Three Faces of Open Texture: A Unified Framework

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.