Vagueness and non-indexical contextualism
In Sarah Sawyer (ed.), New Waves in Philosophy of Language. Palgrave Macmillan (2009)
| Abstract | Contextualism concerning vagueness (hereafter ‘CV’) is a popular response to the puzzle of vagueness.[1] The goal in this paper is to uncover in what ways vagueness may be a particular species of context-sensitivity. The most promising form of CV turns out to be a version of socalled ‘Non-Indexical Contextualism’.[2] In §2, we sketch a generic form of CV (hereafter ‘GCV’). In §3, we distinguish between Truth CV and Content CV. A non-indexical form of CV is a form of Truth CV, while an indexical form of CV is a form of Content CV. In §4, we argue that the theory of vagueness given in Fara (2000) is crucially incomplete but is best seen as a non-indexical form of CV. In §5, we set forth four kinds of error-theory to which CV might be committed. It turns out that Non-Indexical CV is committed to a weaker, and more plausible, error-theory than Indexical CV. In §6, we address a challenge posed by Keefe (2007) to the effect that CV entails that any speech report of what has been said by a particular vague utterance, where the context of utterance and the reporting context are relevantly different, will almost always be inaccurate. While this challenge is prima facie effective against Indexical CV it proves to be less effective against Non-Indexical CV. In §7, we look at two tests for context-sensitivity and assess whether they can be employed against CV. These tests, if cogent, reveal that the only workable form of CV is Non-Indexical CV. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesSimon Prosser (2005). Cognitive Dynamics and Indexicals. Mind and Language 20 (4):369–391.
K. Romdenh-Romluc (2006). I. Philosophical Studies 128 (2):257 - 283.
Carl Baker (2012). Indexical Contextualism and the Challenges From Disagreement. Philosophical Studies 157 (1):107-123.
Martijn Blaauw (2005). Challenging Contextualism. Grazer Philosophische Studien 69 (1):127-146.
Gillian Russell (2011). Indexicals, Context-Sensitivity and the Failure of Implication. Synthese 183 (2):143-160.
Jonas Åkerman & Patrick Greenough (2009). Vagueness and Non-Indexical Contextualism. In Sarah Sawyer (ed.), New Waves in Philosophy of Language. Palgrave Macmillan.
Jonas Åkerman & Patrick Greenough (2010). Hold the Context Fixed, Vagueness Still Remains. In Sebastiano Moruzzi & Richard Dietz (eds.), Cuts and Clouds. Oxford University Press.
Wayne A. Davis (2004). Are Knowledge Claims Indexical? Erkenntnis 61 (2-3):257 - 281.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-03-16Total downloads79 ( #9,949 of 549,088 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,722 of 549,088 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
