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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Lewis's dominant-kinds solution holds that among the many candidates, only the one best satisfying the dominant sortal 'Dalmatian' determinately instantiates the kind.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The 'dominant sortal' itself is vague and context-sensitive, so deferring to it merely relocates rather than solves the determinacy problem.
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    • 2.Multiple candidates can equally well satisfy a sortal's criteria; superiority is a matter of degree, not a determinate threshold Lewis's view requires.
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    • 3.Metaphysical determinacy shouldn't hinge on which linguistic conventions we adopt; the solution seems to conflate semantics with metaphysics.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Natural language predicates like 'Dalmatian' have determinate application conditions, requiring some principled criterion for sorting candidates.
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    • 2.Among competing candidates, the one maximally satisfying the dominant sortal's criteria best explains our determinacy intuitions about kind membership.
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    • 3.Without Lewis's solution, vagueness infects metaphysics itself, making it indeterminate which entities exist—an unacceptable result.
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