Terence Parsons presents a lively and controversial study of philosophical questions about identity. Because many puzzles about identity remain unsolved, some people believe that they are questions that have no answers and that there is a problem with the language used to formulate them. Parsons explores a different possibility: that such puzzles lack answers because of the way the world is (or because of the way the world is not). He claims that there is genuine indeterminacy of identity in the (...) world. He articulates such a view in detail and defends it from a host of criticisms. (shrink)

According to one account, vagueness is "metaphysical." The friend of metaphysical vagueness believes that, for some object and some property, there can be no determinate fact of the matter whether that object exemplifies that property. A second account maintains that vagueness is due only to ignorance. According to the epistemic account, vagueness is explained completely by and is nothing over and above our not knowing some relevant fact or facts. These are the minority views. The dominant position maintains that there (...) is a third possible variety of vagueness, linguistic vagueness. And, it goes on to insist, all vagueness is of this third variety. I shall argue, however, that linguistic vagueness is not a third variety of vagueness. Either it is a species of metaphysical vagueness or a kind of ignorance. And this, I argue, makes trouble for the claim that all vagueness is linguistic. (shrink)

This paper examines the mind and language of an omniscient being from a supervaluationist perspective. Two questions hall receive special attention. How ought the supervaluationist explicate the concept of omniscience? And what ought the supervaluationist expect an omniscient speaker to say about a Sorites series?

This paper deals with the truth-Conditions and the logic for vague languages. The use of supervaluations and of classical logic is defended; and other approaches are criticized. The truth-Conditions are extended to a language that contains a definitely-Operator and that is subject to higher order vagueness.

The essays in this companion volume prefigure, elaborate, or defend the proposals put forward in that landmark work.

SI is a paradox because it presents four appearances that cannot all be veridical: first, it appears to be valid—after all, it’s both classically and intuitionistically valid; second, its sorites premiss, (2), seems merely to state the obvious fact that in the sorites march from 2¢ to 5,000,000,000¢ there is no precise point that marks the cutoff between not being rich and being rich; third, premiss (1), which asserts that a person with only 2¢ isn’t rich, is surely true; and (...) fourth, the conclusion (3), which asserts that a person with 5,000,000,000¢—i.e. $50 million—isn’t rich, is surely false. (shrink)