Questions tagged [vagueness]
11 questions
6
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7 answers
Are there any empirical categories that do not have vague boundaries?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an article on vagueness that struck me as odd because it seems to assume that vagueness is a property of only certain kinds of propositions or predicates, while to me it is fairly clear that practically…
David Gudeman
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Wittgenstein on indeterminate boundaries
Wittgenstein, for instance, urged that “an indefinite boundary is not
really a boundary at all” (1953: 45e).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/
What did he make of the Sorites paradox, then? If a limit is indefinite, can be shown to be…
user66697
3
votes
1 answer
Can vague concepts have a modality?
Can vague concepts, which I am thinking of as concepts without boundaries, though there are I assume other ways of thinking about them, be necessary, especially if that modality changes?
Supposing it's vague that this is a "heap" of pebbles, can it…
user66760
2
votes
1 answer
Is the law of identity the same for negative expressions?
Is the law of identity the same for negative expressions?
Does 'if not p then not p' have any specific meaning in philosophy?
I am asking because I am trying to work out whether the vagueness of 'p' would mean 'not p' is also vague, and that's…
user67302
2
votes
1 answer
Metaphysical indeterminacy and necessity
This is similar to my last question, but now I am asking about a specific/different interpretation of vagueness.
To fit metaphysical indeterminacy into this picture Barnes and
Williams [claim]... the possible worlds in these theories are
perfectly…
user66760
1
vote
0 answers
Is the bardo forever?
Consciousness as such is - I think - said to be made of vague parts; it has parts that are vague, e.g. the sensation of seeing red. I think this means that borderline cases of my consciousness exist necessarily, and so forever. Does that mean the…
forlove1
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What if vagueness were non-conceptual?
Thus the classical picture, informed by a connection between concepts and sets present in the very word “classify”, sees the theoretical resources of set theory as the proper instruments for describing language and thought.
Classes, and sets, have…
user66760
0
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Do statements about borderline cases hold for both the vague term and its negation?
I read subvaluationists think that P can be both true and false (unlike supervaluationists, who think that P is neither true nor false), but it's completely unclear (because I can't read symbolic logic and haven't found an introduction) whether they…
forlove1
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Can we specify something vague with a definite time?
Can we specify something vague, e.g. without a boundary, with a definite time?
I am more satisfied with the idea that I became bald sometime in my 20s, I guess, than I am with the claim that I will "die" at some vague time in the future.
Can we…
user66760
0
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1 answer
Inverted spatial qualia: a detectable example?
The SEP article on inverted qualia discusses this mostly as follows:
One of [Frege's] theses in The Foundations of Arithmetic is that arithmetic is “objective”, which he explains as follows:
What is objective…is what is subject to laws, what can…
Kristian Berry
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Amorphous sets and vagueness
I'm reading a detailed study of amorphous sets and this caught my eye:
With respect to "epistemicism" about sorites problems, is there some way to correlate the possible (if unidentifiable?) values of n for amorphous partitions (per the above…
Kristian Berry
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