I propose a new theory of vagueness centered around the epistemology and normativity of vagueness. The theory is a version of epistemicism—the view that vagueness is a fundamentally epistemic phenomenon—that improves upon existing epistemicist accounts by accommodating both the alleged tolerance and open texture of vague predicates, while foregoing excessive metaphysical commitments. I offer a novel solution to the infamous Sorites paradox, one that outrivals alternative contextualist theories in their ability to explain the phenomenology of vagueness as well as its deontic consequences.

There’s a venerable tradition in philosophy to look to our concepts when it comes to appreciating facts about absolute real modality, i.e. how things can and must be in an absolute sense. Given the absence of a modal sensorium, the traditional model stated that modal facts have something to do with conceptual relations. Squares must be four-­‐sided, for example, because the concept having four sides is part of the concept square. If this example could be generalised, it would not only provide a model for the epistemology of modality, it would also explain why much of our modal knowledge is a priori. The fact that we plausibly don’t need any empirical information in order to understand our concepts would explain why their analysis, and the subsequent appreciation of the corresponding modal facts, can be had from the armchair. In the wake of an externalist and scientistic trend in philosophy in the latter half of the 20th century, this model has come under severe attack. Orthodoxy has it now that concepts were the wrong place to look. Not only are there substantial modal facts whose recognition requires empirical investigation, even the application conditions, i.e. meanings, of many concepts are essentially a posteriori. This thesis rehearses the main arguments for rejecting the tradition, defends its central tenets and urges that, while the externalist arguments provide important insights, they do nothing to overturn the traditional model, but rather point to where it needs qualification. It spells out how we must understand its key notions—meaning, apriority, modality—in order to retain what is plausible about the traditional model. It is argued that an appeal to concepts in modal epistemology is inevitable, and that this is a tradition to foster.

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published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

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This thesis defends the 'true-futurist' view, according to which statements about the future are either true or false, even if the future is open and unsettled in some robust, objective and mind-independent sense. A general argument for the validity of the principle of bivalence in the open future is advanced. The key feature of such argument is the 'principle of retrospective determinacy', stating that, for any proposition p, if it is now the case that p, then it was true that p would be the case. Different possible objections are discussed and dismissed. Second, two true-futurist theories are presented and shown to meet all the relevant desiderata of a true-futurist theory. In particular, much attention is devoted to the 'problem of counterfactual evaluation', concerning the truth-value of future-contingent statements in merely counterfactual scenarios. In addition, it is argued that that the choice between the two true-futurist theories depends upon which metaphysical picture of time is assumed as true. Some notable theoretical commitments of True-Futurism are examined. In particular, it is argued that True-Futurism is incompatible with two different ideas. The first one being that future-contingent statements (although bivalent) have an indefinite truth-value. The second one being that there are true 'counterfactuals of openness', stating that a certain future-contingent statement would have had a specific truth-value, had different circumstances obtained.

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