Chien-hsing Ho’s monograph Worldly Indeterminacy has now been published online by Oxford University Press as an Open Access title. See here and below for more details.

Adopting a “fusion philosophy” approach, the book draws on Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhist thought to support and reinforce the recent shift in analytic philosophy toward recognizing indeterminacy (or, more narrowly, vagueness) as a feature of the world itself. After defending worldly or metaphysical indeterminacy against influential challenges and examining both traditional and contemporary resources, the work develops a systematic theory, termed “ontic indeterminacy,” which analyzes the fundamental characteristics of this phenomenon through the complementary ideas of conclusive indeterminability and provisional determinability. The theory also addresses related semantic, logical, and applicational issues, and it shows how indeterminacy can permeate all aspects of reality.

The book is both a cross-cultural philosophical exploration and a contribution to contemporary debates. By bringing Buddhist perspectives to bear on analytic metaphysics, it expands the conceptual horizons of analytic philosophers and moves beyond certain presumptions and limitations of mainstream Western philosophy. It also brings out the contemporary significance of Madhyamaka thought and shows what cross-cultural philosophical engagement can achieve.