Vagueness: A Guide

This volume analyzes and studies how vagueness occurs and matters as a specific problem in the context of theories that are primarily about something else. After an introductory chapter on the Sorites paradox by Dominic Hyde, in which the author exposes the various forms the paradox can take and some of the responses that have been pursued, the book proceeds with Jonathan Lowe's chapter on vagueness and metaphysics. In it, Lowe explores some important questions concerning vagueness that arise in connection with the deployment of certain key metaphysical notions such as the notions of an object, of identity, of constitution, of composition, of persistence, and finally of existence. In the following chapter on vagueness and logic, Stewart Shapiro discusses the sort of model theory that is suggested (or demanded) by the main, rival accounts of vagueness. Roy Cook then addresses vagueness and meaning, focusing on contextualist, epistemicist, and indeterminist theories. In a chapter dedicated to vagueness and observationality, Diana Raffman examines the problems of the observational indiscriminability of the observational vague predicates and of the nontransitivity of the observational indiscriminability relation, and she discusses some experimental results. Robert van Rooij's chapter offers an analysis of vagueness within linguistics, focusing on approaches that take comparison classes into account. Finally, Timothy Endicott's chapter explores the idea that vagueness in law is typically extravagant and that extravagant vagueness is a necessary feature of legal systems.

Auteur
Giuseppina Ronzitti is specialized in philosophy of mathematics and defended her PhD thesis on mathematical intuitionism in 2002 in Genova (Italy). She has worked as a researcher in France (Archives Poincaré, Nancy) and in Finland (University of Helsinki) and has had longer and shorter stays in the Netherlands (Nijmegen), the US (University of Notre Dame, Indiana) and Norway (The Wittgenstein Archives, Bergen).

Résumé

This volume explores how vagueness matters as a specific problem in the context of theories that are primarily about something else. After an introductory chapter on the Sorites paradox, which exposes the various forms the paradox can take and some of the responses that have been pursued, the book proceeds with a chapter on vagueness and metaphysics, which covers important questions concerning vagueness that arise in connection with the deployment of certain key metaphysical notions. Subsequent chapters address the following: vagueness and logic, which discusses the sort of model theory that is suggested by the main, rival accounts of vagueness; vagueness and meaning, which focuses on contextualist, epistemicist, and indeterminist theories; vagueness and observationality; vagueness within linguistics, which focuses on approaches that take comparison classes into account; and the idea that vagueness in law is typically extravagant and that extravagant vagueness is a necessary feature of legal systems.

Contenu
Notes on the Contributors.- Introduction: Vagueneness and.... ; Giuseppina Ronzitti.- 1. The Sorites Paradox; Dominic Hyde.- 2. Vagueness and Metaphysics; Jonathan Lowe.- 3. Vagueness and Logic; Stewart Shapiro.- 4. Vagueness an Meaning Theories; Roy Cook.- 5. Vagueness and Observationality; Diana Raffman.- 6. Vagueness and Linguistics; Robert van Rooij.- 7. Vagueness and Law; Timothy Endicott.- Index.