Vagueness in sparseness: a study in property ontology
Recent literature on vagueness has begun to question the sharp distinction so long maintained between ‘semantic’ and ‘ontic’ forms of vagueness (see e.g. Schiffer 2001: ch. 5 and Merricks 2001). Particularly, many writers have noted that, unless their theory of vagueness is epistemicist, those committed to ‘plentiful’ theories of properties seem straightforwardly committed to ontic vagueness. If the classically vague predicates like ‘red’ and ‘bald’ correspond to genuine properties, the thought goes, then those properties will likewise be vague. The non-specific application of the predicates, in fact, seems to come about in virtue of the fact that there are individuals of which it is indeterminate whether they instantiate a given property.1 Yet many philosophers – motivated at least in part by the worry that most of our common-usage predicates are too ‘loose’ or ‘rough and ready’ to correspond to genuine properties – have argued for a much sparser conception of properties than ordinarily invoked, wherein the only truly existing properties are certain basic elements of the natural world (which basic elements they are will be a question, ultimately, for physics to decide). Among the most prevalent of these theories are the conception of properties as Universals and the particularized properties of trope theory. In the subsequent sections I will discuss whether worries of vagueness might affect these more constrained property ontologies as well. The examples I offer are not meant to be knock-down arguments or conclusive evidence that the theories in question are, in fact, committed to ontic vagueness,