Abstract

Any discussion regarding the famous Sorites Paradox is incomplete without considering the value of contextual logic and its meta-language of vagueness. Wittgenstein, though he did not write extensively on the Sorites Paradox in particular, is deeply concerned with its supposed implications. The later Wittgenstein's treatment of logical vagueness in natural and formal languages, and his accompanying treatment of logical soundness as it applies to ordinary languages is thus of considerable help when thinking about the Sorites Paradox. In this paper I pair the later Wittgenstein's treatment of meaning in context with the age-old problem, manifest in the Sorites Paradox, of what happens when we apply induction ad infinitum to a seemingly stable item in a specific, meaning-bearing lexicon