Ratio 18 (3):317–331 (
2005)
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Abstract
There is a general form of an argument which I call the ‘argument
from vagueness’ which attempts to show that objects persist by perduring,
via the claim that vagueness is never ontological in nature
and thus that composition is unrestricted. I argue that even if we
grant that vagueness is always the result of semantic indeterminacy
rather than ontological vagueness, and thus also grant that composition
is unrestricted, it does not follow that objects persist by
perduring. Unrestricted mereological composition lacks the power
to ensure that there exist instantaneous objects that wholly overlap
persisting objects at times, and thus lacks the power to ensure that
there exists anything that could be called a temporal part. Even if
we grant that such instantaneous objects exist, however, I argue
that it does not follow that objects perdure. To show this I briefly
outline a coherent version of three dimensionalism that grants just
such an assumption. Thus considerations pertaining to the nature
of vagueness need not lead us inevitably to accept perdurantism.