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  1. Modal normativism on semantic rules.Rohan Sud - 2024 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 67 (8):2361-2380.
    According to Amie Thomasson’s modal normativism, the function of modal discourse is to convey semantic rules. But what is a "semantic rule"? I raise three worries according to which there is no conception of a semantic rule that can serve the needs of a modal normativist. The first worry focuses on de re and a posteriori necessities. The second worry concerns Thomasson's inferential specification of the meaning of modal terms. The third worry asks about the normative status of semantic rules.
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  2. Moral Vagueness as Semantic Vagueness.Rohan Sud - 2019 - Ethics 129 (4):684-705.
    Does moral vagueness require ontic vagueness? A central challenge for nonontic treatments of moral vagueness arises from the referential stability of moral terms across small changes in how they are applied: if moral vagueness is not ontic vagueness, it’s hard to explain this referential stability. Pointing to this challenge, Miriam Schoenfield has argued that moral vagueness is ontic vagueness, at least for a moral realist. I disagree. I argue that a moral realist can use a conceptual role semantics for moral (...)
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  3. Plurivaluationism, supersententialism and the problem of the many languages.Rohan Sud - 2020 - Synthese 197 (4):1697-1723.
    According to the plurivaluationist, our vague discourse doesn’t have a single meaning. Instead, it has many meanings, each of which is precise—and it is this plurality of meanings that is the source of vagueness. I believe plurivaluationist positions are underdeveloped and for this reason unpopular. This paper attempts to correct this situation by offering a particular development of plurivaluationism that I call supersententialism. The supersententialist leverages lessons from another area of research—the Problem of the Many—in service of the plurivaluationist position. (...)
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  4. A forward looking decision rule for imprecise credences.Rohan Sud - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (1):119-139.
    Adam Elga (Philosophers’ Imprint, 10(5), 1–11, 2010) presents a diachronic puzzle to supporters of imprecise credences and argues that no acceptable decision rule for imprecise credences can deliver the intuitively correct result. Elga concludes that agents should not hold imprecise credences. In this paper, I argue for a two-part thesis. First, I show that Elga’s argument is incomplete: there is an acceptable decision rule that delivers the intuitive result. Next, I repair the argument by offering a more elaborate diachronic puzzle (...)
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  5. Quantifier Variance.Rohan Sud & David Manley - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 100-17.
    We provide an overview of the meta-ontological position known as "Quantifier Variance".
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  6. Quantifier Variance, Vague Existence, and Metaphysical Vagueness.Rohan Sud - 2023 - Journal of Philosophy 120 (4):173-219.
    This paper asks: Is the quantifier variantist committed to metaphysical vagueness? My investigation of this question goes via a study of vague existence. I’ll argue that the quantifier variantist is committed to vague existence and that the vague existence posited by the variantist requires a puzzling sort of metaphysical vagueness. Specifically, I distinguish between (what I call) positive and negative metaphysical vagueness. Positive metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) the claim that there is vagueness in the world; negative metaphysical vagueness is (roughly) (...)
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  7. Reference Magnetism Beyond the Predicate: Two Putnam-Style Results.Rohan Sud - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    Many accept David Lewis's (1983) claim that, among the candidate meanings for our predicates, some are more natural than others -- they do better or worse at ``carving nature at its joints''. Call this claim predicate naturalism. Disagreement remains over whether the notion of naturalness extends ``beyond the predicate'' (à la Sider, 2011). Are the candidate meanings of logical vocabulary also more or less natural? Call this claim logical naturalism. -/- One motivation for predicate naturalism comes from its supposed ability (...)
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  8. Vague Naturalness as Ersatz Metaphysical Vagueness.Rohan Sud - 2018 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 11:243–277.
    I propose a view that I call "Ersatz Metaphysical Vagueness" according to which the term "perfectly natural" can be semantically vague. As its name suggests, the view mimics traditional metaphysical vagueness without the radical metaphysical underpinnings. In particular, the ersatzer avoids a widely accepted argument schema (advanced by JRG Williams, Ted Sider, Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne and others) according to which, if there is no metaphysical vagueness, F-ness cannot be both perfectly natural and vague.
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  9. Metaphysical semantics versus ground on questions of realism.Rohan Sud - 2022 - Analysis 82 (3):464-472.
    One desideratum for a theory of fundamentality is to give us the conceptual tools to articulate fruitful metaphysical distinctions between the assortment of ‘realist’ and ‘anti-realist’ positions in a given domain such as meta-ethics. The ability to articulate such distinctions gives us a way to assess rival theories of fundamentality, such as Fine’s grounding theory and Sider’s metaphysical semantic theory. Indeed, Sider has argued that metaphysical semantic theories have an edge with respect to this desideratum and takes this as an (...)
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  10.  21
    Vagueness in a Precise World: Essays on Metaphysical Vagueness.Rohan Sud - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Our words are vague, yet the world is precise. This dissertation consists of three essays that jointly attempt to articulate, explore, and defend this claim. In the first essay, I present my positive proposal for a non-metaphysical treatment of vagueness. Inspired by research on the Problem of the Many, I claim that we are speaking many perfectly precise languages simultaneously and that each speech act involves uttering many perfectly precise sentences. This position, which I call supersententialism, is the most plausible (...)
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