Fjodor Jemcov Professor Al-Maini

An Outlook of Brentano’s Theory of Wholes and Parts

On the subject of whether an object is just as real, more real, or less real than the sum of its parts, it can be believed that any of the mentioned possibilities is quite workable. From Brentano’s view, it is clearly evident that he is a firm believer that an object is just as real as the parts that make it a whole. Brentano makes his claim partially from an Aristotelianistic point of view, but with some minor differences that make his idea of this subject solely his own. Both Brentano and Aristotle fundamentally claim that in order for a substance to exist, its accidents must make up that whole. That being said, it does not merely disclose the idea of a whole needing to have multiple parts; as long as there is one part to an object, that certain part is the essential building block, so to speak, of that certain object. There is no need for multiple parts to be determined in the making of a whole in its entirety.

When it is said that wholes are the things that have parts, you may think that this is a completely trivial statement. It is clearly evident that everything is made up of something. For example, if you take the molecular composition of water, H2O, you can see that it is broken down into two separate elements (in this case, parts), two parts Hydrogen and one part Oxygen. With this example, it shows that there is a relationship with parts and wholes. Keeping this in mind, we realize that “The existence, or being, of a whole implies the existence/being of its parts” (Poli, 303). This clearly states that in order for a whole to exist, its parts must exist as well. However, Brentano acknowledges that there are two fundamental rules that control this part to whole relationship. The first rule was previously mentioned above. However, the second rule plays off of the understanding of this relationship with the belief that “The existence or being of the part does not imply the existence, or being, of the whole” (Poli, 303). These two rules help differentiate the difference being a part of a whole and having a part of the whole. It is stated that in order for it to be considered to have a part, it must be noted that if the whole exists, then its parts do as well. This differs from the idea of to be a part, which is simplified down to the understanding that having a part does not completely imply the objects existence entirely as a whole. This differentiation becomes now a subject of separability.

Going back to the claim that Brentano’s view is under partial Aristotelian influence, it is here on the subject of separability that the two philosophers differ. Aristotle claims that parts are separated one-sidedly, meaning that in the accident-substance relationship, they can be separated through change. This implies that when an object loses some of its parts, it becomes less real than the whole. Brentano’s view differs from Aristotle’s because he believes that on the subject of seperability, there is a mutual relationship between parts and wholes. This is exemplified on the basis that “a body is a whole composed of many mutually separable parts” (Poli, 304). To summarize, this can be simplified by stating that since there are many different parts (which have no relation to one another), they all play an important role in the composition of a certain whole (in this case, for the sake of an example, a body). Brentano explains this in terms of relating this example to the cutting of an apple. When you cut an apple, you merely separate the whole portion of that apple into two parts. Whatever makes up that apple is clearly still there in both halves. It does not matter if the apple is in its purest, most whole form (an uncut apple), if you cut that apple into separate portions you still have all the parts in that portion that make up a whole apple, just in separate pieces.

Going back to