Vagueness provides the first comprehensive examination of a topic of increasing importance in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic and language. Timothy Williamson traces the history of this philosophical problem from discussions of the heap paradox in classical Greece to modern formal approaches such as fuzzy logic. He illustrates the problems with views which have taken the position that standard logic and formal semantics do not apply to vague language, and defends the controversial realistic view that vagueness is a kind (...) of ignorance--that there really is a grain of sand whose removal turns a heap into a non-heap, but we cannot know which one it is. (shrink)

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)

The paper defends Gareth Evans's argument against vague identity. It appeals to a principle I name the principle of the diversity of the definitely dissimilar to defend the thesis that vague identity statements owe their indeterminacy to vagueness in language.

In his note "can there be vague objects?" ("analysis", 1978), Gareth evans presents a purported proof that there can be no vague identity statements. Some readers think that evans endorses the proof and its false conclusion. Not so. His point is that those who put vagueness in the world, Rather than in language, Will have no way to fault the proof and no way to escape the false conclusion.

Evan's influential argument against vague objects (_Analysis<D>, 1978) has a parallel directed against contingent identity. I argue that Noonan failed in his attempt to accept Evans's argument but save contingent identity by establishing a disanalogy between the two arguments (in The Philosophical Quarterly 1991). Instead, I suggest an alternative way to block the argument against contingent identity and argue that its analogue provides a satisfactory response to Evans's original argument.

Two purported proofs of the incoherence of vague identity are considered. First gareth evans's attempt is criticized and reformulated to overcome certain formal difficulties. Despite the reformulation, However, Evans's proof is demonstrated invalid in accord with a supervaluational approach. Next nathan salmon's attempt is evaluated. Here the problem is salmon's implicit assumption of a version of leibniz's law which is stronger than that strictly guaranteed by the law as it is given in classical logic. The question is raised on what (...) grounds this stronger version is to be considered a logical law: without it the proof fails. (shrink)

E.J. Lowe claims that quantum physics provides examples of ontic indeterminacy, of vagueness in the world. Any such claim must confront the Evans-Salmon argument to the effect that the notion of ontic indeterminacy is simply incoherent (Evans 1978, Salmon 1981: 243-46). Lowe argues that a standard version of the Evans-Salmon argument fails quite generally (Lowe 1994). Harold Noonan (1995) has outlined a non-standard version of the argument, but Lowe argues that this non-standard version fails for specifically quantum mechanical reasons (Lowe (...) 1997). He claims that it is perfectly coherent to suppose that his quantum case is an example of ontic indeterminacy. In this paper, I raise some objections to Lowe's claim. (shrink)

The thesis that there can be vague objects is the thesis that there can be identity statements which are indeterminate in truth-value (i.e., neither true nor false) as a result of vagueness (as opposed, e.g., to reference-failure), "the singular terms of which do not have their references fixed by vague descriptive means". (if this is "not" what is meant by the thesis that there can be vague objects, it is not clear what "is" meant by it.) the possibility of vague (...) objects should not be taken, in itself, to imply the more radical thesis that the identity relation can be one of "degree". one can hold that the concept of degrees of identity is absurd (how can one thing be more or less identical to another?) "and" that indeterminacy in identity is possible; hence, any incoherence in the idea of degrees of identity does not thereby undermine the idea of indeterminate identity. (shrink)

In 'Vague Identity: Evans Misunderstood' David Lewis defends Gareth Evans against a widespread misunderstanding of an argument that appeared in his article 'Can There be Vague Objects?'. Lewis takes himself to be 'defending Evans' and not just correcting a mistake; witness his remark that, 'As misunderstood, Evans is a pitiful figure: a "technical philosopher" out of control of his technicalities, taken in by a fallacious proof of an absurd conclusion'. Let me say at the outset that I take Lewis to (...) be exactly right in regarding as a misunderstanding the interpretation of Evans which he exposes as such. On Lewis's account, everything Evans says 'falls into place', and he quotes from a letter that 'settles the matter'. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a framework for understanding ontic vagueness. The project of the paper is two-fold. I first outline a definitional account of ontic vagueness – one that I think is an improvement on previous attempts because it remains neutral on other, independent metaphysical issues. I then develop one potential manifestation of that basic definitional structure. This is a more robust (and much less neutral) account which gives a fully classical explication of ontic vagueness via modal concepts. The (...) overarching aim is to systematically investigate the puzzling question of what exactly it could be for the world itself to be vague. (shrink)