Countable fusion not yet proven guilty: it may be the whiteheadian account of space whatdunnit
Peter Forrest in 'How innocent is mereology?' (ANALYSIS 56, 1996: 127131) disputes David Lewis's claim that mereology is ontologically innocent, on the grounds that mereology entails something (Countable Fusion) which is inconsistent with something else (a Whiteheadian account of space) which we do not know a priori to be false. However, it seems to me that the inconsistency which Forrest extracts from the conjunction of Countable Fusion with the Whiteheadian account of space arises only because the Whiteheadian account of space is formulated in terms which poach on the preserves of mereology. There are formulations of theories which share almost all of the interesting features of the Whiteheadian account of space, but which do not lead to contradiction when wedded to Countable Fusion. Moreover, the other kinds of allegedly objectionable consequences which Forrest extracts from the conjunction of Countable Fusion with the Whiteheadian account of space can be extracted from his Whiteheadian account of space alone. In these circumstances, the oddities should not be taken to redound to the discredit of Countable Fusion. According to Forrest, the Whiteheadian account of space is based on the following claims: