Ben Holguín

This paper is about the logic of progressive aspect. We defend a new principle, which we call ‘Progressive Specificity’. Progressive Specificity says that if you are Ving, and to V is to X or Y, then you are Xing or you are Ying. We offer seven arguments for Progressive Specificity, which explore connections with credences, counterfactuals, indicatives, ‘wish’ reports, implicatures, and more. These arguments extend to the futurative progressive, showing that prevailing accounts of the futurative, which treat it as conveying plans, must be rejected. We consider two types of apparent counterexamples to Progressive Specificity: verbs of selection, such as ‘decide’, and verbs of creation, such as ‘build’. We then respond to an objection that Progressive Specificity gives rise to objectionable arbitrariness about what things are doing. Our response appeals to the close connection between Progressive Specificity and the principle of Conditional Excluded Middle. This connection, previously unexplored, provides additional support for Progressive Specificity, and paves the way toward a conditional account of the progressive.

Conditional excluded middle (CEM) is the following principe of counterfactual logic: either, if it were the case that φ, it would be the case that ψ, or, if it were the case that φ, it would be the case that not-ψ. I will first show that CEM entails the identity of indiscernibles, the falsity of physicalism, and the failure of the modal to supervene on the categorical and of the vague to supervene on the precise. I will then argue that we should accept these startling conclusions, since CEM is valid.