The vagueness of ‘vague’: Rejoinder to Hull

Mind 114 (455):695-702 (2005)
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Abstract

A rejoinder to G. Hull’s reply to my Mind 2003. Hull argues that Sorensen’s purported proof that ‘vague’ is vague--which I defended against certain familiar objections--fails. He offers three reasons: (i) the vagueness exhibited by Sorensen’s sorites is just the vagueness of ‘small’; (ii) the general assumption underlying the proof, to the effect that predicates which possess borderline cases are vague, is mistaken; (iii) the conclusion of the proof is unacceptable, for it is possible to create Sorensen-type sorites even for predicates that are paradigmatically precise. I argue that each of these points involves fallacious reasoning.

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Achille C. Varzi
Columbia University

Citations of this work

‘Vague’ at Higher Orders.Ivan Hu - 2017 - Mind 126 (504):1189-1216.

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References found in this work

Sense and Sensibilia.John Langshaw Austin - 1962 - Oxford University Press. Edited by G. Warnock.
Vagueness, truth and logic.Kit Fine - 1975 - Synthese 30 (3-4):265-300.
Sense and Sensibilia.J. L. Austin - 1962 - Oxford University Press USA.
Theories of Vagueness.Rosanna Keefe - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
There are no ordinary things.Peter Unger - 1979 - Synthese 41 (2):117 - 154.

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