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Full Idea
Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
Gist of Idea
If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them
Source
Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
Book Ref
'Vagueness: a Reader', ed/tr. Keefe,R /Smith,P [MIT 1999], p.257
A Reaction
People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?
| 8982 | Vague concepts are concepts without boundaries [Sainsbury] |
| 8983 | If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury] |
| 8984 | If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury] |
| 8985 | Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury] |
| 8986 | We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury] |
| 10429 | It is best to say that a name designates iff there is something for it to designate [Sainsbury] |
| 10425 | Definite descriptions may not be referring expressions, since they can fail to refer [Sainsbury] |
| 10431 | Things are thought to have a function, even when they can't perform them [Sainsbury] |
| 10432 | A new usage of a name could arise from a mistaken baptism of nothing [Sainsbury] |
| 10434 | Even a quantifier like 'someone' can be used referentially [Sainsbury] |
| 10438 | Definite descriptions are usually rigid in subject, but not in predicate, position [Sainsbury] |