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Indeterminacy

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Indeterminacy denotes uncertainty, openness, or lack of fixed meaning—whether in language, knowledge, or reality itself.

Detailed Definition
Poetry thrives on indeterminacy through ambiguity, multiple readings, or unresolved endings. Modernist and postmodern poets embrace it to reflect quantum uncertainty, linguistic slippage, or the limits of representation, inviting active interpretation from the reader.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Ashbery’s "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" embraces indeterminacy of self and representation; Wallace Stevens’s "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" offers no single truth, only shifting perspectives; T.S. Eliot’s "The Waste Land" uses fragmentation to reflect epistemological indeterminacy; Jorie Graham’s open-field poetics resist closure, inviting reader co-creation; indeterminacy appears in Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Duino Elegies," where angels and humans remain mutually mysterious.
Additional Notes
Indeterminacy (from quantum physics and deconstruction) suggests meaning is never fixed; Ashbery and Stevens embrace it through ambiguity and polysemy; students should consider how open-endedness invites co-creation with the reader, but also ask: does indeterminacy serve liberation (multiple truths) or evasion (refusing accountability)?
Also Known As
Ambiguity Openness Indeterminism Uncertainty
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