Vagueness

by Williamson,Timothy

• ISBN13: 9780415033312
• ISBN10: 0415033314
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-08-19
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Vaguenessprovides 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.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Early History of Sorites Paradoxes

The Ideal of Precision

The Rehabilitation of Vagueness

Many-Valued Logic and Degrees of Truth

Supervaluations

Nihilism

Vagueness as Ignorance

Inexact Knowledge

Vagueness in the World

Appendix The Logic of Clarity

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.