Is vagueness Sui generis ?

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (1):5 – 34 (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

On the dominant view of vagueness, if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then it is unsettled, not merely epistemically, but metaphysically, whether Harry is bald. In other words, vagueness is a type of indeterminacy. On the standard alternative, vagueness is a type of ignorance: if it is vague whether Harry is bald, then, even though it is metaphysically settled whether Harry is bald, we cannot know whether Harry is bald. On my view, vagueness is neither a type of indeterminacy nor a type of ignorance. Rather, it is sui generis.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,219

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

An anti-epistemicist consequence of Margin for error semantics for knowledge.Delia Graff Fara - 2002 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (1):127-142.
Does Vagueness Exclude Knowledge?David Barnett - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (1):22 - 45.
Vague Entailment.David Barnett - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (2):325 - 335.
Varieties of vagueness.Trenton Merricks - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (1):145-157.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
181 (#104,260)

6 months
1 (#1,459,555)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy.Elizabeth Barnes & J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Volume 6. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 103-148.

View all 18 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Vagueness, truth and logic.Kit Fine - 1975 - Synthese 30 (3-4):265-300.
General semantics.David K. Lewis - 1970 - Synthese 22 (1-2):18--67.
Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1995 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):589-601.
Blindspots.Roy Sorensen - 1990 - Mind 99 (393):137-140.
Distinctions Without a Difference.Vann McGee & Brian McLaughlin - 1995 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (S1):203-251.

View all 28 references / Add more references