 Generalizing, it seems that commonsense actually has a relatively nuanced stance on priority relations between whole and part. Commonsense endorses the priority of the parts in cases of mere aggregation and arrangement, and the priority of the whole in cases of arbitrary decompositions, functionally integrated systems, and mental  unities.[39]  Overall commonsense seems to distinguish between mere heaps and genuine unities. On this point Aristotle (Meta.1041b11–2) speaks of “that which is compounded out of something so that the whole is one—not like a heap, but like a syllable…”