Modelling deep indeterminacy

George Darby, Martin Pickup

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
140 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper constructs a model of metaphysical indeterminacy that can accommodate a kind of ‘deep’ worldly indeterminacy that arguably arises in quantum mechanics via the Kochen–Specker theorem, and that is incompatible with prominent theories of metaphysical indeterminacy such as that in Barnes and Williams (Oxf Stud Metaphys 6:103–148, 2011). We construct a variant of Barnes and Williams’s theory that avoids this problem. Our version builds on situation semantics and uses incomplete, local situations rather than possible worlds to build a model. We evaluate the resulting theory and contrast it with similar alternatives, concluding that our model successfully captures deep indeterminacy.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1685–1710
Number of pages26
JournalSynthese
Volume198
Early online date28 Feb 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Feb 2021

Keywords

  • metaphysical indeterminacy
  • indeterminacy
  • deep indeterminacy
  • Kochen-Specker
  • situation semantics
  • metaphysics of quantum mechanics
  • Metaphysical indeterminacy
  • Kochen–Specker
  • Deep indeterminacy
  • Indeterminacy
  • Situation semantics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy
  • Social Sciences(all)

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