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.

Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation PDF

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