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Single Idea 9599

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

Full Idea

It is sometimes argued that if there is such a thing as a mountain it would be a vague object, but it is logically impossible for an object to be vague, so there is no such thing as a mountain.

Gist of Idea

There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain

Source

Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 7.2)

Book Ref

Williamson,Timothy: 'The Philosophy of Philosophy' [Blackwell 2007], p.218

A Reaction

I don't take this to be a daft view. No one is denying the existence of the solid rock that is involved, but allowing such a vague object may be a slippery slope to the acceptance of almost anything as an 'object'.

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]
16457 There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis]
16460 Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [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]