The Argument from Vagueness
Edited by Daniel Z. Korman (University of California at Santa Barbara)
About this topic
Summary | The argument from vagueness is an argument for mereological universalism, the thesis that for any objects you like, there is an object which is the mereological fusion of those objects. Here is the main idea behind the argument: If we say that composition only sometimes occurs, then presumably there can be borderline cases of composition, that is, cases where it is vague whether the objects in question compose anything. But there can’t be borderline cases of composition. That’s because if it were vague whether some things composed something (say, a hammer head that is just beginning to be affixed to a handle) then it would be vague how many things there are (the handle, the head, and a hammer, or just the handle and head?). But we can make claims about how many things there are without using any vague language whatsoever. Consequently, those claims can’t be vague; they must have determinate truth values. So it can’t be vague how many things there are, in which case it can’t be vague whether composition occurs. So composition must be unrestricted. |
Key works | The argument first appears in Lewis 1986, pp. 212-213, and is defended in greater detail in Sider 2001, section 4.9. The prominent responses in the literature come in three varieties: (i) those that maintain that there can be vague existence, (ii) those that maintain that there are always sharp cut-offs with respect to composition, and (iii) those that deny that borderline composition need give rise to vague existence. See Hawley 2002 and Sider 2003 on type-(i) responses, Markosian 1998 and Merricks 2005 on type-(ii) responses, and Carmichael 2011 on type-(iii) responses. |
Introductions | Sider 2001; Korman 2010 |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Composition as Identity (119)
- Mereological Universalism (136)
- Mereological Nihilism (165)
- Mereological Essentialism (45)
- Simples and Gunk (122)
- Mereology, Misc (177)
- Permissive Conceptions of Material Objects (63)
- Mereology (1,343 | 529)
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Editorial team
General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Lynne Tirrell Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |