Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-glrdx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T06:52:18.786Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Deconstructing Ontological Vagueness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Matti Eklund
Matti Eklund*
Affiliation:
Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University, 218 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca NY 14853, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I will here present a number of problems concerning the idea that there is ontological vagueness, and the related claim that appeal to this idea can help solve some vagueness-related problems. A theme underlying the discussion will be the distinction between vagueness specifically and indeterminacy more generally (and, relatedly, the distinction between ontological vagueness and ontological indeterminacy). Even if the world is somehow ontologically indeterminate it by no means follows that it is, properly speaking, ontologically vague.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 117 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

G., Evans 1975. ‘Identity and Predication.’ Journal of Philosophy 72: 343-63.Google Scholar
G., Evans 1978. ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ Analysis 38: 208.Google Scholar
H., Field 1973. ‘Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference.’ Journal of Philosophy 70: 462-81.Google Scholar
H., Field 1974, ‘Quine and the Correspondence Theory,’ Philosophical Review 83: 200-28.Google Scholar
K., Fine 1975. ‘Vagueness, Truth and Logic.’ Synthèse 30: 265–300. Reprinted in Keefe and Smith (1997).Google Scholar
C., Ginet 1985. ‘Plantinga and the Philosophy of Mind.’ In Alvin Plantinga, Tomberlin, J. and Inwagen, P. van eds. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
J., Hawthorne 2006. ‘Epistemicism and Semantic Plasticity.’ In Metaphysical Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
R., Heck 1998. ‘That There Might Be Vague Objects (So far as Concerns Logic).’ Monist 81: 274-96.Google Scholar
H., Hudson: 2001. A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
M., Johnston 1992. ‘Constitution is not Identity.’ Mind 101: 89–105.Google Scholar
R., Keefe and Smith, P. eds. 1997. Vagueness: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
D., Lewis 1988. ‘Vague Identity: Evans Misunderstood.’ Analysis 48: 128-30.Google Scholar
D., Lewis 1993. ‘Many, but Almost One.’ In Ontology, Causality and Mind: Essays in Honour of D. M. Armstrong, ed. Bacon, J. Campbell, K. and Reinhardt, L.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
V., McGee 1993. ‘A Semantic Conception of Truth?’ Philosophical Topics 21: 83–111.Google Scholar
V., McGee 1997. “Kilimanjaro.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Suppl. Vol. 23: 141-98.Google Scholar
M., Morreau 2002. ‘What Vague Objects are Like.’ Journal of Philosophy 99: 333-61.Google Scholar
G., Rosen and Smith, N.J.J. 2004. ‘Worldly Indeterminacy: A Rough Guide.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82: 185-98.Google Scholar
G., Ryle 1949. ‘Meaning and Necessity.’ Philosophy 24: 69–76.Google Scholar
N.J.J., Smith 2005. ‘A Plea for Things that are not Quite All There: Or, Is There a Problem about Vague Composition and Vague Existence?’ Journal of Philosophy 102: 381–421.Google Scholar
M., Tye 1990. ‘Vague Objects.’ Mind 99: 535-57.Google Scholar
M., Tye 1994. ‘Sorites Paradoxes and the Semantics of Vagueness.’ Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language: 189–206. Reprinted in Keefe and Smith (1997).Google Scholar
P., van Inwagen 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
R., Wasserman 2004. ‘Indeterminacy, Ignorance, and the Possibility of Parity.’ Philosophical Perspectives 18: Ethics: 391–403.Google Scholar
B., Weatherson 2003a. ‘The Problem of the Many.’ In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. Zalta, ed. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/problem-of-many/>..>Google Scholar
B., Weatherson 2003b. ‘Many Many Problems.’ Philosophical Quarterly 53: 481–501.Google Scholar
T., Williamson 1994. Vagueness. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
C., Wright 1975. ‘On the Coherence of Vague Predicates.’ Synthèse 30: 325-65.Google Scholar
E., Zemach 1991. ‘Vague Objects.’ Noûs 25: 323-40.Google Scholar