Indeed, every putative material object our perceptual faculties are capable of representing appears to be composed of smaller parts.
Its roots can be traced back to the early days of philosophy, beginning with the Presocratic atomists and continuing throughout the writings of Plato (especially the Parmenides and the Theaetetus), Aristotle (especially the Metaphysics, but also the Physics, the Topics, and De partibus animalium), and Boethius (especially In Ciceronis Topica).As can be seen from Varzi's passage, classical mereology depends on the idea that there are metaphysical relations that connect part(s) to whole.
[4] This empirical perspective poses a problem for nihilism because it does not seem like all material objects perfectly decompose to mereological simples.
[dubious – discuss] In addition, some philosophers have speculated that there may not be a "bottom level" of reality.
[dubious – discuss] If matter is infinitely decomposable in this respect, then mereological simples do not exist as an absolute entity.
[5] Philosophers in favor of something close to pure mereological nihilism include Peter Unger, Cian Dorr, and Ross Cameron.
There are a few philosophers who argue for what could be considered a partial nihilism, or what has been called quasi-nihilism, which is the position that only objects of a certain kind have parts.
Rather, other than living beings, which are composites (objects that have parts), there are only true atoms, or basic building blocks (which they call simples).
In other words, Van Inwagen contends that mereological atoms form a composite object when they engage in a sort of special, complex activity which amounts to a life.
Van Inwagen's argument against nihilism can be characterized as such:[9] In addition to allowing for the existence of trees, cats, and human beings, Van Inwagen's view is attractive because it inherits nihilism's elegant solutions to traditional problems in mereology like the Ship of Theseus and the problem of the many.
It is a common mistake to hold that Van Inwagen's view is that tables are identical to simples arranged tablewise.