I explore the thesis that the future is open, in the sense that future contingents are neither true nor false. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I survey how the thesis arises on a variety of contemporary views on the metaphysics of time. In the second, I explore the consequences for rational belief of the ‘Aristotelian’ view that indeterminacy is characterized by truth-value gaps. In the third, I outline one line of defence for the Aristotelian against (...) the puzzles this induces: treating opinion about future contingents as a matter of fictional belief rather than simple belief. (shrink)

Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for postulating (...) this distinctive sort of indefiniteness? Conversely, are there reasons for denying that there is indefiniteness of this sort? (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Deflationists cannot make sense ofthe notion of referential indeterminacybecause they deny the existence of substantivereference. One way for them to make sense ofthe objective existence of linguisticindeterminacy is by embracing theworldly (or objectual) view ofindeterminacy, the view that indeterminacyexists not in reference relations but in the(non-linguistic) world itself. On this view,the entire world is divided into precisified worlds, just as it is dividedinto temporal slices and (arguably) alethicpossible worlds. Supervaluationism proves tobe neutral with respect to the debate betweenthe worldly view (...) and the referential view ofindeterminacy. (shrink)

Although the Evans argument against vague identity has been much discussed, proposah for blocking it have not so far satisfied general conditions which any solution ought to meet. Moreover, the relation between ontically vague identity and ontic vagueness more generally has not yet been satisfactorily addressed. I advocate a way of resisting the Evans argument which satisfies the conditions. To show how this approach can vindicate particular cases of ontically vague identity, I develop a framework for describing ontic vagueness in (...) general in terms of multiple actualities. This provides aprìncipled approach to ontically vague identity which is unaffected by the Evans argument. (shrink)

An influential theory has it that metaphysical indeterminacy occurs just when reality can be made completely precise in multiple ways. That characterization is formulated by employing the modal apparatus of ersatz possible worlds. As quantum physics taught us, reality cannot be made completely precise. I meet the challenge by providing an alternative theory which preserves the use of ersatz worlds but rejects the precisificational view of metaphysical indeterminacy. The upshot of the proposed theory is that it is metaphysically indeterminate whether (...) p just in case it is neither true nor false that p, and no terms in ‘p’ are semantically defective. In other words, metaphysical indeterminacy arises when the world cannot be adequately described by a complete set of sentences defined in a semantically nondefective language. Moreover, the present theory provides a reductive analysis of metaphysical indeterminacy, unlike its influential predecessor. Finally, I argue that any adequate logic of a language with an indeterminate subject matter is neither compositional nor bivalent. (shrink)

I am a friend of supervaluationism. A statement lacks a definite truth value if, and only if, it comes out true on some admissible ways of precisifying the semantics of the relevant vocabulary and false on others. In this paper, I focus on the special case of identity statements. I take it that such statements, too, may occasionally suffer a truth-value gap, including philosophically significant instances. Yet there is a potentially devastating objection that can be raised against the supervaluationist treatment (...) of such cases—in fact two objections. Luckily, both can be resisted. But seeing how requires that we take a closer look at the ontological presuppositions of supervaluationism, allowing for more leeway than is usually supposed. (shrink)

Ted Sider has famously argued that existence, in the unrestricted sense of ontology, cannot be vague, as long as vagueness is modeled by means of precisifications. The first section of Chapter 9 exposes some controversial assumptions underlying Sider’s alleged reductio of vague existence. The upshot of the discussion is that, although existence cannot be vague, it can be super-vague, i.e. higher-order vague, for all orders. The second section develops and defends a novel framework, dubbed negative supervaluationary semantics, which makes room (...) for the possibility of super-vague existence. (shrink)

Supervaluationism is often described as the most popular semantic treatment of indeterminacy. There’s little consensus, however, about how to fill out the bare-bones idea to include a characterization of logical consequence. The paper explores one methodology for choosing between the logics: pick a logic thatnorms beliefas classical consequence is standardly thought to do. The main focus of the paper considers a variant of standard supervaluational, on which we can characterizedegrees of determinacy. It applies the methodology above to focus ondegree logic. (...) This is developed first in a basic, single-premise case; and then extended to the multipremise case, and to allowdegreesof consequence. The metatheoretic properties of degree logic are set out. On the positive side, the logic is supraclassical—all classical valid sequents are degree logic valid. Strikingly, metarules such as cut and conjunction introduction fail. (shrink)

Gareth Evans proved that if two objects are indeterminately equal then they are different in reality. He insisted that this contradicts the assumption that there can be vague objects. However we show the consistency between Evans's proof and the existence of vague objects within classical logic. We formalize Evans's proof in a set theory without the axiom of extensionality, and we define a set to be vague if it violates extensionality with respect to some other set. There exist models of (...) set theory where the axiom of extensionality does not hold, so this shows that there can be vague objects. (shrink)

On the one hand, philosophers have presented numerous apparent examples of indeterminate individuation, i.e., examples in which two things are neither determinately identical nor determinately distinct. On the other hand, some have argued against even the coherence of the very idea of indeterminate individuation. This paper defends the possibility of indeterminate individuation against Evans’s argument and some other arguments. The Determinacy of Identity—the thesis that identical things are determinately identical—is distinguished from the Determinacy of Distinctness—the thesis that distinct things are (...) determinately distinct. It is argued that while the first thesis holds universally and there is no case of indeterminate identity, there are reasons to think that the second thesis does not hold universally, and that there are cases of indeterminate distinctness. (shrink)

The problem of the many poses the task of explaining mereological indeterminacy of ordinary objects in a way that sustains our familiar practice of counting these objects. The aim of this essay is to develop a solution to the problem of the many that is based on an account of mereological indeterminacy as having its source in how ordinary objects are, independently of how we represent them. At the center of the account stands a quasi-hylomorphic ontology of ordinary objects as (...) material objects with multiple individual forms. (shrink)

An overview of contemporary part-whole theories, with reference to both their axiomatic developments and their philosophical underpinnings.

This chapter argues that quantum indeterminacy can be construed as a merely derivative phenomenon. The possibility of merely derivative quantum indeterminacy undermines both a recent argument against quantum indeterminacy due to David Glick, and an argument against the possibility of merely derivative indeterminacy due to Elizabeth Barnes.

It has been argued that quantum mechanics forces us to accept the existence of metaphysical, mind-independent indeterminacy. In this paper we provide an interpretation of the indeterminacy involved in the quantum phenomena in terms of a view that we call Plural Metaphysical Supervaluationism. According to it, quantum indeterminacy is captured in terms of an irreducibly plural relation between the actual world and various misrepresentations of it.

This unique anthology of new, contributed essays offers a range of perspectives on various aspects of ontic vagueness. It seeks to answer core questions pertaining to onticism, the view that vagueness exists in the world itself. The questions to be addressed include whether vague objects must have vague identity, and whether ontic vagueness has a distinctive logic, one that is not shared by semantic or epistemic vagueness. The essays in this volume explain the motivations behind onticism, such as the plausibility (...) of mereological vagueness and indeterminacy in quantum mechanics and they offer various arguments both for and against ontic vagueness; onticism is also compared with other, competing theories of vagueness such as semanticism, the view that vagueness exists only in our linguistic representation of the world. Gareth Evans’s influential paper of 1978, “Can There Be Vague Objects?” gave a simple but cogent argument against the coherence of ontic vagueness. Onticism was subsequently dismissed by many. However, in recent years, researchers have become aware of the logical gaps in Evans’s argument and this has triggered a new wave of interest in onticism. Onticism is now widely regarded as at least a coherent view. Reflecting this growing consensus, the present anthology for the first time puts together essays that are focused on onticism and its various facets and it fills in the lacuna in the literature on vagueness, a much-discussed subject in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects (...) so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts. (shrink)

Elizabeth Barnes and Robert Williams have developed a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy, via which they defend the theoretical legitimacy of vague objects. In this paper, we argue that while the Barnes–Williams theory supplies a viable account of genuine metaphysical vagueness, it cannot underwrite an account of genuinely vague objects. First we clarify the distinction between these two key theses. Then we argue that the Barnes–Williams theory of metaphysical vagueness not only fails to deliver genuinely vague objects, it in fact provides (...) grounds for rejecting them. (shrink)

The Boolean many-valued approach to vagueness is similar to the infinite-valued approach embraced by fuzzy logic in the respect in which both approaches seek to solve the problems of vagueness by assigning to the relevant sentences many values between falsity and truth, but while the fuzzy-logic approach postulates linearly-ordered values between 0 and 1, the Boolean approach assigns to sentences values in a many-element complete Boolean algebra. On the modal-precisificational approach represented by Kit Fine, if a sentence is indeterminate in (...) truth value in some world, it is taken to be true in one precisified world accessible from that world and false in another. This paper points to a way to unify these two approaches to vagueness by showing that Fine’s version of the modal-precisificational approach can be combined with the Boolean many-valued approach instead of supervaluationism, one of the most popular approaches to vagueness. (shrink)

Elizabeth Barnes and J. Robert G. Williams claim to offer a new ontic theory of vagueness, the kind of theory which considers vagueness to exist not in language but in reality. This paper refutes their claim. The possible worlds they employ are ersatz possible worlds, i.e., sets of sentences. Unlike reality, they don’t contain concrete and often material objects. As a result, there is nothing in Barnes and Williams’s description of the theory that the semanticist cannot or does not accept. (...) Thus, they have failed to establish their theory as a genuine intelligible ontic alternative to semantic theories. (shrink)

Can identity itself be vague? Can there be vague objects? Does a positive answer to either question entail a positive answer to the other? In this paper we answer these questions as follows: No, No, and Yes. First, we discuss Evans’s famous 1978 argument and argue that the main lesson that it imparts is that identity itself cannot be vague. We defend the argument from objections and endorse this conclusion. We acknowledge, however, that the argument does not by itself establish (...) either that there cannot be vague objects or that there cannot be identity statements that are indeterminate for ontic reasons. And we further acknowledge that it does not by itself establish that there cannot be identity statements that are indeterminate in virtue of the existence of vague objects. We then go on to argue that, despite this, one who believes in vague objects cannot endorse Evans’s argument. To establish this we offer supplementary arguments that show that if vague objects exist then identity is vague, and that if identity is vague then vague objects exist. Finally we draw attention to an argument parallel to that of Evans’s, but safer, which can be employed against the putative ontic indeterminacy in identity of vague objects which can be differentiated by identity-free properties. (shrink)

Can we solve the Problem of the Many, and give a general account of the indeterminacy in definite descriptions that give rise to it, by appealing to metaphysically indeterminate entities? I argue that we cannot. I identify a feature common to the relevant class of definite descriptions, and derive a contradiction from the claim that each such description is satisfied by a metaphysically indeterminate entity.

A paper exploring what we can learn about part/whole by focusing on the differences in the existence conditions of fusions and ordinary things, rather than the differences in their persistence conditions.

The standard Leibnizian view of identity allows for substitutivity of identicals and validates transitivity of identity within classical semantics. However, in a series of works, Graham Priest argues that Leibnizian identity invalidates both principles when formalized in paraconsistent semantics. This paper aims to show the Leibnizian view of identity validates substitutivity of identicals and transitivity of identity whether the logic is classical or paraconsistent. After presenting Priest's semantics of identity, I show what a semantic expression of Leibnizian identity does amount (...) to. Then, I argue that Priest's semantic definition of identity is not Leibnizian. Finally, I offer a semantics characterization of identity in paraconsistent logic that is truly Leibnizian. I demonstrate that the correct formalization of Leibnizian identity in paraconsistent logic also validates substitutivity of identicals and transitivity of identity. (shrink)

A standard approach to indeterminacy treats ‘determinately’ and ‘indeterminately’ as modal operators. Determinacy behaves like necessity; indeterminacy like contingency. This raises two questions. What is the appropriate modal system for these operators? And how should we interpret that system? Ken Akiba has developed an account of ontic indeterminacy that interprets possible worlds as worldly precisifications. He argues that this account vindicates S4 as the logic of indeterminacy. In this paper I explore one significant and surprising consequence of this view. I (...) do this in two stages. First, I prove a technical result, which I call the Infinite Indeterminacy Theorem. Roughly put, this theorem states that, at any given precisification w, either every instance of indeterminacy admits of never-ending higher-order indeterminacy, or else there's indeterminacy in an infinite amount of distinct atomic formulas. In slogan form: either all indeterminacy is infinitely ascending or else there's infinitely wide indeterminacy. Second, I unpack the metaphysical consequences of this technical result (under its intended interpretation) and assess their plausibility. I conclude that these consequences commit Akiba's theory to highly contentious – and arguably untenable – views about the metaphysics of indeterminacy and related matters. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda un estudio metafísico sobre límites en la discusión sobre composición material. Según la tesis nihilista, dos o más objetos nunca componen otro objeto. Los objetos materiales ordinarios y sus límites (superficies) serían entidades fiat, mientras que los objetos simples (sin partes) y sus límites precisos son los únicos componentes bona fide del mundo. Sin embargo, si hay razones para postular la existencia de un límite bona fide que separa una colección de objetos de sus alrededores espaciales, entonces (...) tenemos razones para postular también la existencia de un objeto compuesto bona fide. Si existe un límite, dada su dependencia ontológica, debe existir un objeto al cual pertenece. La emergencia de un límite de un objeto material tridimensional instancia propiedades irreductibles a las propiedades de alguna de sus partes. No obstante, una vez que los límites son introducidos en el mundo, la presencia de vaguedad ontológica en términos modales resulta inevitable. (shrink)