No Fact of the Matter

Abstract

Are there questions for which 'there is no determinate fact of the matter' as to which answer is correct? Most of us think so, but there are serious difficulties in maintaining the view, and in explaining the idea of determinateness in a satisfactory manner. The paper argues that to overcome the difficulties, we need to reject the law of excluded middle; and it investigates the sense of 'rejection' that is involved. The paper also explores the logic that is required if we reject excluded middle, with special emphasis on the conditional. There is also discussion of higher order indeterminacy (in several different senses) and of penumbral connections; and there is a suggested definition of determinateness in terms of the conditional and a discussion of the extent to which the notion of determinateness is objective. And there are suggestions about a unified treatment of vagueness and the semantic paradoxes.