List

This is pretty half-baked, but consider the following proposition:

(1) January 9, 2008 is present.

I think it is a vague matter whether or not this is true. Imagine the minutes are slowly ticking away on January 8. It’s 11:59. As the time passes, January 9 will be determinately present, but exactly when that happens seems to be a vague matter.

This, however, will lend some support to A-Theory (and either presentism or some version of the moving spotlight view in the ontology of time). For imagine if B-Theory is true. If B-Theory is true, then ‘present’ functions like an indexical, and (1) really expresses something like the following proposition.

(1*) October 4, 2006 is October 4, 2006.

(1*) is not vague. At least many philosophers are inclined to accept that identity statements are not vague, and whatever motivates us to accept that should motivate us to accept that (1*) is not vague.

4 Responses to “A-Theory and Vagueness”

  1. Justin

    Is this what you have in mind? To separate January 8 from January 9, we have to pick some (instantaneous) dividing line. Times to the “left” are determinately Jan 8, to the right are determinately Jan 9. Do we have to worry about right on the dividing line? It seems that we do, since it has to be picked at some instant, say t0. (This is assuming time is continuous rather than discrete.) So, the truth value of (1) is vague when (1) is uttered at t0.

  2. Andrew Cullison

    That is sort of what I had in mind. It does assume that time in continuous.

    In fact, that’s the first way for the eternalist/B-theorist to resist. They could say that time is discrete, there is a precise moment at which January 9 becomes present, and so (1) is not vague.

  3. Neilio

    Isn’t (1) an identity statement too, so that whatever reasons there are for non-vague identity statements, they affect (1) as well as (1*). If (1) isn’t an identity statement, switch “present” for “the present time” and the result is surely an identity statement.

  4. Andrew Cullison

    Hey Neilio,

    I think you’re right. (1) is an identity statement. I think that because I lean toward B-Theory/Eternalism.

    I was thinking that an A-Theorist might take these vagueness considerations as some prima facie reason to think that (1) is not an identity statement.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  Posts

April 3rd, 2014

Ethics and Technology Panel This Week

I’m participated in a panel yesterday Fredonia on Ethics and Technology. The title of my presentation was “Grounding a Moral […]

March 27th, 2014

Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death

This is unreal. Doctors in Pittsburgh will try to save the lives of 10 patients by placing them in a […]

March 26th, 2014

Diversity and Inclusiveness: Amy Ferrer over at newAPPS

The executive director of the American Philosophical Association is doing a series of guest posts this week over at newAPPS […]

March 20th, 2014

Thinking about moral realism may lead to better moral behavior.

This is really interesting. A recent article published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests that being primed to think about […]

March 14th, 2014

APA Now Accepting Nominees for Leadership Positions

The APA now has an online nomination system. There are vacancies on all twenty APA committees. You can access the […]

February 27th, 2014

A Discovery Based Account of Intellectual Property Rights

One of the issues, that’s most interested me so far in the Ethics and Technology class I’m teaching is how […]

February 26th, 2014

How the MPAA inadvertently gave American Artists Leverage Against Hollywood

This is a very interesting read. For the most part it is an over-view of the global subsidy war between nations. Here’s […]

February 25th, 2014

Spritz – New Technology Aims to Boost Reading Speed to 500 words a minute

I just learned about Spritz today. It’s starts out to be pretty mind-blowing. The technology is designed to feed text […]

February 6th, 2014

Gettier Case in The Simpsons

If we assume that Bart (at some point) justifiably believed that the lemon-shaped rock was a lemon, then he had […]

February 4th, 2014

The Case of the Copyright Hoarder

I’m teaching an Ethics and Technology class this semester. I came up with a thought experiment today that I’m going […]