Are There Indeterminate States of Affairs? Yes

In Elizabeth Barnes (ed.), Current Controversies in Metaphysics. Taylor & Francis. pp. 105-119 (2017)
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Abstract

Here I compare two accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI): first, the 'meta-level' approach described by Elizabeth Barnes and Ross Cameron in the companion to this paper, on which every state of affairs (SOA) is itself precise/determinate, and MI is a matter of its being indeterminate which determinate SOA obtains; second, my preferred 'object-level' determinable-based approach, on which MI is a matter of its being determinate---or just plain true---that an indeterminate SOA obtains, where an indeterminate SOA is one whose constitutive object has a determinable property, but no unique determinate of that determinable. In S1, I first note an important difference between our accounts, concerning whether MI is taken to induce propositional indeterminacy; in S2, I highlight and defend certain advantages of my account; in S3, I address certain of Barnes and Cameron's objections to my account.

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Author's Profile

Jessica M. Wilson
University of Toronto at Scarborough

Citations of this work

Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy.Claudio Calosi & Jessica Wilson - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (10):2599–2627.
A determinable-based account of metaphysical indeterminacy.Jessica M. Wilson - 2013 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 56 (4):359-385.
Modelling Deep Indeterminacy.George Darby & Martin Pickup - 2021 - Synthese 198:1685–1710.
Against Quantum Indeterminacy.David Glick - 2017 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (3):204-213.

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