Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper develops a unified formal framework for understanding open texture. Building on Kit Fine’s specification space approach, I formalise three distinct accounts: open texture as perpetual openness, as freedom to diverge rationally, and as defeasibility. I show that these formalisations can come apart, while constraints on admissible precisifications create entailment relations between them. I then illustrate the framework’s utility by applying it to Horty’s Reason Model of legal precedent. Finally, the framework highlights a principled difference between open texture and vagueness: whilst supervaluationist approaches to vagueness assume that vague predicates admit complete precisifications that preserve penumbral connections, predicates exhibiting perpetual openness preserve penumbral connections only in limited cases.
Source: Journal of Philosophical Logic
Author: Fabian Pregel
Institution: University of Vienna
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,990
Funders: Austrian Science Fund, Universität Wien
Awards: G5207368950, G8590477180
OpenAlex ID: W7162088071