H. P. Grice: "The mereological implicaturum"

Grice:

"In a burst of inspiration, Leśniewski coins "mereology" on a Tuesday evening in March 1927, from the Grecian "μέρος," Polish for "part."

From Leśniewski's Journal -- translation from the Polish by Grice:


"Dear Anne,

I have just coined a word.

MEREOLOGY.

I want to refer to a FORMA, not informal as in Husserl, which is in German, anyway (his section, "On the whole and the parts") theory of part-whole.

I hope you love it!

Love,

L. 

---

"Leśniewski's tutee, another Pole, Alfred Tarski, in his Appendix E to Woodger oversimplified, out of envey's Leśniewski's formalism." 

"But then more loyal tutees (and tutees of tutees) of Lesniewski elaborated this "Polish mereology."

"For a good selection of the literature on Polish mereology, see Srzednicki and Rickey (1984). For a survey of Polish mereology, see Simons (1987). Since 1980 or so, however, research on Polish mereology has been almost entirely historical in nature."

Which is just as well.