The Problem with Truthmaker-Gap Epistemicism

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (4):320-329 (2012)
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Abstract

Epistemicism about vagueness is the view that vagueness, or indeterminacy, is an epistemic matter. Truthmaker-gap epistemicism is the view that indeterminate truths are indeterminate because their truth is not grounded by any worldly fact. Both epistemicism in general and truthmaker-gap epistemicism originated in Roy Sorensen's work on vagueness. My aim in this paper is to give a characterization of truthmaker-gap epistemicism and argue that the view is incompatible with higher-order vagueness: vagueness in whether some case of the form ‘it is determinate that A’ or ‘it is indeterminate whether A’ is true. Since it is highly likely that there is higher-order vagueness, truthmaker-gap epistemicism is in an uncomfortable position

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Mark Jago
Nottingham University

Citations of this work

Vagueness and the Laws of Metaphysics.Ryan Wasserman - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (1):66-89.

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References found in this work

Truth and truthmakers.D. M. Armstrong - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Blindspots.Roy A. Sorensen - 1988 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1994 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):589-601.
Vagueness and contradiction.Roy A. Sorensen - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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