Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Vagueness and Physics, Metaphysics, and MetaMetaphysics

Duration: 2009 - 2012

Code: FFI2008-06153

Principal Investigator

Dan López de Sa (dlopezdesa@gmail.com)

All researchers

Dan López de Sa (ICREA-UB)
Sven Rosenkranz (ICREA-UB)
Richard Woodward (U. Barcelona)
Stephan Torre (U. Barcelona)

Rosenkranz, Sven (ICREA at UB)

Torre, Stephan (UB)

Williams, JRG (Leeds)

Woodward, Richard (UB)

Zardini, Elia (UNAM)

Summary

Our main aim in this project is to explore the issues arising from the phenomenon of vagueness itself, and the view of vagueness as semantic indecision, vis-à-vis recent considerations and arguments in physics, metaphysics, and metametaphysics, respectively: 1. To establish whether the notion of a vague object is intelligible, whether the indeterminacy contemplated by current physics motivates positing vagueness in rebus, and whether this is incompatible with the contention that the nature of vagueness consists in semantic indecision. 2. To assess the soundness of arguments "from vagueness" in three recent metaphysical debates—on composition, on persistence, and on the problem of the many—, to identify which aspects of the assumption concerning vagueness as semantic indecision are exploited, and explore whether the arguments could be strengthened by weakening this assumption, including alternative views on the nature of vagueness.

3. To offer a taxonomy of the different metametaphysical attitudes with respect to apparent disputes in these three debates, and to explore whether particular metametaphysical viewpoints are presupposed by the availability of such arguments "from vagueness" in favor of metaphysical conclusions.

 

 

As part of this, we are running a series of workshops on vagueness and metaphysics. For further details, please check the project's website at http://www.ub.edu/vpmmm.

Publications

  • Dan López de Sa. 2014

    'Audience in Context'

    Erkenntnis 79, 241-253

  • Dan López de Sa. 2013

    'Vagueness as Semantic Indecision: Metaphysical Vagueness vs Indeterminate Reference'

    Metaphysica 14, 197-209 (special volume: Vagueness and Ontology)

  • Dan López de Sa. 2013

    ‘Rigid vs Flexible Response-Dependent Properties’

    Hoeltje, Schnieder & Steinberg (eds.), Dependence, Philosophia Verlag

  • Sven Rosenkranz, Fabrice Correia. 2013

    'Living on the Brink, or Welcome Back, Growing Block!'

    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 8 (2013), 333-50

  • Sven Rosenkranz. 2013

    'Determinism, Open Future, and Branching Time'

    in: Correia, F. and Iacona, A. (eds.), Around the Tree, Synthese Library Vol. 361, 47-72

  • Richard Woodward, Tatjana von Solodkoff. 2013

    Noneism, Ontology, and Fundamentality

    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, to appear.

  • Richard Woodward. 2013

    A Yablovian Dilemma

    Thought 1, pp.200-209.

  • Richard Woodward. 2013

    Towards Being

    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86, pp.183–193

  • Dan López de Sa. 2012

    'What does it Take to Enter into the Circumstance?'

    Philosophical Studies (2012) 159:147–153, DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9695-4

  • Sven Rosenkranz. 2012

    'In Defence of Ockhamism'

    Philosophia - Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 40, 617-31 (to be reprinted in Fischer, J. M./Todd, P. (eds.), Freedom, Fatalism and Foreknowledge, Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2013)

  • Richard Woodward. 2012

    Counterparts

    Philosophy Compass 7, pp.58-70.

  • Dan López de Sa, Elia Zardini. 2011

    'No-No. Paradox and Consistency'

    Analysis 71, 472-8

  • Dan López de Sa. 2011

    'The Many Relativisms: Index, Context, and Beyond'

    S. Hales (ed.), A Companion to Relativism, Blackwell, 102-17

  • Sven Rosenkranz, Fabrice Correia. 2011

    As Time Goes By

    monograph, Paderborn 2011: Mentis

  • Sven Rosenkranz, Fabrice Correia. 2011

    'Eternal Facts in an Ageing Universe'

    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90, 307-20

  • Richard Woodward. 2011

    Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vague Existence

    In Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman (Eds), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, vol. 6,

  • Dan López de Sa. 2010

    'The Makings of Truth: Realism , Response-Dependence, and Relativism '

     C. Wright & N. Pedersen (eds.), New Waves in Truth, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 191-204

  • Dan López de Sa. 2010

    'Relativismo y operadores'

    Teorema 29, 1, 81-93

  • Dan López de Sa. 2010

    'How to Respond to Borderline Cases'

    R. Dietz & S. Moruzzi (eds.), Cuts and Clouds, OUP, 327-39

  • Sven Rosenkranz. 2010

    ‘Agnosticism and Vagueness'

    in: Dietz, R./Moruzzi, S. (eds.), Cuts and Clouds: Essays on the Nature and Logic of Vagueness, Oxford 2010: Oxford University Press

  • Dan López de Sa. 2009

    'Disjunctions, Conjunctions, and their Truthmakers'

    Mind 118, 417–25

  • Dan López de Sa. 2009

    'Can One Get Bivalence from (Tarskian) Truth and Falsity?'

    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39, 273-282

  • Sven Rosenkranz. 2009

    'Liberalism, Entitlement, and Verdict Exclusion'

    Synthese 171 (2009), 481-97