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Vagueness : a reader

Author: Rosanna Keefe; Peter Smith
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1996.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Vagueness is currently the subject of vigorous debate in the philosophy of logic and language. Vague terms - such as 'tall', 'red', 'bald', and 'tadpole' - have borderline cases (arguably, someone may be neither tall nor not tall); and they lack well-defined extensions (there is no sharp boundary between tall people and the rest). So the phenomenon of vagueness poses a fundamental challenge to classical logic and  Read more...
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Details

Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Rosanna Keefe; Peter Smith
ISBN: 0262112256 9780262112253
OCLC Number: 36086811
Notes: "A Bradford book."
Description: vi, 352 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: 1. Introduction: theories of vagueness / Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith --
2. On the sorites / Diogenes Laertius, Galen and Cicero --
3. Vagueness / Bertrand Russell --
4. Vagueness: an exercise in logical analysis / Max Black --
5. Vagueness and logic / Carl G. Hempel --
6. Truth and vagueness / Henryk Mehlberg --
7. The sorites paradox / James Cargile --
8. Wang's paradox / Michael Dummett --
9. Vagueness, truth and logic / Kit Fine --
10. Language-mastery and the sorites paradox / Crispin Wright --
11. Truth, belief and vagueness / Kenton F. Machina --
12. Further reflections on the sorites paradox / Crispin Wright --
13. Concepts without boundaries / R. M. Sainsbury --
14. Vagueness and ignorance / Timothy Williamson --
15. Sorites paradoxes and the semantics of vagueness / Michael Tye --
16. Vagueness by degress / Dorothy Edgington --
17. Can there be vague objects? / Gareth Evans --
18. Vague identity: Evans misunderstood / David Lewis.
Responsibility: edited by Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith.

Abstract:

Vagueness is currently the subject of vigorous debate in the philosophy of logic and language. Vague terms - such as 'tall', 'red', 'bald', and 'tadpole' - have borderline cases (arguably, someone may be neither tall nor not tall); and they lack well-defined extensions (there is no sharp boundary between tall people and the rest). So the phenomenon of vagueness poses a fundamental challenge to classical logic and semantics, which assumes that propositions are either true or false and that extensions are determinate. Another striking problem to which vagueness gives rise is the sorites paradox. If you remove one grain from a heap of sand, surely you must be left with a heap. Yet apply this principle repeatedly as you remove grains one by one, and you end up, absurdly, with a solitary grain that counts as a heap. This anthology collects for the first time the most important papers in the area.

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