Metaphysical Indeterminacy

这个项目是对形而上学不确定性的调查。我们随处可见不确定性的现象：从抽象的谜题到医生、政客和公众争论的关键伦理问题。例如，胎儿什么时候会长成人？我们能不能准确地把那一刻精确到一天、一分钟或一秒？在如此详细的情况下提出这个问题，充其量看起来是鲁莽的。相反，似乎根本就没有关于何时发生过渡的事实。然而，如果这些问题没有确定的答案--如果它们是不确定的--我们必须考虑更广泛的含义。哲学家们广泛讨论不确定性，但主导思想是，它肯定有两个不同的来源之一：我们对隐藏的事实的无知，或者我们如何使用语言的不精确。然而，这两种模型都不适合胎儿的情况。很难相信这里的不确定性源于无知--即使知道关于胚胎发育的一切，也不能解决这个谜题。同样，这种情况似乎不同于主宰专业文献的不确定的例子--例如，一个人可以有多少根头发，并算作“秃顶”。这样的情况表明，我们缺乏必要的语言惯例--我们只是还没有决定我们的术语“秃头”的确切含义。但似乎仅仅是语言习俗不应该承担人格等道德上重要问题的重量。那么，难题在于，我们可以了解这些案件的一切，并准确地决定我们所涉及的术语的意思，但仍然存在不确定性。我们认为，对此最好的诊断是，这里的不确定性是由于世界是什么样子的，而不是我们对世界的知识或表现的限制。也就是说，这种不确定性是形而上学的，而这种形而上学的不确定性并不是人格所特有的。例如，我们可能认为未来是不确定的--100年后会发生什么，这是不存在的事实。同样的坚持：它可能无法确定我的车是不是我在更换了这么多零部件后从商店买的那辆车。最近的科学甚至表明，不确定性是基础物理学的核心。然而，形而上学的不确定性被不适当地忽视了--结果是，这一主题的辩论被扭曲了，因为显然需要容纳所有不确定性的情况，无论这种情况在直觉上多么不合适，都要基于无知或语言的描述。因此，我们的主要目标是发展一种明确的形而上学不确定性理论，特别是一种不强迫哲学家放弃关键的逻辑或语义原则的理论。该项目的第一阶段问：说不确定性是形而上学的是什么意思？我们将通过提供对形而上学不确定性的详细描述，从形而上学的其他领域(例如，时间和可能性)获得关于辩论的新观点，来挑战对这一概念的广泛怀疑。我们将把我们的理论与其竞争对手进行比较，特别是与那些坚持认为不确定性必然是由于我们自己的思想和实践而产生的观点进行比较。我们将开发一种详细的形式理论来模拟这些想法。我们之前关于不确定性与形式可能性和时间理论的关系以及条件性的工作，显示了创造一个与经典逻辑兼容的理论的巨大希望。最后阶段，将这些研究应用于激励该项目的案例。研究人员将各自考察形而上学不确定性的应用领域：生命的开始和结束之谜(威廉姆斯)；未来的“不安定”(巴恩斯)；以及形而上学的解释(卡梅隆)。这些理论思考与关键的道德问题直接相关--例如，当我们说胎儿何时长成人时，这意味着什么。

This project is an investigation of metaphysical indeterminacy. We encounter the phenomenon of indeterminacy everywhere: from abstract puzzles to crucial ethical questions debated by doctors, politicians, and the public. When, for example, does a foetus become a person? Could we ever pinpoint the exact instant to the day, minute or second? Engaging the question at such a level of detail looks foolhardy at best. Instead, it seems that there is simply 'no fact of the matter' as to when the transition occurs. Yet if there is no determinate answer to such questions--if they are indeterminate--we must consider the broader implications.Indeterminacy is widely discussed by philosophers, but the dominant thought is that it must have one of two distinct sources: our ignorance of hidden facts or imprecision in how we use our words. Yet neither model fits the foetus case well. It is hard to believe that the indeterminacy here arises from ignorance--even knowing everything there was to know about embryonic development wouldn't solve the puzzle. Likewise, the case seems different from examples of indeterminacy that dominate the specialist literature-for example, how many hairs a man can have and count as 'bald'. Such cases show that we lack the required conventions of language--we just haven't decided the exact specifications of our term 'bald'. But it seems that mere linguistic conventions should not bear the weight of such morally significant matters as personhood. The puzzle, then, is that we could know everything about these cases, and decide exactly what we mean by the terms involved, yet still find indeterminacy. We argue that best diagnosis of this is that the indeterminacy here is due to what the world is like, not limitations in our knowledge or representation of the world. That is, the indeterminacy is metaphysical.And such metaphysical indeterminacy is not unique to personhood. We might think the future, for example, is indeterminate--there is no fact of the matter about what will happen 100 years from now. Similarly persistence: it may indeterminate whether my car is the same one that I bought from the shop after having so many parts replaced. Recent science even suggests that indeterminacy lies at the heart of fundamental physics. Metaphysical indeterminacy, however, has been unduly ignored--and as a result debates in the subject have been distorted by the apparent need to accommodate all cases of indeterminacy, no matter how intuitively unsuitable, to ignorance-based or linguistic accounts. Thus our primary goal is to develop a clear theory of metaphysical indeterminacy, specifically one which does not force philosophers to give up key logical or semantic principles. The first stage of the project asks: What does it mean to say that indeterminacy is metaphysical? We will challenge the widespread scepticism of the very notion by providing a detailed account of metaphysical indeterminacy, deriving fresh perspectives on the debate from other areas of metaphysics (e.g. time and possibility). We will compare our theory to its rivals, especially to positions which maintain that indeterminacy must be due to our own thoughts and practices.We will develop a detailed formal theory to model these ideas. Our previous work on indeterminacy's relationship to formal theories of possibility and time, and conditionality, shows great promise for creating a theory that, crucially, is compatible with classical logic.The final stage applies these investigations to cases which motivate the project. The investigators will each examine areas for the application of metaphysical indeterminacy: beginning and end of life puzzles (Williams); the 'unsettledness' of the future (Barnes); and metaphysical explanation (Cameron). These theoretical reflections have direct relevance to key moral problems - helping explain, for example, what it means when we say there is 'no fact of the matter' as to when a foetus becomes a person.