Ontic vagueness in microphysics

Silvio Seno Chibeni

ABSTRACT. This article aims to examine the import of science to the contemporary philosophical debate on
ontic vagueness. It is shown, first, that our best theory on the structure of mater, quantum mechanics, clearly
ascribes vague properties to objects. This point is explained by both a general theoretical analysis and by
some simple examples. The advantage of these examples over that which has been hotly discussed in the
literature (Lowe 1994) is underlined. Secondly, it is pointed out that stronger evidence for the existence of
vague objects is available through a series of theoretical and experimental results in microphysics, imposing
severe constraints on any theory purporting to restore sharpness in the properties of quantum objects.

The farther physical science progresses the less can it dispense with
philosophical criticism. But at the same time philosophers are increasingly
obliged to become intimately acquainted with the sphere of research, to
which they undertake to prescribe the governing laws of knowledge.

E. Schrdinger (1957, 51)

1. Introduction
It is difficult, if not impossible to characterize vagueness without prejudging the issue in
favour of one or another of the main interpretations of vagueness. Perhaps the central
element in the notion is the existence of a fuzzy boundary.1 Thus, defenders of the linguistic
interpretation say that a term is vague when its meaning is not precise, whereas proponents
of the epistemic interpretation hold that vagueness results from lack of precise knowledge.

Vagueness is also commonly characterized in terms of borderline cases. Here we shall focus on

fuzzy boundaries, because the existence of borderline cases follows from the existence of fuzzy boundaries,
whereas the converse does not seem to hold (see Keefe and Smith 1997, 15-16).

2
Those, on the other hand, who defend ontic or metaphysical vagueness usually take a vague
object as an object whose physical properties are blurred or indeterminate. Another way of
expressing this point is to say that a vague object is an object whose properties are not as
a matter of fact all precisely specifiable or definable. It is not that we are uncertain
whether the property applies to the object (this would be epistemic vagueness), but that
there is objectively no determinate fact of the matter whether that object exemplifies that
property. 2
Much of the voluminous literature on vagueness is devoted to the question of whether
there is, or there can be, vagueness in the world itself, as contrasted with its representation
in thought or language. The current disinclination of students to answer these questions
positively appears to derive from two main sources. There is, first, the weight of the
classical analyses of the issue. As is well known, Frege regarded vagueness as a defect of
ordinary language. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why he and virtually all the early
analytic philosophers concentrated their attention to artificial languages.3 Also, in his
seminal 1923 article on vagueness, Bertrand Russell maintained that Vagueness and
precision alike are characteristics which can only belong to a representation, of which
language is an example. They have to do with the relation between a representation and that
which it represents.4 This was meant by Russell to apply also to thoughts, which he

Merricks (2001, 145). This paper offers particularly clear characterizations of the three main views of

vagueness. For a more specific attempt to define ontic vagueness, see Sainsbury (1989).
3

For an account of Freges views on vagueness, see Williamson (1994, sect. 2.2).

P. 62, as reprinted in Keefe and Smith (1997b). In addition, Russell maintained, controversially, that

all words in natural languages, even logical terms, are to some extent vague.

3
regarded as a kind of private representation. But the attribution of vagueness to the
represented objects is denounced by him as an instance of the fallacy of verbalism the
fallacy that consists in mistaking the properties of words for the properties of things.5
Finally, Michael Dummett claimed, in a much-quoted phrase, that the notion that things
might actually be vague, as well as being vaguely described, is not properly intelligible.6
The second main source of antipathy to ontic vagueness is Gareth Evanss one-page
1978 article. On the face of it, the paper offers a formal proof that the idea that the world
might contain certain objects about which it is a fact that they have fuzzy boundaries,
being therefore vague, is not coherent. Not unexpectedly, the exact meaning and import
of Evanss cryptic proof became the subject of hot controversy in the literature, which
continues unabated to our days.7
In this article we shall not re-examine the classical arguments against ontic
vagueness, nor discuss the details of Evanss proof. Our aim is to contribute to the debate
through a philosophical analysis of some central elements of our best scientific
understanding of the nature of the material world. More specifically, we shall explain in

Ibid., p. 62. For a recent criticism of Russells position, see Colyvan (2001). The present article can

be taken as providing support to Colyvans general criticism, as it presents a concrete, fully developed
scientific case for the existence of vague objects.
6

(1975, 260), as reprinted in Dummett (1978). It is fair to remark, however, that Dummett later

recanted from this strong position; see his (1981, 440).

7

For a sample of the most important attempts at clarification, see e.g. Lewis (1988), Burgess (1989)

and (1990), Parsons and Woodruff (1995), Over (1989), Johnsen (1989), Keefe and Smith (1997a, 49 ff),
Williamson (1994, sect. 9.2), Pelletier (1989). A different line of attack on ontic vagueness has been proposed
by Sorensen (1998); for a criticism, see Markosian (2002).

4
some detail why our basic theory of matter, quantum mechanics (QM), describes objects as
being irreducibly vague. We shall also indicate that there are strong theoretical and
experimental reasons for taking this aspect of QM as having come to stay.

2. The import of science to the debate on ontic vagueness

Vagueness has traditionally been regarded as a philosophical issue, and this is just right,
since it has traditionally been associated with language and thought, and these undoubtedly
are philosophical provinces. Nonetheless, philosophy has also traditionally been interested
in reality, except within certain philosophical schools. Given that vagueness was brought to
fore in contemporary philosophy when one of these schools dominated the philosophical
scene, it is no surprise that it was, and still is, largely or exclusively taken as a linguistic or
mental phenomenon.
But abhorrence to metaphysics has faded away, and the time is ripe for rehabilitating
reality as a genuine philosophical subject. In the early modern period, however, philosophy
gave birth to science, which has taken upon itself the task of investigating the material
world. From that time on, we cannot, thus, afford to ignore what science says about the
nature of the material objects. However, most of the philosophers engaged in discussing
vagueness even ontic vagueness do not appear to recognize this point fully.
Recent analyses of ontic vagueness have focused almost exclusively on macroscopic
objects, such as clouds, mountains and cats. Furthermore, when the constitution of these
objects is discussed (as formed by atoms, for instance), the analysis is implicitly guided
almost exclusively by theories of classical physics. Since these theories leave no place for
vagueness in the sense that, according to them, all the properties of the elementary

5
constituents of matter are in principle specifiable with complete precision this has the
effect of biasing the whole discussion against ontic vagueness from the very beginning.
Thus, claims of vagueness in the material objects have been easily dismissed as
merely superficial vagueness. On the usual (but debatable: see Chibeni, forthcoming)
assumption that the properties of the macroscopic objects supervene on the properties of
their microscopic constituents, any vagueness in the former could in principle be eliminated
by their theoretical reduction to the latter.
Attention to this important distinction between superficial and non-superficial, or
fundamental, vagueness has been drawn by Keefe and Smith (1997a, 56-57) and Burgess
(1990). Whereas the former authors do not take any position on the dispute, Burgess
appears to regard superficial vagueness as genuine ontic vagueness, irrespective of what
happens at the basic level. Although disagreeing with Burgess on this point, we strongly
support his view that the issue of whether the world is microscopically divisible into sharp
objects ... is best treated as an empirical claim (p. 285).
Now, we obviously get different answers to this question, depending on which theory
we choose. We believe that our guide here should be the best currently available physical
theory. The fact that this theory will, like any other, be fallible does not imply that the
choice is immaterial. Even if our interest is restricted to the question of whether there can
be vague objects as opposed to whether there actually are such objects in the world , the
theoretical choice is important. It is just silly to rely for whatever purpose upon a theory
which is known to have met with refuting evidence. Curiously, this point has been largely
ignored by the students of ontic vagueness. The first noticeable exception was, to our
knowledge, provided by Lowe 1994.

6
In this article Lowe argued that a certain quantum mechanical system involving a pair
of electrons constitutes a genuine instance of ontic vague identity. Lowes example was,
thus, directly addressed to Evans proof.8 Lowes paper has generated some interesting
discussion in the literature.9 Although fully agreeing with Lowes line of inquiry, we think
that he was unfortunate in the choice of his example, since it involves the thorny issue of
the identity of quantum objects. Also, the whole controversy over Evanss proof
piggybacks on his analysis, making the issue rather too complex. We shall not enter into
this discussion here. In the following section we explain, through a general theoretical
analysis, how ontic vagueness arises in QM. In section 5 we illustrate the point by offering
a sample of straightforward examples of ontically vague quantum objects which do not
involve the identity relation. And in section 4 we point out that certain theoretical and
experimental results, made available in the second half of the twentieth century, impose
forbiddingly severe constraints on any microphysical theory purporting to avoid ontic
vagueness.

3. A theoretical analysis of quantum mechanics vis--vis the issue of ontic vagueness

Both in classical theories and in QM, the properties of objects fall into two classes: static,
or state-independent properties, such as rest mass, charge and spin, and dynamic, or statedependent properties, such as position, momentum, energy, spin components, etc. The

Besides offering the quantum counterexample to the proof, Lowe endeavoured, like many before

him, to locate its flaw by direct analysis.

9

See e.g. French and Krause (1995, 1996 and forthcoming), Noonan (1995), Hawley (1998),

Odrowaz-Sypniewska (2001), Lowe (1997 and 1999).

7
former are always precisely definable, in both kinds of theories. Dynamic properties, on the
other hand, are typically not sharply definable in QM, in contrast with what happens in
classical theories. This fundamental difference arises from the peculiar way quantum
mechanics characterizes the states of physical objects.
Whereas in classical mechanics the state of a particle is represented by a set of six
numbers the three components of its position and of its momentum , in quantum
mechanics the pure states of an object are complex-valued functions usually referred to as
wavefunctions , or, more generally, vectors in a Hilbert space. In both classical and
quantum mechanics the purpose of defining states is to allow the prediction of the physical
properties belonging to the object. In the former theory, the specification of the state
allows, in principle, the prediction of all the dynamical quantities of the object, such as its
kinetic energy, angular momentum, etc. Quantum mechanical states, however, do not afford
a complete value assignment to all the quantities which can legitimately be measured on
and therefore, apparently, attributed to the object. It should be stressed that this holds even
for the pure quantum states, i.e. the states embodying maximal information about the
object. This unique situation in the history of physics is illustrated in section 5 by three
simple examples.
The fact that no quantum mechanical state gives precise values to all the dynamical
properties of quantum objects immediately leads to the suspicion that the theory is
incomplete as a description of physical reality. This apparent incompleteness of QM is at
the root of most of the intriguing features of this theory, and separated the founding fathers
into two opposite camps. Led by Bohr and Heisenberg, most of them denied that there is
anything missing in the quantum mechanical theoretical description (position 1), whereas
Einstein and Schrdinger insisted that the theory is, indeed, incomplete (position 2). The

8
two most powerful arguments to sustain the latter view appeared in 1935: Einstein,
Podolsky and Rosens argument concerning certain pairs of correlated quantum objects
(EPR 1935) and Schrdingers argument concerning the measurement process, known as
the cat paradox (Schrdinger 1980).
This is not the place to examine the controversy over the completeness of QM. We
just want to explore its connections with the issue of ontic vagueness. We begin by noticing
that the incompleteness view (position 2) clearly suggests an epistemic interpretation for
quantum vagueness. According to this view, the lack of sharp values of physical
magnitudes in QM is to be regarded a theoretical aspect only, to be eliminated through the
addition of more information on the object, in the scope of a more complete theory.
The interpretation of the opposite view (position 1) is more complex. There are three
general options open to the proponents of the completeness of QM:
1a) Anti-realism: the concept of a physically describable reality is abandoned. This
stand was often taken by Bohr and his followers. The problem of ontic vagueness is thereby
bypassed; the theory is meant as referring to phenomena only, not to real objects lying
behind them. The lack of a complete value assignment in QM is interpreted as a trait of
quantum theoretical language only.
1b) Heisenbergs disturbance doctrine: the objects are conceived as possessing sharp
attributes only, but they are mostly unknowable in principle. Due to the existence of the
so-called quantum of action, the act of observation would introduce an unavoidable and
uncontrollable disturbance in the state of the objects, so that the precise values of many of
their properties are always beyond our reach. The positivist doctrine (fashionable in the
1930s) would then discharge QM from the task of describing these properties. The theory
should, thus, be considered complete, at least with respect to what can be known about

9
reality. In this case there is no real ontic vagueness, just epistemic vagueness. The
difference with respect to position 2 (incompleteness) is that now the missing information
is claimed to be experimentally unobtainable.
1c) Reality itself is fuzzy: the attributes lacking theoretical values in QM are
objectively blurred. The classical ontologies of sharp objects are replaced by a notion of
reality with fuzzy objects, exactly to match what is found in the quantum formalism.
Failure to distinguish clearly these positions has often led to deep confusions in the
historical debate concerning QM. In his classic 1927 article on the indeterminacy relations,
for instance, Heisenberg first deduced his relations which were to become the locus for
discussing the failure of QM to provide a complete property assignment from the
mathematical properties of wavefunctions, and then tried to confirm them physically by the
famous gamma-ray microscope thought experiment. Now, whereas the initial deduction
presupposes that reality is conceived as a literal counterpart of the wavefunction (a possible
way to instantiate position 1c), quantum objects being thus wave-like and therefore
fuzzy, the microscope experiment assumes that reality is formed of more or less classical
particles, with sharply defined properties, but whose precise values are claimed to lie
beyond experimental determination (position 1b). In his notoriously obscure texts on the
completeness of QM, Niels Bohr also intermingled elements of both the ontic and the
epistemic defences of completeness (positions 1c and 1b), as well as of anti-realism
(position 1a).
Now the tenability of the central thesis of this article depends on the existence of
good reasons for adopting position 1c. We believe such reasons do exist: strong objections
can be raised to all the other alternatives.

10
Firstly, although most of the founding fathers of QM leaned towards one type or
another of anti-realism (position 1a), we hold that the abandonment of the classical realist
stand in science is not forced upon us by QM, as they often assumed, and that a careful
philosophical analysis of the issue favours realism instead (Chibeni 1999).
Secondly, concerning position 1b, even if positivism is taken for granted, the defence
of completeness through the idea of a disturbance upon measurement has several
irreparable conceptual shortcomings, as first shown by Popper in his Logic of Scientific
Discovery (first German edition 1934). But Popper was running against the tide, and his
criticism passed virtually unnoticed for more than two decades. It is now generally agreed,
however, that his arguments were sound, and that his point can be supported by other,
independent arguments as well. Details on this issue can be found elsewhere (Chibeni
2001).
Finally, we shall examine in a separate section the case against position 2
(incompleteness), as it deserves a more detailed attention.

4. Restoring ontic sharpness in microphysics?

By 1935 the completeness thesis was already prevalent, and not even EPRs and
Schrdingers powerful arguments for incompleteness changed the rapidly established
orthodoxy. It is our opinion, however, that the weight of the original rebuttals to these
arguments was overestimated, and that sound evidence for completeness did not arise until
much later. Ironically, such evidence which, given the analysis above, should also count
as evidence for ontic vagueness was finally obtained through a series of no-go results
concerning the so-called hidden variables research programme, which aimed exactly to
complete what was apparently missing in QM.

11
In the literature on the foundations of QM, the expression hidden variables
designates certain parameters, to be added to the quantum mechanical states in order that all
measurable physical magnitudes of objects get a definite, sharp value. The first and most
important hidden variables theory (HVT) was formulated by David Bohm in 1952. This
theory is capable of reproducing all the quantum mechanical empirical predictions and, at
the same time, of restoring sharpness in all the properties of quantum objects. As Bohm
himself noticed, however, this achievement has a price: certain other theoretical and
conceptual traits of classical theories are violated by the theory. More importantly, further
theoretical and experimental research has revealed that not only Bohms theory has to pay
this price, but any other theory capable of completing the quantum mechanical property
assignment must pay as well. We are here referring to the following three classes of results.
There is, first, a series of algebraic proofs, in the tradition of von Neumanns famous
1932 theorem, to the effect that completing the quantum states through hidden variables
leads to inconsistencies (Gleason 1957, Bell 1966, Kochen and Specker 1967, Mermin
1990). Bohms theory escapes inconsistency only by incorporating a form of
contextualism, roughly meaning that some properties assigned to the object somewhat
reflects its experimental context in a thoroughly non-classical way.
Secondly, in 1964 John S. Bell proved that the most objectionable trait of Bohms
theory, nonlocality, must be present in any HVT reproducing certain quantum mechanical
predictions concerning correlated, EPR-type pairs of objects.10 These peculiar predictions

10

Roughly put, locality is the assumption well backed by relativity theory that all physical

influences take finite time to propagate in space. For an exposition of the reasons that have led Einstein to

12
have subsequently been confirmed by several experiments, the most important of which
being reported in Aspect et. al. (1982). Any empirically adequate HVT must, therefore, be
non-local.
Finally, some authors succeeded, more recently, in bringing together these two
classes of results, showing that the assumption of a local HVT also leads to mathematical
inconsistencies (Heywood and Redhead 1983, Greenberger et al. 1989).
These results mean that although the restoration of sharpness in the dynamic
properties of quantum objects is possible, as clearly shown by Bohm, the price may be too
high. They form, thus, the basis of a strong argument for taking quantum mechanical
fuzziness as being much more than a peculiarity of a specific theoretical representation of
reality (QM).11

5. Vague quantum objects: three simple examples

The boundaries concerning which objects are regarded as vague or precise are often taken
as their spatio-temporal boundaries.12 This restriction is by no means necessary, and tends
to bias the issue against ontic vagueness, especially when the theories used to analyse the

maintain that this is a principle to which we should absolutely hold fast in physics (1949, p. 85), see Fine
1986 and Howard 1985.
11

French and Krause seem to be the first who have drawn attention, if only en passant, to the no-

hidden-variables results in connection with the issue of ontic vagueness. In their (1996), for instance, they
remark that the force of Bells Theorem lies in its generality, and it is this which renders the vagueness ontic
in the sense that it is not dependent upon a particular representation (p. 25). See also their forthcoming
article Quantum vagueness.
12

See e.g. Burgess (1990, 263), Keefe and Smith (1997a, 50), Sorensen (1998).

13
notion of a material object are classical theories. It is important to bear in mind that it can
be discussed, for instance, if an object possesses a definite energy, or spin component, or
polarization, and these are not spatio-temporal properties.
QM offers plenty of examples of objects lacking properties of both kinds. According
to QM this is indeed the rule, not the exception, at least in the case of the fundamental
entities forming the material world, such as electrons, photons, neutrinos, protons, neutrons,
quarks, etc. We shall now give three straightforward examples, taken from non-relativistic
quantum mechanics. None of the conclusions drawn depends on this or other
simplifications, which are made solely for the sake of mathematical simplicity.
a) Let us begin by considering the simplest example possible, that of a single particle
with one degree of freedom not subject to the action of forces. Take, for instance, an
electron allowed to move along a straight line, and let us concentrate on two of its dynamic
properties, position and momentum (mass times velocity). At any given instant its quantum
mechanical state will then be the complex-valued function of the spatial coordinate x
(x) = (2)-

(p) exp (ipx/) dp

where is the reduced Plank constant, p is the momentum coordinate and (p) is a
complex-valued function of p. Although (x) has no straightforward meaning as a wave
in ordinary 3-d space, by the Born rule its modulus squared gives directly the probability of
getting a result between x and x + dx in a position measurement: P(x)dx = |(x)|2dx. In
typical situations, this quantity has non-zero value over large regions of space. Now if the
wavefunction (x) is taken as embodying maximal information on the object prior to
measurement, it is unavoidable, upon a realist construal of the wavefunction, to conclude
that before measurement the object lacks a precise spatial localization. In other words, on

14
the assumption that QM is complete the above probabilities cannot be understood
epistemically, i.e., as reflecting lack of precise knowledge (as they could in classical
physics). Thus, if we indulge at all to consider the real object and its properties, we must
think of it as something spread over space, and lacking a spatial boundary. The exact
shape of this fuzzy entity will, of course, depend on (p), which in turn depends on the
details of the actual physical circumstances involving the object. Here, it is enough to
remark that (p) itself is a wavefunction, related to another property of the object, its
momentum. Once again, this relation is indirect: the (generalized) Born rule says that
|(p)|2 dp gives the probability of finding, in a momentum measurement, a value in the
interval [p, p + dp]. Exactly the same analysis holds for p and for x, that is, p is also
typically a fuzzy property of the object. It is worth mentioning that the amount or
degree of fuzziness in these two properties is precisely determined by mathematical
analysis of the wavefunctions: the more diffuse is the object in space, the less diffuse it
will be in momentum, and vice versa. This is just one way of analysing the contents of the
Heisenberg principle. It should be clear, however, that in this interpretation the principle is
not at all about uncertainties (as the usual name uncertainty principle implies), but
about lack of definiteness of properties. (See Chibeni 2001 for more details on this
distinction.) Notice, finally, that one of the most important unsolved problems in the
foundations of QM is just to understand why and how such fuzzy properties become
definite upon measurement. The proponents of the orthodox interpretation of QM famously
claimed that the state transition induced by measurement (from wavefunctions such as
and to eigenfunctions of the measured quantity, affording precise values to it) should be
introduced ad hoc and post factum. For a realist this position is totally unacceptable. He

15
wants to understand what is really happening, in terms of physical properties and
interactions; furthermore, he cannot get along with the subjectivist idea that this process is
peculiar to measurements.
b) Our second example results from the first by considering that the object is now
bounded between two impenetrable barriers, lying at x = a and x = + a. Although in this
case too we have fuzziness in x and p, we shall concentrate our attention on another
property, kinetic energy. Restricting, again, the analysis to a given instant, we have that the
time-independent Schrdinger equation has two possible classes of solutions:
un(x) = (a)- cos (nx/2a) (for n = 1, 3, 5, ...)
and
vn(x) = (a)- sin (nx/2a) (for n = 2, 4, 6, ...).
An important new feature of this example is that if the object is in one of these states (for a
particular n) it will have a definite energy, given by
E = 22n2/8ma2
where m is the objects mass. Furthermore, only these values can be found in energy
measurements. The energy spectrum is thus discrete, or quantized. Also, the above states
called the energy eigenstates are stationary, i.e., if the object is put in one of them, it
remains indefinitely in it, unless something interferes with the object. However, the
superposition principle allows any linear combination of eigenstates as bona fide states.
Thus, the general state of our bounded object will be

(x) =

An un(x) + Bn vn(x)

n =1

where An and Bn are complex coefficients, and where the terms An un and Bn vn exist only
for odd and even n, respectively. If more than one of the coefficients is non-vanishing, the

16
state will not be an energy eigenstate. In this case the theory does not ascribe a precise
energy to the object: energy becomes fuzzy. Furthermore, the state will no longer be
stationary, which implies that the exact shape of this fuzziness will vary with time. By
the Born rule we have that | An |2 and | Bn |2 give the probability of getting the corresponding
energy eigenvalues in an energy measurement, when the object is in the state (x). Again,
on the assumption of completeness these probabilities cannot be interpreted epistemically.
Therefore, the energy property of the object is vague, except when the state is an energy
eigenstate. As in the case of position and momentum, this vagueness disappears when an
energy measurement is made, and it remains a mystery why and how this can happen.
c) For our third and last example we shall take a specifically quantum mechanical
property called spin. The name might suggest some resemblance to the spinning movement
of an ordinary body, but this suggestion is misleading. Like ordinary angular momentum,
quantum spin is a vector; but contrary to the angular momentum vector, its magnitude is
fixed: spin is indeed one of the static properties of elementary particles, by which they are
classed. The square of the spin magnitude is conventionally written as S2 = s (s + 1) ,
where s is a positive integer or half-integer. Thus, for electrons, protons and neutrons, for
instance, we have s = . For simplicity, one says that these are spin- particles. One may
now define a related set of properties, the spin components. These properties depend, of
course, on the spin, but they are dynamic and, in contrast with the components of ordinary
vectors, they are always quantized. For spin- objects, for instance, there are just two spin
components along any spatial direction z: sz = + and sz = . Take now one of these
objects, an electron, say. Its complete quantum mechanical state must include, besides a
wavefunction like those of our examples (a) and (b), a part related to spin. Disregard, for
now, the wavefunction. The spin part of the state is represented by a vector in a two-

17
dimensional Hilbert space (notice that this is not the spin vector!). For any direction z, two
states are of special interest: the eigenstates of sz, associated with the eigenvalues + and
. These can be abstractly designated by |+ z and | z. Thus, if the electron is in state
|+ z, its spin component along z is + ; if it is | z, this property has the value .
There is no vagueness here. If however, as allowed by the superposition principle, we take
a state which is not one of these eigenstates then the spin component becomes blurred. In
fact, a general spin state for a spin- object can be written as
| = |+ z + | z
where and are complex coefficients. When none of these coefficients is zero, the state
is such that there is ontic vagueness in the property sz. Once again, the modulus squared of
the coefficients gives the probabilities of getting the results + or in a measurement
of sz, and these probabilities are not related to our ignorance as to the real properties of the
object, on the orthodox assumption of completeness.

6. Conclusion
After arguing that what science tells us about matter should be taken into account in the
debate on ontic vagueness, we remarked that the philosophers current disinclination to
believe in vague objects is partly due to their implicit adherence to superseded classical
theories. We showed, both by a general theoretical analysis and by some concrete
examples, that our best contemporary theory on the structure of mater, quantum mechanics,
clearly ascribes fuzzy properties to objects. The examples were chosen so as to avoid
several unnecessary complications inherent in the example proposed by Lowe in his muchdiscussed 1994 article. Furthermore, we pointed out that several theoretical and

18
experimental results in microphysics afford very strong evidence for the existence of vague
objects, as they prove that any theory purporting to restore sharpness in the properties of
quantum objects will meet with severe constraints.
We stress that our case for ontic vagueness obviously presupposes a commitment to
at least a mild version of scientific realism. But, as we remarked in section 3, QM or, more
generally, microphysics does not represent a direct threat to this epistemological stand. In
particular, we do not think Putnam is right in holding that quantum vagueness indicates that
something seems to be wrong with metaphysical realism (1983, 274). Here, we fully
agree with French and Krause, who hold, to the contrary, that one way to maintain a form
of realism in the quantum context is to take vagueness seriously

13

. We would go even

further than these authors, and say that this is the best way of introducing realism in
microphysics.14 If, for good physical and methodological reasons, we shun contextual,
nonlocal HVTs, we should accept the challenge of devising an ontology for the microworld which takes at face value what QM says, and this includes vagueness.
Given the discouragement imposed on a whole generation of students by the leaders
of the orthodox, Copenhagen interpretation of QM, it comes as no surprise that the search
for a quantum ontology is still in its infancy (Krause 2000, 164). Notwithstanding, some
progress has been made in recent decades, and it is only to be hoped that further research
will shed more light on this challenging issue.

13

French and Krause (1996, footnote 1).

14

A clear, if bizarre, alternative would be the so-called many-worlds interpretation of QM; see Geroch

1984 and other papers in the same issue of Nos for more details.

19
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Mark Colyvan for his detailed and useful comments on a previous
version of this article.

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Silvio Seno Chibeni
Departamento de Filosofia IFCH
Universidade Estadual de Campinas
Cx. Postal 6110, 13083-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]