Lessons for Vagueness from Scrambled Sorites

Metaphysica 14 (2):225-237 (2013)
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Abstract

Vagueness demands many boundaries. Each is permissible, in that a thinker may without error use it to distinguish objects, though none is mandatory. This is revealed by a thought experiment—scrambled sorites—in which objects from a sorites series are presented in a random order, and subjects are required to make their judgments without access to any previous objects or their judgments concerning them.

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Mark Sainsbury
University of Texas at Austin

Citations of this work

Sorites paradox.Dominic Hyde - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Sorites Paradox.Dominic Hyde & Diana Raffman - 2012 - In Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Introduction: Vagueness and Ontology.Geert Keil - 2013 - Metaphysica 14 (2):149-164.

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Vagueness.Timothy Williamson - 1994 - New York: Routledge.
Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
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.

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