more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Both 30° and 60° are clearly acute angles. 'Acute' is precise in all relevant respects. Nevertheless, 30° is acuter than 60°.
Gist of Idea
A vague term can refer to very precise elements
Source
Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 4.11)
Book Ref
Williamson,Timothy: 'Vagueness' [Routledge 1996], p.126
A Reaction
A very nice example of something which is vague, despite involving precise ingredients. But then 'bald' is vague, while 'this is a hair on his head' is fairly precise.
| 21598 | Austin revealed many meanings for 'vague': rough, ambiguous, general, incomplete... [Austin,JL, by Williamson] |
| 23540 | Conjoining two indefinites by related sentences seems to produce a contradiction [Fine,K] |
| 23544 | Local indeterminacy concerns a single object, and global indeterminacy covers a range [Fine,K] |
| 23546 | Standardly vagueness involves borderline cases, and a higher standpoint from which they can be seen [Fine,K] |
| 21589 | When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson] |
| 21596 | Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson] |
| 21601 | A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson] |