Blobjectivism and Indirect Correspondence
Terry
Horgan and Matjaz Potrc
In
this paper we articulate and defend a philosophical position we call blobjectivism,
which has both an ontological and a semantical component. The ontological
component, which we call ontological blobjectivism, makes two
fundamental claims:
1. There really is just one concrete
particular, viz., the whole universe (the blobject).
2. The blobject has enormous spatiotemporal structural complexity, and enormous local variability—even though it does not have any genuine parts.
The semantical component of
blobjectivism adds two additional claims:
3. Numerous statements employing posits of common sense and science are true, even though nothing in the world answers directly to these posits.
4. Truth, for such statements, is indirect
language-world correspondence.
In the
first part of the paper we will argue that blobjectivism is a coherent
conceptual possibility, and moreover is a position that accommodates both
common sense and science quite well despite its radical ontological claims. The
upshot will be that the position, because of the combination of its dramatic
ontological parsimony and its capacity to accommodate ordinary and scientific
claims as genuinely true, is a viable metaphysical-cum-semantical
position that deserves to be taken very seriously and to be further articulated
and explored.
In the
second part we will sketch a range of considerations that jointly and
cumulatively provide a strong case for blobjectivism. Each consideration will
tend simultaneously (a) to call into question a certain class of posits as
items in the correct ontology, and thereby (b) to support the contention that
truth, at least for language and thought involving these posits, is
indirect correspondence. The effect will be to progressively broaden the scope
of posits in language and thought that are ontologically dubious, and
simultaneously to progressively broaden the range of statements and beliefs for
which truth is appropriately construed as indirect correspondence. The upshot
of these considerations will be a class of competing ontologies of concrete
particulars, all of which are ontologically quite austere insofar as
they eschew vastly many of the posits of common sense and of science as
ontologically real.[1]
Considerations will then be put forth to the effect that ontological
blobjectivism has serious theoretical advantages vis-a-vis these various
austere competing alternatives.
We will be arguing in broad brushstrokes in this paper, painting a large philosophical canvas quickly and sometimes adverting to claims and arguments that have been developed in more detail elsewhere.[2]
We acknowledge at the outset that notion of truth as
indirect correspondence, which will figure centrally in the discussion, is an
idea that cries out for substantial further theoretical investigation. We will
be adverting to relevant extant philosophical work on this notion, but we
acknowledge that there is more to be done. We seek to underscore the central
importance of the claim that truth is often indirect language/world
correspondence, rather than direct correspondence—and hence the need to explore
this claim further.
1. The Coherence and
Tenability of Blobjectivism.
Imagine
a world consisting entirely of gunkish, jello-ish, stuff. Suppose that this
jello-world is literally partless, and yet also exhibits local variation (both
spatially and temporally) in features like color, transparency, density, and
the like. Given that this jello-world does not really have any parts, what would
be an appropriate way to describe how various features are instantiated by the
jello in various spatiotemporally local ways? One natural-looking way would be
to introduce a linguistic/conceptual framework that posits certain kinds of
discrete entities, and attributes various features to them. For instance, the
framework might posit points and/or regions, and then attribute
various properties (e.g., specific degrees of transparency or density, or
specific shades of color) to these putative entities. This descriptive
framework would be apt, because it would provide a way to track and describe
the various aspects of real local spatio-temporal variability exhibited by the
jello-world. There would be systematic correspondence between certain
statements couched in this discourse, on the one hand, and how things really
are with the jello-world, on the other hand. Nonetheless, the posited points
and regions would not be denizens of the jello-world itself, because this world
is one which, ex hypothesi, lacks genuine parts. Thus, the operative
language/world correspondence would be indirect, in the sense that the
task of specifying how various properties are locally instantiated within the
jello-world is accomplished by means of a descriptive/conceptual framework whose
posits—viz., spatio-temporal points and regions—are mere constructs of the
framework itself and are not genuine parts of the world being described. (That
world has no real parts, by supposition.)
The
jello-world might occasionally exhibit quite abrupt local spatial or temporal
variations, in the degree to which various magnititudes are locally
instantiated. Some such variations would be naturally trackable by means of
still further posits in our descriptive/conceptual framework—for instance,
bodies, events, and processes. In the case of dramatic local spatial
transitions from high density and opacity on one hand, to low density and
transparency on the other hand, it would be natural to speak of certain kinds
of bodies in the jello—e.g., lumps. Likewise, the jello-world might
occasionally exhibit variation of a kind that is locally abrupt both spatially and
temporally, and is naturally trackable by means of posits like events
and processes—e.g., local congealings. Systematic patterns of
local spatio-temporal variation might well be trackable by means of
generalizations involving these further posits—for
instance, the generalization “Congealings generate lumps.” Again, discourse
employing posits like lumps and congealing-events would systematically track how
things really are with the blobject—how it really does vary spatiotemporally in
its local instantiatiation of magnitudes like density, transparency, color, and
the like—even though it does not have any real parts. And again, such tracking
would constitute an indirect kind of language/world
correspondence—indirect because the posited entities would be
linguistic/conceptual constructs that are not denizens of the partless
jello-in-itself.
Color,
transparency, density and the like need not be among the fundamental
properties and magnitides instantiated locally in jello-stuff. It might turn
out instead that other magnitudes of a theoretically more basic kind are
locally instantiated in this partless world, and that “macro-properties” like
color and transparency are supervenient upon, and explainable in terms of,
lawful regularities involving these basic properties. Yet these basic
regularities too might employ posits like points, regions, and particles—again
as a way of facilitating the articulation of how the basic magnitudes are
locally instantiated by the partless jello.
So
a conceptual/descriptive framework that posits various kinds of parts, and
makes claims employing those posits, would be quite natural even if the world
being described were one which, like our hypothetical jello-world, did not
really have any genuine parts at all. Such talk would track genuine local
spatiotemporal variation with respect to how magnitudes are instantiated. There
would be substantial and systematic—albeit somewhat indirect—language-world
correspondence. Such correspondence, we suggest, would be a very plausible
candidate for truth. After all, the posits
would be playing the role of enabling us to say how the partless
jello-stuff instantiates magnitudes spatio-temporally locally—something that
otherwise would not be easy, and perhaps would not even be possible.[3]
In
light of these remarks about the hypothetical jello-world, it now emerges as a
conceptually coherent possibility that our own world, in all its
glorious complexity and local spatiotemporal variation,
does not have any real parts. Indeed, this is a conceptually coherent
ontological framework for physics, especially if one focuses on broadly
field-theoretic formulations of physical theory. The ontological framework construes
the entire cosmos as a physical field which, although it certainly exhibits
local variation, does not really have parts.[4]
Likewise,
it now emerges as a conceptually coherent possibility that numerous
posit-wielding statements of physical theory are true even if the posits
are mere constructs of the theoretical framework and are
not genuine denizens of reality. It is possible (1) that for our world, as for
the hypothetical jello-world, posit-wielding statements couched in the language
of physics track genuine local spatiotemporal variation with respect to how
physical magnitudes are instantiated; (2) that this tracking-relation
constitutes truth for such statements; and nevertheless (3) that our
world does not really contain any parts. If so, then the truth of such
statements is a matter of indirect language/world correspondence, since the posits (e.g., space-time points and regions, as putative
parts of the physical field that is the cosmos) enable us to say how things are
physically with the cosmos without actually designating real entities
themselves.
Can more be
said about truth, in order to make clear why and how truth could be an indirect
kind of correspondence relation? Indeed so. Truth is plausibly construed as semantically
correct assertibility, under contextually operative semantic standards.[5]
A statement’s truth results from the interaction of two factors: the
contextually operative semantic standards, and how things stand with the
mind-independent world. When the semantic standards operate in such a way that
a given statement can be correct semantically (i.e., true) even though the
statement posits (i.e., quantifies over) certain items that are not there in
reality, then truth (for discourse governed by such semantic standards) thereby
becomes an indirect form of language/world correspondence.[6]
Since
statements in physics-level discourse could be true even if the world does not
really have parts, the same goes for statements of other kinds—statements
employing terms and concepts of the “special sciences,” and statements of
ordinary non-scientific discourse. After all, it is very plausible that all
truths about our world are supervenient on physics-level truths—that the facts
describable physically determine all the facts. Thus, insofar as the relevant
truths of physics already involve indirect correspondence, in general this also
should be so for truths of higher-level discourse, truths that supervene on
physics-level truths. Here too, our language and thought would be tracking real
local spatiotemporal variation in the blobject. And in general, the operative
language/world correspondence relation now would be even more indirect than in
physics: the contextually operative semantic standards would conspire with
mind-independent reality in more complex, more subtle, and more holistic ways
to render statements semantically correct (i.e., true).
Take, for
instance, a statement like “In summer of 1999, NATO was conducting a massive
bombing campaign against targets in
The upshot of the preceding discussion is that
blobjectivism is a conceptually coherent, and theoretically tenable,
philosophical position concerning matters of ontology and semantics.
Ontologically, our own world could be, like the hypothetical jello-world, a
physical blobject that lacks real parts and yet still exhibits genuine structural
complexity—that is, genuine variability in how
magnitudes are locally, spatiotemporally, instantiated. Semantically,
part-positing discourse could often be true nonetheless—with its truth being an
indirect kind of language/world correspondence, consisting in semantic
correctness under contextually operative semantic standards that do not require
those part-posits to be “furniture of the world.”
To further underscore the conceptual coherence and
theoretical tenability of blobjectivism, we will briefly consider, and reply
to, three initially plausible objections.
First objection: Blobjectivism is a lunatic view,
because it runs so radically contrary to both our ordinary and our scientific
beliefs about the world. One simply cannot take seriously the claim that there
is really only one concrete thing rather than the multiplicity of things
that both science and common sense says there are. Numerous claims about such
things—about tables, chairs, persons, molecules, quarks, etc., etc.—are literally
true, and not merely “contextually sanctioned.” So blobjectivism is not a
credible philosophical position.
Reply: The semantical component of blobjectivism says
that truth—genuine, literal, truth—is semantic correctness under contextually
operative semantic standards.[8]
It also says that in most real-life contexts of assertion, including contexts
of scientific inquiry, the contextually operative semantic standards operate in
such a way that the part-posits of the discourse need not link up to real
entities—and hence that truth, in such discourse contexts, is indirect
language-world correspondence. Thus, blobjectivism significantly accommodates
our common sense and scientific beliefs, by classifying them as quite literally
true.
Furthermore, the semantic component of blobjectivism
also provides the resources to explain why the ontological component of
blobjectivism sounds so extremely odd, even lunatic. For, the semantic
component says that blobjectivism’s ontological claims are made under very
unusual, limit case, semantic standards—standards requiring direct
language-world correspondence. Although the ontological claims are indeed true,
under these direct-correspondence semantic standards, such limit-case standards
are very rarely employed in human discourse, even scientific discourse. (Their
principal use is in ontological inquiry within philosophy.) So the ontological
claims are bound to sound odd and even lunatic, given that our language
and concepts are almost never employed under direct-correspondence semantic
standards. Since this oddness is thus explainable by means of the semantical
component of blobjectivism itself, the oddness should not count strongly
against the tenability of blobjectivism. As one might put it, package-deal
blobjectivism renders ontological blobjectivism much more tenable than it would
be on its own.
Second objection: According to blobjectivism, very
little can be said positively about the blobject under direct-correspondence
semantic standards. One can say, negatively, that it does not have parts. But
evidently one cannot say, positively, how things are with the blobject.
Thus, according to blobjectivism the world-itself is
indescribable by, and thus is unknowable by, humans; it is noumenal, in
Kant’s sense. Why believe in noumenal reality at all?
Reply: Blobjectivism does not entail that the
world-itself is indescribable and unknowable by humans. On the contrary, humans
can indeed say—and can indeed know—how things are with the world-itself.
In particular, they can know how fundamental physical magnitude-properties are
locally, spatiotemporally, instantiated by the blobject. True, in order to say
how things are with the blobject with respect to the local spatiotemporal
instantiation of physical magnitudes, it is apparently necessary to employ language
that employs certain part-posits (e.g., spacetime points, and/or spacetime
regions)—language governed by semantic standards that are not limit-case,
direct-correspondence, standards (since the blobject has no real parts). But
one nevertheless manages, by speaking this way, to say how things are with the
blobject itself—how those physical magnitudes get instantiated,
spatiotemporally locally.
Third objection: Surely it is very implausible that systematic, tractably specificable, truth conditions for posit-employing discourse could be formulated in language that eschews all such posits and talks only about the blobject and its attributes. Among the reasons why this is so implausible is that according to blobjectivism, very little of a positive nature can be said at all about the blobject, in language governed by direct-correspondence semantic standards.
Reply:
Surely it is implausible that there are truth conditions of the kind in
question. But, given the general conception of truth as semantic correctness
under contextually operative semantic standards, there simply need not be (and
very probably are not) those kinds of truth conditions—conditions which would
amount, in effect, to systematic paraphrases of all true statements into
statements which would bear a direct-correspondence relation to the
mind-independent world. What is required, rather, is that the semantic
standards be masterable by humans—i.e., internalizable as a component of human
linguistic and conceptual competence. But this latter requirement could very
well be satisfiable, even if statements that conform to indirect-correspondence
semantic standards are not systematically translatable into statements that
eschew all part-posits and are true even under limit-case,
direct-correspondence, semantic standards.
2. The Case for
Blobjectivism
Having defended the conceptual
coherence and theoretical tenability of blobjectivism (thereby forestalling any
initial tendency the reader might have had to to dismiss the view out of hand
as self-evidently absurd), let us now argue in favor of it. We will present
three lines of argument that progressively call into question the ontological
status of an increasingly wider class of part-posits of both common sense and
science. These arguments will jointly provide strong grounds for both (1) an
ontology that eschews items in the world that answer directly to the posits in
question, and (2) a semantics that construes truth, for discourse employing
such posits, as indirect correspondence. Then we will consider a range of
possible ontological positions that remain viable in light of these three lines
of argument, and we will argue that blobjectivism is theoretically preferable
to the available competitors.
2.1. Metaphysically
Lightweight Posits
We will use the phrase
‘metaphysically lightweight posit’ in a deliberately vague way. Under this
rubric we include “socially constructed” institutional entities like
corporations, universities, nations, and multi-national organizations (e.g.,
NATO). We also include various non-concrete cultural artifacts, like
Beethoven’s fifth symphony (as distinct from concrete performances of it) and
Quine’s book Word and Object (as distinct from concrete tokens of it).
It is not plausible that
institutional entities like corporations and universities are denizens of the
world-itself, over and above entities like persons, buildings, land
masses, items of office equipment, and the like. Yet, when one considers
whether it might be possible to “reduce” a putative entity like a university to
these other kinds of entities—say, by identifying each university with some set
of them (or some “merological sum” of them), or by systematically paraphrasing
statements that posit universities into statements that do not—there is no
plausible reductive account remotely in sight. For, the project of
systematically paraphrasing university-talk into statements that eschew all
talk of universities looks hopeless; and the trouble with attempts to identify
a university with some set (or sum) of buildings, persons, computers, etc. is
that there are always numerous equally eligible candidate-sets (or
candidate-sums), and there is no reason to identify the university with any one
of these over against any of the others. Likewise, mutatitis mutandis,
for other kinds of institutional entities like corporations and nations, and
for non-concrete cultural artifacts like Beethoven’s fifth symphony and Quine’s
Word and Object.
So the appropriate conclusions to
draw, about discourse employing these metaphysically lightweight posits, are
that the posits do not pick out items in the
world-itself—and that truth, for such discourse, is indirect language-world
correspondence. In typical contexts where such posits are employed, the
contextually operative semantic standards conspire with spatiotemporally local
goings-on in the world-itself to render various statements employing these
posits semantically correct (i.e., true), even though the world-itself
does not contain entities answering to those posits.
To accept these conclusions is to
acknowledge that the idea of truth as indirect correspondence has applicability
to some important kinds of discourse, and that the right ontology
probably does not include metaphysically lightweight entities like
universities, symphonies, or NATO. Of course, one could accept these
conclusions while remaining a robust ontological realist about middle-sized dry
goods like tables and chairs, about persons and other living organisms, and
about the posits of physics and the special sciences. But there is more to
come.
2.2. The Non-Arbitrariness of Composition, and
its Consequences
Peter van Inwagen (1990) wields an
important and powerful form of metaphysical argumentation that has been too
little appreciated in philosophy. He poses what he calls the Special
Composition Question (for short, the SCQ): “When do several objects jointly
compose an object?”
Van Inwagen considers several
initially plausible candidate-answers to the SCQ. He argues that each has
highly implausible consequences, viz., commitments to putative entities that
are not genuine objects at all according to our usual ways of thinking and
talking. (For example, the suggestion that contact among a group of
objects is what makes them jointly compose an object entails the grossly
counterintuitive result that when two people shake hands, a new compound object
comes into existence that ceases to exist when their hands separate.)
Van Inwagen argues, by
elimination-via-counterexample of various initially plausible potential answers
to the SCQ, that the only acceptable answer is that
several objects compose an object when they jointly constitute a life.
On this basis, he concludes that the right ontology of physical objects
includes only two kinds of material beings: (1) “simples,” whatever these might
turn out to be (e.g., electrons and quarks, perhaps), and (2) living organisms.
Discourse that posits other kinds of concrete objects, he says, should be
understood by analogy with talk about the motion of the sun through the sky:
useful and informative, but not literally true.
Two important theoretical desiderata
are in play, in van Inwagen’s discussion of the ontology of material beings:
(1) finding a systematic, general, answer to the SCQ, and (2) adopting an
ontology that conforms reasonably well to our pre-theoretic beliefs, and our
scientifically informed beliefs, about what kinds of physical objects there
are. Van Inwagen argues very persuasively that these desiderata are deeply in
tension: they cannot both be satisfied. But he also assumes, without explicit
argument, that insofar as the two desiderata conflict,
satisfying (1) is theoretically more important than satisfying (2).
Now, it might well be asked whether
one should attach more theoretical importance to obtaining a general and
systematic answer to the SCQ than to “saving” tables, chairs, and other objects
that we pre-theoretically consider robustly, mind-independently, real. If so, why? We submit that the answer to the first question
is affirmative, and here is why. An adequate metaphysical theory, like an
adequate scientific theory, should be systematic and general, and should keep
to a minimum the unexplained facts that it posits. In particular, a good
metaphysical or scientific theory should avoid positing a plethora of quite
specific, disconnected, sui generis, compositional facts. Such facts
would be ontological surds; they would be metaphysically queer. Even though
explanation presumably must bottom out somewhere, it should bottom out with the
kinds of “unexplained explainers” we expect to find in physics—viz., highly
general, highly systematic, theoretical laws. It is just not credible—or even
intelligible—that it would bottom out with specific compositional facts which
themselves are utterly unexplainable and which do not conform to any systematic
general principles. Rather, if one bunch of physical simples compose
a genuine physical object, but another bunch of simples do not compose any
genuine object, then there must be some reason why; it couldn’t be that
these two facts are themselves at the explanatory bedrock of being.
There cannot, then, be a body of
specific compositional facts that are collectively disconnected and
unsystematic, and are individually unexplainable. Such ontological
arbitrariness is not possible in the world-itself—the world whose constituents
are van Inwagen’s concern. In Horgan (1996) this is called the principle of
the non-arbitrariness of composition. This principle is fundamental and
highly plausible, and is a very compelling general requirement on theory
construction. It generates the requirement that an adequate metaphysics of
concrete particulars be one for which there is a general and systematic answer
to the special composition question. This requirement has very strong weight in
metaphysical theory-construction, enough to trump the desideratum of preserving
the posits of common sense and science.
The trumping power becomes
especially pronounced once we have available the idea that for much of our
discourse both scientific and nonscientific, truth could be indirect
language/world correspondence---i.e., semantic correctness under semantic
standards that do not require the world-itself to contain items answering to
the various posits of the discourse.[9]
Common-sense and scientific beliefs employing these posits would thereby get
accommodated and preserved, rather than being repudiated as mistaken—the
ontology notwithstanding.[10]
So the upshot so far is that the
need to provide a systematic and general answer to the SCQ, together with the
great difficulty of providing such an answer that also pretty much includes all
and only the kinds of physical objects that are posited in ordinary discourse
and in scientific discourse, makes it very likely that the right ontology of
concrete particulars will have to be one that posits either many fewer, or else
many more, kinds of concrete particulars than those that are usually posited in
science and in common sense.[11]
One candidate ontology that provides a systematic and
general answer to the SCQ is van Inwagen’s own, comprising only physical
simples on the one hand, and living organisms on the other. Other eligible
ontologies, including ontological blobjectivism, will be considered in section
2.4 below.
2.3. Vagueness: Boundarylessness and its
Metaphysical Consequences
Vagueness is ubiquitous in language
and thought, both in common sense and in science. Moreover, many of the
concrete particulars posited in common sense and in science are vague
objects—for example, vague with respect to their spatio-temporal boundaries, or
vague with respect to their synchronic composition. When one attends carefully
to the nature of vagueness, some striking implications emerge: viz., that vague objects are logically impossible, and hence that
truth for vague discourse must be indirect correspondence rather than direct
correspondence. Here we will summarize briefly the reasoning leading to these
conclusions.[12]
An
essential attribute of genuine vagueness is what Mark Sainsbury (1990) calls boundarylessness,
a feature that can be characterized by reference to sorites sequences
associated with vague terms. Consider a vague term—say, ‘heap’—and consider a
sorites sequence involving the given term in which the initial statement is
true and the final statement is false—say, a series of statements successively
predicating the vague term ‘heap’ first to a pile of sand with 1 billion
grains, then to an object produced by removing just one grain, then to an
object produced by removing yet another single grain, and so forth down to a
statement predicating ‘heap’ to a single grain of sand. To say that vagueness
is boundarylessness is to say that in such a sequence, (i) initially there are
true statements (with each predecessor of any true statement being true); (ii)
later there are false statements (with each successor of a false statement
being false); and (iii) there is no determinate fact of the matter about the
transition from true statements to false ones. Condition (iii) requires not
only that there be no determinate abrupt transition from true statements
to false ones, but also that the truth/falsity transition should involve no
determinate semantic transitions at all; thus it also precludes, for instance,
an overall true-to-false transition involving first a determinate abrupt
transition from truth to the semantic status “indeterminate whether true or
false,” and later another determinate abrupt transition from this in-between
status to falsehood.6
If one
considers what it would take to fully accommodate boundarylessness—that is,
accommodate it in a way that thoroughly eschews arbitrary semantic transitions
of any kind—one finds that, for the successive statements in a sorites
sequence, there are semantic requirements in play that cannot be simultaneously
satisfied. Boundarylessness has two conceptual poles. On one hand there is an
individualistic pole, applicable to individual pairs of adjacent statements in
a sorites sequence: viz., for any pair of adjacent statements, the two
statements must have the same semantic status (truth, falsity, indeterminateness,
or whatever). Otherwise there would exist a
determinate semantic transition between them, contrary to the claim that there
is no determinate fact of the matter about semantic transitions in the
sequence. On the other hand, there is also a collectivistic pole in the notion
of boundarylessness, applicable globally with respect to a sorites sequence as
a whole. Two collectivistic requirements apply. First, it is impermissible to
iterate indefinitely the individualistic-pole requirement for successive adjacent
pairs of statements, in the manner of paradoxical sorites arguments. Second,
there is simply no determinate collective assignment of semantic status to all
the statements in a sorites sequence. These individualistic and collectivistic
requirements cannot be jointly satisfied; for, the only way that a sorites
sequence could fully conform to the individualistic pole would be for every
statement in the sequence to have the same semantic status. (This is the lesson of the sorites paradox,
which emanates directly from the individualistic pole of boundarylessness.) So
boundarylessness is logically incoherent, in a specific way: it imposes
mutually unsatisfiable semantic standards upon vague discourse.
The
specific kind of logical incoherence exhibited by vagueness needs to be
distinguished from a stronger, and highly malevolent, kind of logical
incoherence. Vagueness does involve weak logical incoherence—viz., the
presence of mutually unsatisfiable semantic standards governing vague discourse
(and vague thought-content). But this does not necessarily bring in its wake strong
logical incoherence—viz., commitment to individual statements that are
logically contradictory, such as statements of the form F & ~F.
The
semantic standards that govern vague discourse can, and do, incorporate weak
logical incoherence without the strong kind. How? Briefly, the story goes as
follows. Incompatible individualistic and collectivistic semantic requirements
are indeed in force insofar as vague discourse exhibits boundarylessness. That
is, no requirement is defeated by any others, in the sense of having
defeasibility conditions that are satisfied by the presence of the competing
and incompatible requirements. But these competing requirements are not on a
par with one another either. The collectivistic-pole requirements dominate
the individualistic-pole requirements without defeating them; that is, to the
extent that the requirements conflict, truth is determined by the
collectivistic-pole requirements. In practice, this means that paradoxical
sorites arguments are to be eschewed; it also means that one must not
acknowledge the existence of any determinate semantic transitions (even unknown
or unknowable ones) in a sorites sequence. (Semantic status still must conform
partially to individualistic-pole requirements, however. For instance, it is
never the case, for any specific pair of adjacent statements in a sorites sequence, that the two statements differ in semantic status.7) So the semantic standards
governing vague discourse are logically disciplined, in virtue of the
dominance (without defeat) of collectivistic-pole requirements. Because of this
logical discipline, no logically incoherent statement is true, under those
standards; strong generic logical incoherence is avoided.
Transvaluationism is the
name for the general approach to vagueness we have been describing.
Transvaluationism claims that vagueness is weakly logically incoherent without
being strongly logically incoherent. It also claims that vagueness is viable,
legitimate, and indeed essential in human language and thought; its weak
logical incoherence is benign rather than malevolent. Just as Nietzsche held
that one can overcome nihilism by embracing what he called the transvaluation
of all values, transvaluationism asserts that vagueness, although logically
incoherent in a certain way, can and should be affirmed and embraced, not
nihilisticaly repudiated.8
If
vagueness is really boundarylessness, as it certainly appears to be, then,
since boundarylessness involves disciplined weak logical incoherence, an
adequate treatment of vagueness will have to be some version of
transvaluationism. Moreover, transvaluationism is a fairly generic approach,
potentially open to further development and articulation in a variety of different
ways. Numerous details about the logic and semantics of vagueness remain open
within the generic conception, and might get handled differently in different
versions.9 But
regardless of how the details go, any account of vagueness that seriously comes
to grips with boundarylessness must be a version of transvaluationism—whether
its proponents acknowledge this fact or not.10
In effect, specific proposals amount to suggested strategies for implementing
the dominance-without-defeat of collectivistic semantic standards over
individualistic ones.11
We are
ready now to draw out the powerful implications of boundarylessness for
metaphysics and for semantics. First, metaphysics. The
world cannot be logically incoherent, even in the weak way: it cannot
have features that are the ontological analogues of mutually unsatisfiable
semantic standards. (For example, there cannot be a genuine property H (for
‘heaphood’), and a sequence of sand conglomerations each of which has one fewer
grain than its predecessor, such that (i) initially in the sequence there are
instances of H (with each predecessor of an H instance being an H instance),
(ii) eventually there are non-H instances (with each successor of a non-H
instance being a non-H instance), and (iii) for each pair of successive piles
in the sequence, either both are H instances, or both are non-H instances, or
both are neither. For, the only way to satisfy condition (iii) would be for all
the piles to have the same status vis-à-vis H.) But vagueness involves
boundarylessness essentially, and boundarylessness involves weak logical
incoherence essentially. Hence there cannot be ontological vagueness—and in
particular, there cannot be vague objects.
Next, semantics. Weak logical incoherence is a feature of the
contextually operative semantic standards governing vague discourse, in
ordinary contexts of usage. Hence truth, for discourse involving vagueness,
cannot be a matter of direct language-world correspondence; for, this would
mean that the world itself would have to exhibit the same logical incoherence
that is present in vagueness; and this is impossible. Thus—barring the wildly
implausible, nihilistically self-defeating, position that vague statements are
never true—truth for vague discourse must be a form of indirect correspondence.
Furthermore, if this is so, then there is no particular problem about the weak
logical incoherence of the operative semantic standards—as long as these
standards are logically disciplined, and hence are not also strongly logically
incoherent.
The upshot of these considerations
is that the only viable general approach to vagueness is one that conceives it
non-ontologically (thereby repudiating all vague objects), and construes truth
(for vague discourse) as indirect correspondence. The correct ontology of
concrete particulars will have to be one that admits no vague ones, and an
appropriate semantics for discourse employing vague posits will have to be one
that treats truth, for such discourse, as indirect correspondence. These
conclusions have very wide application indeed, since vastly many of the posits employed both in common sense and in science are
vague.
2.4. What’s Cooking?
World a la Carte
Let us draw together some morals
from the preceding discussion, especially in sections 2.2 and 2.3. The right
ontology of concrete particulars, whatever it turns out to be, must meet
several constraints. First, it must include no vague objects—no slobjects
(as we will call putative vague objects). Rather, any objects it countenances
must be fully determinate and precise in all respects, including composition
and spatiotemporal boundaries; i.e., they must be snobjects (as we will
call them).[13]
Second, the right ontology must provide a systematic and general answer to van
Inwagen’s special composition question.
Living organisms, of course, are
slobjects. So, since slobjects are precluded, van Inwagen’s own preferred
ontology fails the first of these constraints, and is not eligible. What, then,
are the principal eligible candidate-ontologies? There are three. First is what
we will call snobjective non-compositionalism, which includes only
snobjective simples and no composites.[14]
A snobjective simple is an object that has no parts, and is also perfectly
precise. Second is what we call snobjective universalism. This view
includes snobjective simples, and also composite
snobjects that compose in an unrestricted way—i.e., any bunch of snobjects
jointly compose another snobject.[15]
Third is ontological blobjectivism, which countenances only one concrete
particular (viz., the whole cosmos).
In effect, ontological blobjectivism
is a limit case of both snobjective non-compositionalism and snobjective
universalism. For, it agrees with the former view in asserting that the right
ontology includes no composite objects. And it agrees with the latter view in
asserting that the right ontology includes the whole—that is, the entire
cosmos.
All three ontological positions
obviously satisfy the requirement to repudiate vague objects. In addition, each
also respects the requirement of providing a systematic and general answer to
the special composition question, “When do several distinct objects compose an
object?” To this question, snobjective non-compositionalism says “Never,
because there are only simples.” Snobjective universalism says “Always;
snobjects compose without restriction.” Ontological blobjectivism says “Never,
because there is only one real object, viz., the blobject.”
Snobjective universalism is a
somewhat generic ontological position, and several different species can be
distinguished. One version would countenance only snobjective spatiotemporal regions.
Being snobjective, these regions would be perfectly precise. (The simples would
be minimal snobjective regions, viz., spatiotemporal points.) Another
version would countenance only snobjective non-regions, snobjects that
are not regions. Yet another version would countenance both kinds of snobjects.
Likewise, snobjective
non-compositionalism is a generic position that has several different species.
One variant would countenance only spatiotemporal points; another would
countenance only simple snobjective non-regions; yet another would countenance
both.
The versions of snobjective
non-compositionalism and snobjective universalism that countenance snobjective
non-regions are not at all plausible. For, it appears that entities falling
under the rubric of snobective non-regions simply are not posited, either in
common sense or in science. Simple snobjective non-regions evidently are
not posited, because we are told that the “elementary particles” posited in
physics are more like clouds than like little billiard balls, and thus are
vague in certain respects (e.g., in their spatiotemporal boundaries).
Snobjective compound non-regions are not posited either (let alone ones that
compose in the completely unrestricted fashion hypothesized by universalism);
rather, the kinds of compound objects posited in both science and in common
sense are virtually always vague in various ways, for instance in the
spatiotemporal boundaries and/or in their physical composition. Of course, the posits
introduced in a particular discourse need not pick out genuine denizens of the
world-itself anyway—insofar as truth (for the given discourse) is indirect
correspondence. But since snobjective non-regions are not even posited
in science or in common-sense belief, such putative entities simply are not
serious candidates for inclusion in the correct ontology.
So we are now left with three viable
candidate-ontologies for concrete particulars, two of which are specific
versions of genus-positions lately mentioned: (1) the version of snobjective
non-compositionalism that countenances only spatiotemporal points; (2) the
version of snobjective universalism that countenances only snobjective
spatiotemporal regions (including points); and (3) ontological blobjectivism.
These three candidates can be
ordered, with respect to comparative ontological parsimony. The simplest is
ontology (3), ontological blobjectivism; it maximizes ontological parsimony by
countenancing just one real concrete object, the blobject. Less parsimonious is
ontology (1), since it countenances all those point-objects. Still less
parsimonious is ontology (2), since it countenances not only all the same
point-objects, but also a completely unrestricted mereological hierarchy of
snobjective region-objects as well.
All else equal, comparative
ontological parsimony is a powerful theoretical reason to prefer one
ontological theory to another. Insofar as these three candidate-ontologies are
concerned, we submit, all else is equal—nearly enough, anyway. For one
thing, the need to complicate semantics as a counterweight to ontological
austerity is faced by all three candidates; they all repudiate vague objects,
and hence they all need a semantical picture according to which truth, for vast
portions of human discourse both scientific and nonscientific, is indirect
language-world correspondence. Furthermore, the notion of indirect
correspondence, already needed for so much of our discourse, extends naturally
to statements that posit spatiotemporal points and/or snobjective
spatiotemporal regions—statements specifying which physical magnitude-values
are instantiated “at” points or regions. The only object that needs to exist,
in order for such statements to be true under indirect-correspondence
semantic standards, is the blobject itself, instantiating physical magnitudes
in spatiotemporally local ways.
In short, ontological blobjectivism
is theoretically simpler than its principal viable competitors, and therefore
is probably the correct ontology of concrete particulars. Furthermore, the
overall blobjectivist position, despite is severe ontological austerity,
actually accords well with familiar common-sense and scientific claims about
the world. They are quite literally true, and their truth consists in
genuine—albeit indirect—correspondence to the world as it is in itself.[16]
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[1] One such ontology, so-called universalism, will be ontologically liberal in one way: it includes vastly many concrete particulars, which compose without restriction into progressively bigger ones. But in light of the considerations set forth in section 2.3, the kind of universalism that will remain a theoretical option still will eschew vastly many of the posits of common sense and science, and in that sense will be austere.
[2] Relevant texts by each of the present paper’s authors are cited in the references.
[3] Whether it would be possible at all depends upon whether there is some systematic way to paraphrase the relevant posit-employing statements into statements that thoroughly avoid any such posits and also are sufficiently intelligible without being paraphrased back into the original idiom. We doubt it, but we can remain officially neutral about this here.
[4] At any rate, on this picture the cosmos does not have any spatiotemporal parts. One might construe the cosmos as consisting of several distinct but superimposed fields, each of which extends spatiotemporally throughout the universe and none of which has spatiotemporal parts; and one might treat these fields as separate “parts” of the cosmos. But for simplicity, we will ignore this possibility in the text. It yields a picture much like ontological blobjectivism, even though it claims there are several concrete particulars rather than just one, because these distinct entities are all blobjects, superimposed with one another.
[5] The relevant notion of semantic correctness has nothing to do with matters of etiquette. A statement can be semantically correct, in the relevant sense, even if it would be impolite, impolitic, or otherwise inappropriate to utter it. Semantic correctness is also distinct from epistemic warrant; a statement can be epistemically warranted but semantically incorrect, and can be semantically correct but epistemically unwarranted. Finally, the relevant kind of semantic correctness is not merely a matter of using words in accordance with what they mean, but also depends upon how things stand with the world itself—a point of clarification prompted by a question from Seth Arp.
[6] The conception of truth briefly described in this paragraph is articulated and defended at greater length in Horgan (1986a, 1986b, 1991, 1994a, 1994b, 1995b, 1998b), Horgan and Timmons (1993), and Timmons (1999 chapter 4). Horgan originally called the approach ‘language-game semantics’, later called it ‘psychologisitic semantics’, and now calls it ‘contextual semantics’. It can be seen as extending and adapting the treatment of contextually variable discourse parameters in Lewis (1979). It accommodates certain motivating ideas in neo-pragmatist treatments that construe truth as “ideal warranted assertibility” (Putnam 1981, 1983) or as “superassertibility” (Wright 1987, 1992), but without embracing what Horgan (1995a, 1996) calls “epistemic reductionism.” Contextual semantics is somewhat similar to the approach to truth and ontology in Sellars (1963, 1968).
[7] On the present construal of truth and meaning, epistemic standards governing warranted assertibility are closely related to standards of semantic correctness (even though the latter cannot be reduced to the former), and both involve serious holistic elements.
[8] The term ‘literal’, like many in our language, is governed by contextually variable semantic parameters. One use of ‘literal’ that is occasionally contextually appropriate is to shift the language-game into direct-correspondence semantic standards—perhaps while simultaneously denying that a given statement is true under those standards. But from the perspective of contextual semantics, this is certainly not the only correct use of ‘literal’, and not an especially common one. More commonly, the term functions to do things like distinguishing metaphorical from non-metaphorical uses of language, or distinguishing truth (under the contextually operative semantic standards) from near-truth (under those same standards).
[9] With this idea available, there is no need to deny (as van Inwagen does) that talk about tables, chairs, molecules, etc. is literally true. Likewise, there is no need to acquiesce in his proposed assimilation of such talk to the claim that the sun moves across the sky. This is all to the good.
[10] Here and throughout, it is important to keep in mind that according to the semantical component of blobjectivism, serious ontological claims are made within discourse that is governed by highly unusual semantic standards—direct-correspondence standards, or anyway standards that are fairly close to this limit case. Ordinary beliefs, however, are expressible by statements not governed by these same semantic standards.
[11] Some candidate ontologies include many more, and also many fewer, kinds of concrete entities than are normally posited in common sense and in science. See the discussion of “snobjective universalism” in section 2.4 below.
[12] For more detailed discussion see Horgan (1994c, 1995b, 1998b, in press), and Potrc (forthcoming). What we say about vagueness in the present paper is largely excerpted from Horgan (1998b, in press).
6. For convenience of exposition,
here we discuss boundarylessness metalinguistically, in terms of statemements
and their semantic status. But the same core idea applies equally well at the
first-order level of description. Consider a sorites
sequence consisting of the respective sand conglomerations themselves. To say
that heaphood is boundarylessness is to say that (i) initially in this sequence
there are heaps (with each predecessor of a heap being a heap); (ii) later
there are non-heaps (with each successor of a non-heap being a non-heap); and
(iii) there is no determinate fact of the matter about the transition from
heaps to non-heaps.
7. Does this mean that under the
correct collective assignment of semantic status to all the statements in a
sorites sequence, no two adjacent statements differ in semantic status? No.
According to the collectivistic-pole requirements, there is no correct
collective assignment of semantic status to all the statements in the sequence.
8. One reason for the name
transvaluationism is to emphasize that this position is not a species of what
Williamson (1994) calls nihilism—the view that “vague expressions are
empty; any vaguely drawn distinction is subverted” (p. 165). Another reason is
to emphasize the need for a “transvaluation of all truth values,” so to
speak—i.e., the need to transcend the impossible goal of finding some logically
coherent, semantically correct, collective assignment of semantic status to all
the statements in a sorites sequence. The proper goal for a
semantics of vagueness, rather, is to provide an adequate account of the
normative standards governing semantically correct assertoric practice.
9. Perhaps
transvaluationism can even be implemented by standard two-valued logic,
employed in a way that respects in practice the logically disciplined weak
generic incoherence of vagueness. Concerning our accommodation of vagueness,
Quine (1995) remarks, “What I call my desk could be equated indifferently with
countless almost coextensive aggregates of molecules, but I refer to it as a
unique one of them, and I do not and cannot care which. Our
standard logic takes this...in stride, imposing a tacit fiction of unique
though unspecifiable reference” (p. 57).
10. The weak
generic logical incoherence that any such account must take on board, at least
implicitly, will inevitably reveal itself when one considers what the advocate
of the particular account will be forced to say when confronted with a “forced
march” through a sorites sequence. Consider, for instance, a sorites sequence
for baldness: “A man with no hairs on his head is bald”; “A man with 1 hair on
his head is bald”; …; “A man with 10 million hairs on his head is bald.” A
forced march through this sequence is a series of questions, with respect to
each successive statement, “Is it true?” Each of the questions is perfectly
meaningful. And for no two successive questions could it be correct to give
different answers; for, that difference would mark a determinate semantic
transition, contrary to the nature of vagueness. So the only thing to do, when
confronted with the prospect of forced-march querying, is to refuse steadfastly
to answer those persistent queries (since no complete set of answers is
semantically correct). This is the right thing to do, because it
reflects the dominance of collectivistic-pole semantic requirements over
individualistic-pole requirements. But although this refusal to take the forced
march is entirely appropriate as a tactic for avoiding commitment to any
logically contradictory statements, it does not eliminate the weak logical
incoherence of vagueness. The individualistic-pole requirements are still in
force, even though they are dominated by the logically incompatible
collectivistic-pole requirements; for, the respective queries in the forced
march are all still meaningful and each still demands the same answer as its
predecessor, even though it is proper and respectable to duck those cumulative
individualistic semantic requirements by refusing to take the forced march.
11. One
salient example, discussed in Horgan (1998b section 4), is what is there called
“iterated supervaluationism.” The core idea of this approach is that the
metalanguage for stating supervaluationist semantics is itself vague, and thus
it too is subject to a supervaluationist treatment in a meta-meta-language; and
so on, all the way up the metalinguistic hierarchy. A different approach to the
logic of vagueness, also a species of the transvaluationist genus, is described
in Horgan (1994c)—a paper that is explicit about the need to quarantine the
(weak) logical incoherence that is endemic to genuine vagueness.
[13] The terms ‘slobject’, ‘snobject’, and ‘blobject’ were introduced in Horgan (1991), with due credit to Barry Loewer, who coined the first two in conversation with Horgan.
[14] Van Inwagen uses the term ‘nihilism’ for the view that there are only simples and no composites. But we do not adopt his terminology here because it has unduly pejorative connotations.
[15] ‘Universalism’ in van Inwagen’s term for the view that any bunch of real objects jointly compose another real object.
[16]
We thank John Tienson, Mark Timmons, and audiences at