Alan Sidelle

The Answering Machine Paradox

Whatever disagreements analysts of indexical expressions may have, there is nearly universal agreement that the referents of utterances of ‘I,’ ‘here,’ and ‘now’ are, respectively, the utterer, the place of utterance, and the time of utterance. This seems to lead to the result that utterances of ‘I am here now’ are always true (or, if you like, true at the time of utterance). While they do not express necessary truths — no one is essentially at any particular place at any particular time — it looks like they should necessarily express truths; in this, ‘I am here now’ seems to resemble ‘I exist’. And we are sometimes aware of this sort of vacuity in these utterances; the theoretical result meshes well with our everyday experience.

Coincidence: The Grounding Problem, Object-Specifying Principles, and Some Consequences

Abstract This paper lays out the basic structure of any view involving coincident entities, in the light of the grounding problem. While the account is not novel, I highlight fundamental features, to which attention is not usually properly drawn. With this in place, I argue for a number of further claims: (1) The basic differences between coincident objects are modal differences, and any other differences between them need to be explained in terms of these differences. More specifically, the basic difference is not a difference in sort. (2) A number of recent defenses of coincidence, which share the basic structure I outline, misidentify what, in their accounts, plays the basic role of addressing (if not solving) the grounding problem. More tentatively, I argue (3) Coincident entities differ only in these modal properties, and properties they entail. In particular, they do not differ in properties like ‘being a tree,’ ‘being a statue,’ or aesthetic properties, and finally (4) in light of how the account of coincidence offered addresses the grounding problem, the grounding problem provides no reason to prefer monism to pluralism.