Indeterminacy and normative silence

Analysis 72 (2):217-225 (2012)
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Abstract

This paper examines two puzzles of indeterminacy. The first puzzle concerns the hypothesis that there is a unified phenomenon of indeterminacy. How are we to reconcile this with the apparent diversity of reactions that indeterminacy prompts? The second puzzle focuses narrowly on borderline cases of vague predicates. How are we to account for the lack of theoretical consensus about what the proper reaction to borderline cases is? I suggest (building on work by Maudlin) that the characteristic feature of indeterminacy is alethic normative silence, and use this to explain both plurality and lack of consensus

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Robert Williams
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Normative Alethic Pluralism.Filippo Ferrari - 2018 - In Jeremy Wyatt, Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen & Nathan Kellen, Pluralisms in Truth and Logic. Cham, Switzerland and Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Springer Verlag. pp. 145-168.
An Absolutist Theory of Faultless Disagreement in Aesthetics.Carl Baker & Jon Robson - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (3):429-448.
Nonclassical Minds and Indeterminate Survival.J. Robert G. Williams - 2014 - Philosophical Review 123 (4):379-428.
Disagreement about Taste and Alethic Suberogation.Filippo Ferrari - 2016 - Philosophical Quarterly 66 (264):516-535.
Topics in Population Ethics.Teruji Thomas - 2016 - Dissertation, University of Oxford

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References found in this work

Vagueness.Delia Graff & Timothy Williamson (eds.) - 1994 - London and New York: Ashgate.
Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 2003 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Saving truth from paradox.Hartry Field - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The things we mean.Stephen Schiffer - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.

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