Abstract
I attempt to accommodate the phenomenon of vagueness with classical logic and bivalence. I hold that for any vague predicate there is a sharp cut-off between the things that satisfy it and the things that do not; I claim that this is due to the greater naturalness of one of the candidate meanings of that predicate. I extend the thought to the problem of the many and Benacerraf cases. I go on to explore the idea that it is ontically indeterminate what the most natural meanings are, and hence ontically indeterminate where the sharp cut-off in a sorites series is.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I use ‘hairy’ as a synonym for ‘not bald’ throughout.
But see Kearns and Magidor (2008) for criticisms of Williamson’s explanation of our ignorance in such cases.
See especially Lewis (1983).
Lewis (1983).
We can either take the naturalness ordering on objects as a primitive fact about the world, or ground it in the naturalness ordering on the haecceitistic properties it we want a uniform account. I take no stand on this here.
Since every world says of itself that it and no other world is actualised, it falls out immediately from the semantics that it is determinate that exactly one world is the actualised world; but if there is more than one world in the set of precisifications (as there will be if anything is ontically indeterminate) then there is no world that is determinately the actualised world. So the semantics gives us exactly the results you’d expect: if there’s indeterminacy in the world, then while it’s determinate that only one ersatz world can correctly represent how things are, it’s indeterminate which ersatz world it is that does that. See Barnes (forthcoming).
Given what’s gone above, of course, one could deny this, generalising the view defended above to account for arbitrary reference by saying that whenever I introduce ‘a’ to refer to an arbitrary F, there is always a most natural F to which ‘a’ thereby refers. But I will not pursue this here.
See also Kearns and Magidor (ms.).
References
Barnes, E. (2006). Conceptual room for ontic vagueness. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews.
Barnes, E. (forthcoming). Ontic vagueness: A guide for the perplexed, Nous.
Barnes, E., & Williams, R. (forthcoming). A theory of metaphysical indeterminacy. Oxford Studies in Metaphysics.
Benacerraf, P. (1965). What numbers could not be. The Philosophical Review, 74(1), 47–73.
Breckenridge, W., & Magidor, O. (ms.). Arbitrary reference.
Eklund, M. (2008). Deconstructing ontological vagueness. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 38(1), 117–140.
Kearns, S., & Magidor, O. (2008). Epistemicism about vagueness and meta-linguistic safety. Philosophical Perspectives, 22, 277–304.
Kearns, S., & Magidor, O. (ms.). Semantic sovereignty.
Lewis, D. (1983). New work for a theory of universals. The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 343–377.
McGonigal, A. (ms.). Vagueness and context.
Weatherson, B. (2003). Many many problems. Philosophical Quarterly, 53(213), 481–501.
Williamson, T. (1994). Vagueness. New York: Routledge.
Wright, C. (1975). On the coherence of vague predicates. Synthese, 30, 325–365.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Elizabeth Barnes, John Hawthorne, Andrew McGonigal, Ofra Magidor, Daniel Nolan, Jason Turner, Robbie Williams, and two anonymous referees for Erkenntnis for helpful discussion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cameron, R.P. Vagueness and Naturalness. Erkenn 72, 281–293 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9204-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9204-8