Vagueness and Identity :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

Vagueness and IdentityABSTRACT The view that individuation weed be unnoticeable holds that there atomic number 18 statements of indistinguishability which are neither aline nor false. The view that composition can be vague holds that unities can study borderline constituents that is, elements that are neither parts nor non-parts of some larger wholeness. The courting for vague identity operator is typically made by way of an wrinkle for the vagueness of composition. In this paper, however, I argue that the thesis that composition can be vague is actually incompatible with the thesis of vague identity. The argument for the inconsistency of these two views arises out of a demonstration of the way in which constituency facts (even vague constituency facts) are grounded in the other facts about how a larger unity is configured. Thus, I try out that composites that are allegedly vaguely identical are actually different configurations. Hence, the alliance of vague composition with vague identity is taken to be all that is needed in order to show that compositional vagueness is indefensible.IIt is some whiles held that, resembling other things, identity can be vague.But care should be taken about what this means. The study that identity can be vague is best understood as the claim that there can be statements of identity which are indeterminate in truth value. This view gains in attractiveness when the precision of the concept of identity is contrasted with the lack of precision endemic to various criteria of identity. As Sainsbury notes, diachronic artefact identity must surely be governed by principles such as this Replacing some, but not too many, parts of an artifact does not destroy it, but leaves the very same artifact. Such principles are vague. How could the identity relation, which they determine, be precise? Considerations same these extend to members of natural kinds like mountains and cows as well. Whats consistent throughout these views i s that identity requires enough of the usurp sort of continuity. This reliance on continuity goes for not only the way we re-identify things over time, but for the way we individuate objects at a time as well. So for example, spatio-temporal continuity at least partially explains how it is that at B highwayway and 42nd I am standing on the same road I stood on when I was at Broadway and 41st. Since identity deciding conditions like continuity and contiguousness can be weak or beefed-up or more or less, it appears the vagueness of those concepts has a limiting effect on how precise identity claims can be.