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William of Ockham (d. 1347) is well known for his commitment to parsimony and for his so-called 'razor' principle. But little is known about attempts among his own contemporaries to deflect his use of the razor. In this paper, I explore one such attempt. In particular, I consider a clever challenge that Ockham's younger contemporary, Walter Chatton (d. 1343) deploys against the razor. The challenge involves a kind of dilemma for Ockham. Depending on how Ockham responds to this dilemma, his razor will, Chatton argues, either prove unacceptably dull when it comes to determining ontological commitment or prove unacceptably sharp when it comes to determining commitments entailed by certain theological doctrines. While Chatton's objection is subtle and interesting in its own right, the broader significance of the debate between these thinkers lies in the light it sheds on medieval approaches to issues surrounding metaphysical methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three main goals. First, to motivate a puzzle about how ignorance-expressing terms like maybe and if interact: they (surprisingly) iterate, and when they do they exhibit scopelessness. Second, to argue that there is an ambiguity in our theoretical toolbox, and that exposing that opens the door to a solution to the puzzle. And third, to explore the reach of that solution (it turns out to do work in unexpected places). Along the way, the paper highlights a number of pleasing properties of two elegant semantic theories (data semantics and update semantics), explores some meta-theoretic properties of dynamic notions of meaning, dips its toe into some hazardous waters (epistemic contradictions and presupposition projection), and offers characterization theorems for the space of meanings an indicative conditional can have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorensen (1985) has argued that one can exploit the vagueness of an ordinary predicate like 'small' to induce a sort of vagueness in 'vague', by constructing a series of predicates of the form 'n-small', where x is n-small if and only if x is small or x < n. The resulting 'Sorensen'ed' predicates present a Sorites case for 'vague' ('1-small' is vague; if 'n-small' is vague, so is 'n+1-small'; therefore, '106-small' is vague); hence the vagueness of 'vague'. Hyde (1994) argues that this demonstrates that all vague predicates are higher-order vague. Others doubt whether Sorensen's series really delivers such a result, claiming Hyde's argument to be either: unsound, because it misidentifies the true source of vagueness in Sorensen's Sorites (Deas 1989, Hull 2005); invalid, because it fails to generalize to all vague predicates (Tye 1994); or circular, because it presupposes the very thing it tries to prove, namely, higher-order vagueness (Varzi 2003, 2005). This paper contributes to the Sorensen-Hyde vs. Tye-Deas-Hull-Varzi debate by clarifying the relations between vague vagueness and higher-order vagueness. I show how claims of higher-order vagueness are derivable from claims of vague vagueness (but not vice versa). This is the missing piece needed to complete Hyde's argument and overcome the objections presented by Deas, Hull, Tye, and Varzi. I then show how Sorensen's considerations, once properly generalized, pose more far-reaching consequences about the vagueness of 'vague' than either defenders or critics of Hyde's argument have appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article places philosopher Dorothy Edgington's solution to the sorites paradox in terms of verities in the framework of a spatial approach to conceptualization. Topics covered include a demonstration of how verities may plausibly be assumed to have probabilistic structure, a discussion on the question of how to accommodate higher-order vagueness, and an argument on the new interpretation of verities.

In section 96 of Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit offers his now familiar tripartite distinction among candidates for ‘what matters’: (1) Relation R with its normal cause; (2) R with any reliable cause; (3) R with any cause. He defends option (3). This paper tries to show that there is important ambiguity in this distinction and in Parfit's defence of his position. There is something strange about Parfit's way of dividing up the territory: I argue that those who have followed him in viewing the choice among (1)–(3) as the (or an) important question in thinking about ‘what matters’ are mistaken, and that they bypass what seems to be a more important, even crucial, set of options and considerations. I am less concerned with what he does say than with what he ought to say, given his intuitions and arguments, and the general framework within which he is working. And I am particularly concerned to show that whether or not I am correct about what he is doing with his tripartite distinction, it is a distinction with which we should not be particularly concerned in the analysis either of what matters or of psychological continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Anselm's Ontological Argument fails, but not for any of the various reasons commonly adduced. In particular, its failure has nothing to do with violating deep Kantian principles by treating 'exists' as a predicate or making reference to 'Meinongian' entities. Its one fatal flaw, so far from being metaphysically deep, is in fact logically shallow, deriving from a subtle scope ambiguity in Anselm's key phrase. If we avoid this ambiguity, and the indeterminacy of reference to which it gives rise, then his argument is blocked even if his supposed Meinongian extravagances are permitted. Moreover it is blocked in a way which is straightforward and compelling (by contrast with the Kantian objections), and which generalizes easily to other versions of the Ontological Argument. A significant moral follows. Fear of Anselm's argument has been hugely influential in motivating ontological fastidiousness and widespread reluctance to countenance talk of potentially non-existing entities. But if this paper is correct, then the Ontological Argument cannot properly provide any such motivation. Some of the most influential contributions to ontology, from Kant to Russell and beyond, rest on a mistake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]