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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-ŕ-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. |