation is similar to identity. According to the strong version, the relation of wholes to their parts is identity in a strict and logical sense. In this paper, we first formulate these theses, then we criticize the argument based on ontological parsimony. Both weak and strong versions of the thesis of composition as identity claim that they are more parsimonious than the rival thesis-the thesis that wholes and their parts are not identical. Therefore, if their explanatory power is equal, they are rationally preferred to their rival. We showed that both versions of the thesis of composition as identity suffered from abundant ontological-semantic problems.