Priest (P1) One, ‘Ways to be One’, summary

 

by Corry Shores
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Summary of

Graham Priest

One:
Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of its Parts, including the Singular Object which is Nothingness

Preface

P1:
Ways to be One

Brief Summary
This book is concerned with the metaphysical concept of the One. The first part is about Oneness itself, the second is about universal properties (one property in many things), and the third is about the notion that ‘all is one’.

 

Summary

The book is about what it means to be one in the metaphysical sense.

It is important to look at this metaphysical sense of One, because

The notion of being one thing is, perhaps, our most fundamental notion. One cannot say anything, think anything, cognize anything, without presupposing it.
(xv)

There are many problems concerning the one, including problems of ‘the one and the many’. Part 1 of the book is concerned with “what it means for an object to be numerically one; what constitutes its unity, as it were. When an object has parts (the many), how does their multiplicity produce a unity? (xv). The second part is “concerned with the problem of universals: how can one property be located in many things?” (xv). Part three deals with the tricky notion that ‘all is one’.

Priest will now give more preview of these parts. (xvi)

 

P2: Wholes and Their Parts

Priest, Graham. One: Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of its Parts, including the Singular Object which is Nothingness. Oxford: Oxford University, 2014.