Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Volume 60, Issue 3, May 2000

Universalism, Four Dimensionalism, and Vagueness

Anyone who endorses Universalism and Four Dimensionalism owes us an argument for those controversial mereological theses. One may put forth David Lewis’s and Ted Sider’s arguments from vagueness. However, the success of those arguments depends on the rejection of the epistemic view of vagueness, and thus opens the door to a fatal confrontation with one particularly troubling version of The Problem of the Many. The alternative for friends of Universalism and Four Dimensionalism is to abandon those currently fashionable arguments in favor of others which are consistent with the epistemic view of vagueness and with the elegant solution it furnishes to that problem.