How Not to See Pierre

Abstract An absence is a puzzling object. In some sense, something which is absent is phenomenologically present to us. This paper discusses the metaphysical and epistemological problems of absences. After a short primer of mereology, it then presents a mereological account of absences. The absence of an object is its mereological complement. The paper then explains how this account resolves the metaphysical and epistemological problems. It ends by addressing some objections to the account.