Ratio 25 (1):19-33 (2012)
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Abstract |
We argue that standard definitions of ‘vagueness’ prejudice the question of how best to deal with the phenomenon of vagueness. In particular, the usual understanding of ‘vagueness’ in terms of borderline cases, where the latter are thought of as truth-value gaps, begs the question against the subvaluational approach. According to this latter approach, borderline cases are inconsistent (i.e., glutty not gappy). We suggest that a definition of ‘vagueness’ should be general enough to accommodate any genuine contender in the debate over how to best deal with the sorites paradox. Moreover, a definition of ‘vagueness’ must be able to accommodate the variety of forms sorites arguments can take. These include numerical, total-ordered sorites arguments, discrete versions, continuous versions, as well as others without any obvious metric structure at all. After considering the shortcomings of various definitions of ‘vagueness’, we propose a very general non-question-begging definition.
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DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9329.2011.00513.x |
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References found in this work BETA
An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is.Graham Priest - 2008 - Cambridge University Press.
Vagueness and Degrees of Truth.Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2008 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
View all 31 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Sorites Paradox.Dominic Hyde & Diana Raffman - 2018 - In Edward Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
View all 11 citations / Add more citations
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