Abstract
In this chapter, we explore some important questions concerning vagueness that arise in connection with the deployment of certain key metaphysical notions – in particular, the notions of an object, of identity, of constitution, of composition, of persistence, and finally of existence. Various philosophers have argued for or against the view that there can be vague object’s, or that the identity and distinctness of objects can be vague, or that what an object is constituted by or composed of (that is, what its parts are) may be vague, or that an object’s persistence-conditions and thus its temporal duration may be vague, or finally that it may even be vague whether or not an object exists at all. We examine the cogency of some of these arguments. We spend more time on the question of vague identity than on any other topic, partly because it has received more attention in the literature and partly because it is either explicitly or implicitly involved in all of the other topics on our list and so is, in that sense, more fundamental than the others.
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Lowe, E.J. (2011). Vagueness and Metaphysics. In: Ronzitti, G. (eds) Vagueness: A Guide. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0375-9_2
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