Vague Objects Without Ontically Indeterminate Identity

Paganini, Elisa

doi:10.1007/s10670-010-9257-8

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…255f. For more recent formulations, see Akiba (2004), Smith (2008), Paganini (2011), and Curtis and Noonan (2014), though see also Noonan (2008) for qualifications.…”

Section: Endnotementioning

confidence: 99%

Indeterminate Identities, Supervaluationism, and Quantifiers

Varzi

2020

Philosophical Books

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Here is a familiar scenario. There was a duel at dawn. Duelist A was faster and shot first; B fell to the ground. As things turned out, the shot was fatal, which makes A a killer. So: (1) Data: A shot B at dawn. In fact, A killed B. Question: Is A's shooting of B the same event as A's killing of B? Philosophers have conflicting intuitions about how to respond. Some are inclined to answer the question in the negative, at least under plausible circumstances. For example, suppose B made it until dusk before succumbing to their bullet wound. Then, before dusk B was still alive, which would suggest that B had not yet been killed. But B had already been shot. So really the shooting and the killing would appear to have different properties and ought to be distinguished by Leibniz's law. Other philosophers feel otherwise. They are inclined to say that the events in question are one and the same-that A performed only one action at dawn-though our linguistic resources are such that we can describe what happened by means of descriptions or action sentences that do not all have the same semantic properties. If indeed B died at dusk, then before dusk we could only report what happened by saying that there was a shooting, not a killing. (Or: before dusk we could truthfully say that A shot B, not that A killed B.) But this would not mean that we are dealing with two events. It would simply mean that what happened at dawn-the shooting-could not be called a killing until dusk, just like A-the shooter-could not be referred to as a killer until then. 1 How do we choose between these two views? Of course, if we assume that a killing must always extend until the death of the victim, and if B only died at dusk, the puzzle has a straightforward solution: A's shooting and A's killing of B must be distinct (though we may still wonder whether one is part of the other). But suppose B's death was instantaneous, so that the temporal factor plays no role. Shall we still insist on the shooting and the killing being distinct events on account of their having different modal properties? (It might have been the case that B only died at dusk. Or it might have been the case that the shot did not result in the death of B at all, whereas a killing must perforce be fatal.) Shall we insist instead on their being the same event in spite of there being significant modal differences in the statements and descriptions by which we can talk about what happened? A plausible thought is that puzzles such as these can be settled by a robust linguistic theory, a theory displaying the logical forms of the statements that fix the data-and of the event-referring | 219 VARZI descriptions emerging from those statements-so as to account for the relevant logical implications. Consider, for instance, the following two scenarios, both of which are also familiar from the literature on event identity. (2) Data: Someone, A, is singing; they're singing loudly. Question: Is A's singing the same event as A's singing loudly? (3) Data: A metal ball, B, is spinning fast and slowly...

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“…255f. For more recent formulations, see Akiba (2004), Smith (2008), Paganini (2011), and Curtis and Noonan (2014), though see also Noonan (2008) for qualifications.…”

Section: Endnotementioning

confidence: 99%

Indeterminate Identities, Supervaluationism, and Quantifiers

Varzi

2020

Philosophical Books

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“…21 See Broome (1984), Garrett (1988), Johnsen (1989), Keefe (1995), Parsons (1987), and Zemach (1991). 22 Akiba (2000Akiba ( , 2004, Barnes (2010), Burgess (1990), Hawley (2002), Heck (1998), Lowe (1999), Morreau (2002), Noonan (2004), Paganini (2011), Tye (1990), Williams (2008aWilliams ( , 2008b. Rosen and Smith (2004) is compatible with concessivism but does not explicitly endorse it.…”

Section: Ramificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Akiba (, ), Barnes (), Burgess (), Hawley (), Heck (), Lowe (), Morreau (), Noonan (), Paganini (), Tye (), Williams (2008a, 2008b). Rosen and Smith () is compatible with concessivism but does not explicitly endorse it. …”

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confidence: 99%

Indeterminate Comprehension

Simon

2014

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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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.

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Metaphysical Vagueness Without Vague Objects

Abasnezhad

Jenkins

2018

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

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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.

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Vague Objects Without Ontically Indeterminate Identity

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

Indeterminate Identities, Supervaluationism, and Quantifiers

Indeterminate Identities, Supervaluationism, and Quantifiers

Indeterminate Comprehension

Metaphysical Vagueness Without Vague Objects

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