The vanishing point is a representational gap that organizes the visual field. Study of this singularity revolutionized art in the fifteenth century. Further reflection on the vanishing point invites the conjecture that the self is an absence. This paper opens with perceptual peculiarities of the vanishing point and closes with the metaphysics of personal identity.
Tired of being weak-willed? Do you want to end procrastination and back-sliding? Are you envious of those paragons of self-control who always do what they consider best? Thanks to a breakthrough in therapeutic philosophy, you too can now close the gap between what you think you ought to do and what you actually do. Just send $1000 to the address below and you will never again succumb to temptation. This is a MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE. The first time you do something that (...) you know to be irrational, your money will be refunded, no questions asked. (shrink)
If people never dreamed, would it make a difference to how they picture reality? Or themselves? Philosophers would certainly lose the most natural way of introducing skepticism. The Chinese Taoist, Chuang Tzu (369 B. C. - ?), dreamt he was a butterfly. When he awoke he wondered whether he was a man who dreamt he was butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming he is a man. Any experience can be explained as either a faithful representation of the world or as (...) a mere figment of a sleeper's imagination. (shrink)
Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed.
The vanishing point is a representational gap that organizes the visual field. Study of this singularity revolutionized art in the fifteenth century. Further reflection on the vanishing point invites the conjecture that the self is an absence. This paper opens with perceptual peculiarities of the vanishing point and closes with the metaphysics of personal identity.
Surprisingly, the fact that the speaker is lying is sometimes common knowledge between everyone involved (the addressee, the general audience, bystanders, etc.). Strangely, we condemn these bald-faced lies more severely than disguised lies. The wrongness of lying springs from the intent to deceive – just the feature missing in the case of bald-faced lies. These puzzling lies arise systematically when assertions are forced. Intellectual duress helps to explain another type of non-deceptive false assertion : lying to yourself. (...) In the end, I conclude that the apparent intensity of our disapproval of non-deceptive lies is a rhetorical illusion. (shrink)
This enjoyable book presents a potpourri of paradoxes with the purpose of showing how they connect to serious philosophical issues. The main paradoxes are Zeno's, the sorites, Newcomb's problem, the paradoxes of confirmation, the surprise examination, and the paradoxes of self-reference. A final chapter defends the assumption that contradictions are unacceptable and an appendix throws in sixteen minor paradoxes. Along the way, R. M. Sainsbury peppers the reader with helpful queries and provocative asides.
"Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are not more than duty to oneself"(Otto Weininger). So goes the head quotation of Ray Monk's biography Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Monk thereby introduces Wittgenstein's peculiar admiration for the crackpot author of Sex and Character along with Wittgenstein's moralistic dedication to logic. Monk elaborates with anecdotes. For instance, Wittgenstein would pace Bertrand Russell's room mixing logic with selfcriticism. Russell asked Wittgenstein whether he was thinking about logic or his sins. "Both!" (...) barked Wittgenstein. (shrink)
Imagine a child playing in the afternoon sun, suddenly jerking her arm one way then the other, trying to catch her shadow out. The game, the child soon learns, is one that she can never win. Her shadow moves the moment she does. Such childish games father common sense wisdom; when things move, so do their shadows. Or do they? A spinning sphere casts a shadow. But does its shadow also spin? The question takes you by surprise. Surely not? you (...) think. But then again, why not? This is the trope of Sorensen’s work. A seemingly simple phenomenon is probed in just the right way and, without warning, you are unsure what to say. (shrink)
This report is also a consolidated response to three memoranda. The legal division requested an historical review as patent support. Engineering has solicited input on product development. Thirdly, I am responding to a plea from the Personnel Department. Their headhunters have asked for more specific advice on how to recruit skeptics.
When my son Maxwell was a toddler, he did not believe he was ever an infant. This skepticism became manifest when he started identifying himself in photographs. Maxwell was accurate with photographs that were taken after age six months. But he dismissed earlier pictures as photographs of "BABIES".
Do not pass by my epitaph, Wayfarer, but when you have stopped, hear and learn, then depart. There is no boat, To carry you to Hades, No ferryman Charon, No judge Aeacus, No Dog Cerberus. All of us below have become bones and ashes. Truly, I have nothing more to tell you. So depart, wayfarer, Lest dead though I am I seem to you to be a teller of vain tales.
No one can know the threshold of a vague predicate. For instance, given that ten is the last small number, no one can know that ten fits the description `the last small number’.1 Knowledge that ten is the last small number requires knowledge of the weaker proposition that ten is a small number. Knowledge of thresholds entails knowledge at thresholds. Timothy Williamson ingeniously argues that this weaker knowledge is always impossible. On that basis he claims to have explained our ignorance (...) of the thresholds of vague predicates. (shrink)
The vanishing point is a representational gap that organizes the visual field. Study of this singularity revolutionized art in the fifteenth century. Further reflection on the vanishing point invites the conjecture that the self is an absence. This paper opens with perceptual peculiarities of the vanishing point and closes with the metaphysics of personal identity.
Sorites arguments employ an induction step such as ‘Small numbers have small successors’. People deduce that there must be an exception to the generalization but are reluctant to conclude that the generalization is false. My hypothesis is that the reluctance is due to the "Generic Overgeneralization Effect". Although the propounder of the sorites paradox intends the induction step to be a universal generalization, hearers assimilate universal generalizations to generic generalizations (for instance, ‘All birds fly’ tends to be remembered as ‘Birds (...) fly’). Most generic generalizations tolerate exceptions – especially when those exceptions are rare, abnormal, or difficult to imagine. Any counterexample to the induction step will have all of these features. (shrink)
Shadows haunt the world of common sense by being “out there” independently of whether anyone is looking. Yet they are confi ned to a single sense: sight. Like ghosts, shadows evade tactile corroboration. They do not obey the laws governing material things.
If you read this abstract, then you will understand what my essay is about. Under what conditions would the preceding assertion be a lie? Traditional definitions of lying are always applied to straight declaratives such as ‘The dog ate my homework’. This one sided diet of examples leaves us unprepared for sentences in which conditional probability governs assertibility. The truth-value of conditionals does not play a significant role in the sincere assertion of conditionals. Lying is insincere assertion. So the connection (...) between lying and falsehood is broken when lying with conditionals. Drawing on Frank Jackson's account of indicative conditionals. I argue that it is possible to lie with true conditionals by virtue of their false conventional implicatures. False conversational implicatures only guarantee misleading assertions, not lies. Lying remains a semantic rather than a pragmatic affair. (shrink)
Consider the beginningless sequence: ... being less than 0.01 grams, being less than 0.1 grams, being less than 1 gram, being less than 10 grams ... There is no super-determinate in this chain. Just as the possibility of bottomless constitution shows that there may be no fundamental layer of reality with respect to objects , the possibility of bottomless determination shows that there may be no fundamental level of reality with respect to properties . This possibility supports Stephen Yablo's proportionality (...) principle that the cause of an event is the most specific property that makes a difference. (shrink)
The Pyrrhonian sceptic Favorinus of Arelata personified indeterminacy, cultivating his (or her) borderline status to undermine dogmatism. Inspired by the techniques of Favorinus, I show, by example, that ‘vague’ has borderline cases. These concrete steps lead to a more abstract argument that ‘vague’ has borderline borderline cases and borderline borderline borderline cases. My specimens are intended supplement earlier non-constructive proofs of the vagueness of ‘vague’.
In ‘Epistemic Modals’ (2007), Seth Yalcin proposes Stalnaker-style semantics for epistemic possibility. He is inspired by John MacFarlane’s ingenious defence of relativism, in which claims of epistemic possibility are made rigidly from the perspective of the assessor’s actual stock of information (rather than from the speaker’s knowledge base or that of his audience or community). The innovations of MacFarlane and Yalcin independently reinforce the modal collapse espoused by Jaakko Hintikka in his 1962 epistemic logic (which relied on the implausible KK (...) principle and heavy idealizations). I respond to this new challenge with fresh objections to the underlying S4 equivalence: p p . I also propose counter-analyses of the intriguing data which Yalcin cites in support of his new semantics. A key collateral motivation for this defence of irredundant iterations is to ward off a threat to higher order vagueness. (shrink)
In “The Reappearing Act” István Aranyosi postulates a new way of seeing to solve a puzzle posed in “The Disappearing Act;” an object that is exactly shaded can be seen simply by virtue of its contrast with its environment – just like a shadow. This object need not reflect, refract, absorb or block light. To undermine the motive for this heretical innovation, I generalize the puzzle to situations involving inexact shading. Aranyosi cannot extend his solution to these variations because he (...) needs to conserve principles of camouflage. On the bright side, the solution to the puzzle that I propose in my book Seeing Dark Things does extend to these variations. (shrink)
The tower of language overshadows a cluster of smaller towers. These are the towers corresponding to the sensory systems. Tallest among this group is the tower of vision, “the master sense”.
The eclipse riddle -- Seeing surfaces -- The disappearing act -- Spinning shadows -- Berkeley's shadow -- Para-reflections -- Para-refractions : shadowgrams and the black drop -- Goethe's colored shadows -- Filtows -- Holes in the light -- Black and blue -- Seeing in black and white -- We see in the dark -- Hearing silence.
Verisimilitude has the potential to deepen the understanding of mathematical progress, the principle of charity, and the psychology of regret. One obstacle is the widely held belief that two statements can vary in truthlikeness only if they vary in what they entail. This obstacle is removed with four types of counterexamples. The first concerns necessarily coextensive measurements that differ only with respect to their units (specifically length, area, and volume). The second class ofcounterexamples is composed of mathematical falsehoods. The third (...) class features inconsistent scientific theories. The fourth class of cases features statements that are instructive but meaningless. (shrink)
Seizing the opportunity to apply what they had learned, the students declared a cheating competition. Outspoken participants (future lawyers, politicians, and captains of industry) bragged about their ruses. But to their chagrin, an ethics student prevailed.
Epistemicists say there is a last positive instance in a sorites sequence-we just cannot know which is the last. Timothy Williamson explains that knowledge requires a margin for error and this ensures that the last heap will not be knowable as a heap. However, there is a class of disjunctive predicates for which knowledge at the thresholds is possible. They generate sorites paradoxes that cannot be diagnosed with the margin for error principle.
Mights plug gaps. If p lacks a truth-value, then ‘It might be that p’ should also lack truth-value. Yet epistemic hedges often turn an unassertible statement into an assertible one. The phenomenon is illustrated in detail for two kinds of statements that are frequently alleged to be counterexamples to the principle of bivalence: future contingents and statements that apply predicates to borderline cases. The paper concludes by exploring the prospects for generalizing this gap-plugging strategy.
If a spinning sphere casts a shadow, does the shadow also spin? This riddle is the point of departure for an investigation into the nature of shadow movement. A general theory of motion will encompass all moving things, not just physical objects. Ultimately, I argue that round shadows do indeed spin. Shadows are followers of the objects that cast them. Parts of the shadow correspond to parts of the leader, so motion of the caster's parts accounts for motions of the (...) shadow's parts. I conclude with a discussion of how the dynamic aspects of shadows impose subtle constraints on other puzzles about shadows. (shrink)
The poster boy for my paper is the King's Messenger in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Recall that since the White Queen lives backwards, her memory works forwards. She pities Alice who can only remember things after they happen. Alice asks which things the Queen remembers best: `Oh, things that happened the week after next,' the Queen replied in a careless tone. `For instance, . . . there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial (...) doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.' (Chapter V) Is the King's Messenger being treated unjustly? Why not prepunish people for their future crimes? True, it is generally easier to have knowledge about past crimes than future crimes. But is unpredictability the only problem with prepunishment? (shrink)
Rorty goes on to connect the sorites paradox to analytic philosophy’s long standing concern with the correspondence theory of truth. How do our words hook up with reality? Do our categories map pre-existing contours? The nominalist answers that “facts” are just projections of our forms of speech. Rorty characterizes epistemicism as a hyper-realist backlash. In addition to thinking that our scientific terminology cuts nature at the joint, the epistemicist asserts that even the vague vocabulary of common sense has sharp thresholds.
Drawing inspiration from the ethical pluralism of G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica, I contend that one empty world can be morally better than another. By 'empty' I mean that it is devoid of concrete entities (things that have a position in space or time). These worlds have no thickets or thimbles, no thinkers, no thoughts. Infinitely many of these worlds have laws of nature, abstract entities, and perhaps, space and time. These non-concrete differences are enough to make some of them (...) better than others. (shrink)
“It is irrational to believe others are irrational”. I ungratefully said that to a confidant who asserted that I was negotiating with a fool. I now wonder whether I was the real fool. If I believe my friend is irrational (in light of his attribution of irrationality to the recipient of my offers), then my epigram implies I am irrational. To avoid the implication that I am irrational, I must not believe anyone to be irrational. But then my epigram also (...) forbids me from believing that someone else believes someone is irrational. I must instead believe that the non-existence of irrationality is common knowledge! 1. Volcanic rationality Can I simply repudiate my epigram? I hesitate because the epigram is a consequence of the principle of charity. Roughly, this interpretive principle states that all agents are rational agents. The standard reasoning behind the principle is a priori: there is a conceptual connection between regarding someone as an agent and viewing his beliefs and desires as forming a coherent system that makes his actions intelligible. Since errors about central a priori truths indict one’s rationality, failure to believe the principle of charity would be irrational. Consequently, charity implies all agents believe all agents are rational. Charity iterates. Since meta-charity would also be a central a priori truth, meta-charity implies meta-meta-charity. And meta-meta-charity implies meta-meta-meta-charity. And so on. Therefore, if the principle of charity is true, then it is common knowledge. So is meta-charity. And meta-meta-charity. And so on. (shrink)
Do we need light to see? I argue that the black experience of a man in a perfectly dark cave is a representation of an absence of light, not an absence of representation. There is certainly a difference between his perceptual knowledge and that of his blind companion. Only the sighted man can tell whether the cave is dark just by looking. But perhaps he is merely inferring darkness from his failure to see. To get an unambiguous answer, I switch (...) the focus from perceptual knowledge to non-epistemic seeing. My conclusion is that we see even in the limiting case of absolute darkness - regardless of whether we believe we are seeing. We see little of pratical interest. But in terms of basic information, we see about as much as we do when the lights are on. Depending on what has gone before and after, we may even see ordinary objects. (shrink)
A para-reflection is a privational phenomenon that is often mistaken for a reflection. You have seen them as the ‘reflection’ of your pupil in the mirror. Your iris reflects light in the standard way but your pupil absorbs all but a negligible amount of light (as do other dark things such as coal and black velvet). Para-reflections work by contrast. Since they are parasitic on their host reflections, para-reflections are relational and dependent in a way that reflections are not. Nevertheless, (...) para-reflections obey nearly all the laws of reflection with exquisite fidelity. Para-refractions display parallel obedience to the laws governing refraction. Physicists and psychologists who study optics have neglected these everyday phenomena. Happily, physicists have been attentive and insightful about other privational phenomena such as vacuums and cold spots. I conclude that this kind of subtle treatment of negative things needs to be extended to optics. 1 The invisible red herring 2 Mind-independent privations 3 Para-reflections are mind-independent 4 Parasitical entities 5 Para-refractions and shadows 6 How science has coped with privations. (shrink)
Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Riddles, paradoxes, conundrums--for millennia the human mind has found such knotty logical problems both perplexing and irresistible. Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing before (...) He made the world, he was told: "Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that." A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at "questions like that" and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with such thinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken toward these puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor. (shrink)
An ill-informed reading of Adam Ferguson's epitaph has given me an idea for securing posthumous recognition. Consider philosophers in the year 2201 who read my epitaph: ‘Here lies Roy Sorensen who will be long remembered for his paradoxes’. If these future scholars remember me, then well and good. If they do not remember me, my epitaph will appear to be rendered false by their failure to recall me. Suppose the poignancy of this self-defeat leads my epitaph to be widely (...) repeated. I thereby acquire ignominy as the forgotten philosopher. But wait! Eventually someone will notice that no one can remember that Roy Sorensen is forgotten. For if someone did remember that Roy Sorensen is forgotten, then he would be forgotten—not remembered. After all, memory implies truth. Thus the self-defeating aspect of my epitaph is itself self-defeating! The happy ending is that my epitaph becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy by a curious kind of double-negation. (shrink)
Lake Tanganiyka has lefty and righty cichlid fish that show there can be natural selection for a trait over its mirror image counterpart.This raises the question Can there be biological selection of a whole organism over its mirror image counterpart? That is, could the fitness of a fish be altered by simply changing it into its own enantaniomorph? My answer is no. I present Flatlander thought experiment to demonstrate that mirror imagecounterparts are duplicates because they only differ in how they (...) happen to be oriented in space. The counterparts have the same intrinsic properties and are in the same environment,so there can be no difference in fitness. (shrink)
Prize: One hundred dollars to the first person who identifies a picture of a logical impossibility. I may be willing to pay more for the painting itself. This finder’s fee is simply for pointing out the picture. Let me explain more precisely what I seek.
Roy Sorenson offers a unique exploration of an ancient problem: vagueness. Did Buddha become a fat man in one second? Is there a tallest short giraffe? According to Sorenson's epistemicist approach, the answers are yes! Although vagueness abounds in the way the world is divided, Sorenson argues that the divisions are sharp; yet we often do not know where they are. Written in Sorenson'e usual inventive and amusing style, this book offers original insight on language and logic, the way world (...) is, and our understanding of it. (shrink)
Todd’s quip absurdly implies he knew that 30 carats is the threshold for vulgarity. But most philosophers think stopping here misses the root of the joke. They think there is a more fundamental absurdity; that it is even possible for a single carat to make the difference between a vulgar ring and a non-vulgar ring. We epistemicists defend the possibility.
Positive thinkers love Watty Piper's The little engine that could. The story features a train laden with toys for deserving children on the other side of the mountain. After the locomotive breaks down, a sequence of snooty locomotives come up the track. Each engine refuses to pull the train up the mountain. They are followed by a weary old locomotive that declines, saying "I cannot. I cannot. I cannot." But then a bright blue engine comes up the track. He manages (...) to chug over the mountain by averring "I think I can. I think I can. I think can.". (shrink)
A flop is a picture that mirror reverses the original scene. Some flops are reversed copies. For instance, mirror reversal is systematic with technologies that require contact between a template and an imprint surface. Other flops are just pictures that have undergone the operation of flopping. For example, a slide that is inserted backwards into a projector is a flop.
Poindexter points and asserts `That is Clinton''. But it is vague as to whether he pointed at Clinton or pointed at the more salient man, Gore. Since the vagueness only occurs at the level of reference fixing, the content of the identity proposition is precise. Indeed, it is either a necessary truth or a necessary falsehood. Since Poindexter''s utterance has a hidden truth value by virtue of vagueness, it increases the plausibility of epistemicism. Epistemicism says that vague statements have hidden (...) truth values. If a precise statement can have a hidden truth value conferred indirectly by vaguesness, then a vague statement can have a hidden truth value directly by its own vagueness. (shrink)
Stereotypically, computation involves intrinsic changes to the medium of representation: writing new symbols, erasing old symbols, turning gears, flipping switches, sliding abacus beads. Perspectival computation leaves the original inscriptions untouched. The problem solver obtains the output by merely alters his orientation toward the input. There is no rewriting or copying of the input inscriptions; the output inscriptions are numerically identical to the input inscriptions. This suggests a loophole through some of the computational limits apparently imposed by physics. There can be (...) symbol manipulation without inscription manipulation because symbols are complex objects that have manipulatable elements besides their inscriptions. Since a written symbol is an ordered pair of consisting of a shape and the reader''s orientation to that inscription, the symbol can be changed by changing the orientation rather than inscription. Although there are the usual physical limits associated with reading the answer, the computation is itself instantaneous. This is true even when the sub-calculations are algorithmically complex, exponentially increasing or even infinite. (shrink)
Stepping into the other guy's shoes works best when you resemble him. After all, the procedure is to use yourself as a model: in goes hypothetical beliefs and desires, out comes hypothetical actions and revised beliefs and desires. If you are structurally analogous to the empathee, then accurate inputs generate accurate outputs-just as with any other simulation. The greater the degree of isomorphism, the more dependable and precise the results. This sensitivity to degrees of resemblance suggests that the method of (...) empathy works best for average people. The advantage of being a small but representative sample of the population will create a bootstrap effect. For as average people prosper, there will be more average descendants and so the degree of resemblance in subsequent generations will snowball. Each increment in like-mindedness further enhances the reliability and validity of mental simulation. With each circuit along the spiral, there is tighter and tighter bunching and hence further empowerment of empathy. The method is self-strengthening and eventually molds a population of hyper-similar individuals-which partly solves the problem of other minds. (shrink)
This is a defense and extension of Stephen Yablo's claim that self-reference is completely inessential to the liar paradox. An infinite sequence of sentences of the form 'None of these subsequent sentences are true' generates the same instability in assigning truth values. I argue Yablo's technique of substituting infinity for self-reference applies to all so-called 'self-referential' paradoxes. A representative sample is provided which includes counterparts of the preface paradox, Pseudo-Scotus's validity paradox, the Knower, and other enigmas of the genre. I (...) rebut objections that Yablo's paradox is not a genuine liar by constructing a sequence of liars that blend into Yablo's paradox. I rebut objections that Yablo's liar has hidden self-reference with a distinction between attributive and referential self-reference and appeals to Gregory Chaitin's algorithmic information theory. The paper concludes with comments on the mystique of self-reference. (shrink)
Semantic indeterminacy is the ether of philosophy of language. It fills the interstices of our intentions and pervades accounts of presupposition, tense, fiction, translation, and especially, vagueness. Yet semantic indeterminacy is as impossible as ectoplasm. Indeed, more so! The demonstration need only borrow a few assumptions used elsewhere in widely accepted impossibility results. Since an impossibility is never a necessary condition for anything actual, semantic indeterminacy must be superfluous. Language is no more explained by semantic indeterminacy than calculus is explained (...) by (pre-Robinsonian) infinitesimals. (shrink)
I can get away with it because no one is in a position to call me on it. Professor Robinson cannot consistently complain that (A) begs the question against his thesis that there is no such fallacy. He would discourage anyone from "helping" him by accusing me of committing the fallacy against him. With advocates like that, who needs adversaries? I. EMBEDDING PERSPECTIVES After all, Robinson has a viable reply to my argument. He should simply deny my premise. Later I (...) will show how (A) might rationally persuade Robinson. But my immediate goal is not to convert the skeptic about the existence of the fallacy but rather to use his extreme position to make a point about the nature of question-begging. Those who object that argument (A) begs the question against Robinson must do so on behalf of Robinson. This assistance requires that one launch the accusation from Robinson's perspective and with his dialectical interests at heart. (shrink)
In the twentieth century, philosophers tackled many of the philosophical problems of previous generations by dissolving them--attacking them as linguistic illusions and showing that the problems, when closely inspected, were not problems at all. Roy A. Sorensen takes the most important and interesting examples from one hundred years of analytic philosophy to consolidate a different theory of dissolution. Pseudo-Problems offers a fascinating alternative history of twentieth century analytic philosophy. It seeks to outline a unified account of dissolution that can consolidate (...) the piecemeal insights of analytic philosophers. An accessible account of questionable questions, the book represents an important contribution to the debates about creativity and problem solving. (shrink)
Sorensen presents a general theory of thought experiments: what they are, how they work, what are their virtues and vices. On Sorensen's view, philosophy differs from science in degree, but not in kind. For this reason, he claims, it is possible to understand philosophical thought experiments by concentrating on their resemblance to scientific relatives. Lessons learned about scientific experimentation carry over to thought experiment, and vice versa. Sorensen also assesses the hazards and pseudo-hazards of thought experiments. Although he grants that (...) there are interesting ways in which the method leads us astray, he attacks most scepticism about thought experiments as arbitrary. They should be used, he says, as they generally are used--as part of a diversified portfolio of techniques. All of these devices are individually susceptible to abuse, fallacy, and error. Collectively, however, they provide a network of cross-checks that make for impressive reliability. (shrink)
Vagueness theorists tend to think that evolutionary theory dissolves the riddle "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". After all, 'chicken' is vague. The idea is that Charles Darwin demonstrated that the chicken was preceded by borderline chickens and so it is simply indeterminate as to where the pre-chickens end and the chickens begin.
