more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 21628

[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality ]

Full Idea

The notion that things might actually be vague, as well as being vaguely described, is not properly intelligible.

Gist of Idea

To say reality itself is vague is not properly intelligible

Source

Michael Dummett (Wang's Paradox [1970], p.260)

Book Ref

Dummett,Michael: 'Truth and Other Enigmas' [Duckworth 1978], p.250

A Reaction

It seems hard to disagree with this. It seems crazy that a pile of grain, or the hair on someone's head, are vague, and even quantum indeterminacies are not very well described as 'vague'. Vagueness is a very human concept.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [treating some aspects of reality as inherently vague]:

13187 In actual things nothing is indefinite [Leibniz]
21628 To say reality itself is vague is not properly intelligible [Dummett]
6978 Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson]
7987 Nothing is true, but everything is exact [Baudrillard]
16129 Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe]
16459 Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans]
16460 Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis]
16457 There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis]
8983 If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
9064 Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith]
9599 There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
21629 Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson]
16219 Non-linguistic things cannot be indeterminate, because they don't have truth-values at all [Hawley]
16223 Maybe for the world to be vague, it must be vague in its foundations? [Hawley]
6135 A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks]