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7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality

[treating some aspects of reality as inherently vague]

15 ideas
In actual things nothing is indefinite [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In actual things nothing is indefinite.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19)
     A reaction: This seems to be the germ of the controversial modern view of Williamson, that vagueness is entirely epistemic, and that the facts of nature are entirely definite. Thus there is a tallest short giraffe, which I find a bit hard to grasp.
To say reality itself is vague is not properly intelligible [Dummett]
     Full Idea: The notion that things might actually be vague, as well as being vaguely described, is not properly intelligible.
     From: Michael Dummett (Wang's Paradox [1970], p.260)
     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.
Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson]
     Full Idea: Baldness is a much more indeterminate matter than is hair distribution, nevetheless baldness is nothing over and above hair distribution.
     From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], p.22)
     A reaction: This seems to support Williamson's view that there is no vagueness in nature, and that 'vague' is an entirely epistemological concept.
Nothing is true, but everything is exact [Baudrillard]
     Full Idea: Someone said: everything is true, nothing is exact. I would say the opposite: nothing is true, everything is exact.
     From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004], p.210)
     A reaction: In analytical terminology, this appears to say that vagueness is ontological, not epistemological, agreeing with Williamson and others. To say that 'nothing is true', though, just strikes me as silly. What does Baudrillard mean by 'true'?
Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: Evans tries to derive a contradiction from the supposition that a given identity statement is of indeterminate truth-value. (As it happens, I consider that this argument is flawed)
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.3
     A reaction: A priori, I wouldn't expect to be able to settle the question of whether there are any vague objects simply by following some logical derivation. Empirical examination, and conceptual analysis (or stipulation) have to be involved.
Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans]
     Full Idea: Maybe the world is vague, and vagueness is a necessary feature of any true description of it. Also identities may lack a determinate truth value because of their vagueness. Hence it is a fact that some objects have fuzzy boundaries. But is this coherent?
     From: Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978])
     A reaction: [compressed] Lewis quotes this introduction to the famous short paper, to show that Evans wasn't proposing a poor argument, but offering a reductio of the view that vagueness is 'ontic', or a feature of the world.
There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis]
     Full Idea: One problem with Evans's argument that there are no such thing as vague identity statements is that its conclusion is plainly false. Example: 'Princeton = Princeton Borough', where it is unsettled what region 'Princeton' denotes.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319
     A reaction: Lewis endorses the view that vagueness is semantic. I certainly don't endorse Evans's argument, which hinges on a weird example of a property, as applied to Leibniz's Law.
Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis]
     Full Idea: The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts his reader (unwisely) to take for granted that there are vague identity statements, that a proof of the contrary cannot be right, and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of the fallacy.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319
     A reaction: [Lowe 199:11 is a culprit!] Lewis put this interpretation to Evans, who replied 'Yes, yes, yes!'.
If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
     Full Idea: Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
     From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
     A reaction: Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?
Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith]
     Full Idea: A common intuition is that a vague object has indeterminate or fuzzy spatio-temporal boundaries, such as a cloud. Mount Everest can only have arbitrary boundaries placed around it, so in nature it must have fuzzy boundaries.
     From: R Keefe / P Smith (Intro: Theories of Vagueness [1997], §5)
     A reaction: We would have to respond by questioning whether Everest counts precisely as an 'object'. At the microscopic or subatomic level it seems that virtually everything has fuzzy boundaries. Maybe boundaries don't really exist.
There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
     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.
     From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 7.2)
     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'.
Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Fuzzy boundaries do not in any way require vague identity. Objects are identical only if their boundaries have exactly the same fuzziness.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 9.2)
     A reaction: This all rests on the Fregean idea that determinate existence requires the ability to participate in an identity statement.
Non-linguistic things cannot be indeterminate, because they don't have truth-values at all [Hawley]
     Full Idea: Non-linguistic objects, properties, and states of affairs cannot be indeterminate because they cannot have determinate truth-values either. No cloud is indeterminate, just as no cloud is either determinately true or determinately false.
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 4.1)
     A reaction: If vagueness must be linguistic, this means animals can never experience it, which I doubt. Presumably 'this is a cloud' is only made vague by the vagueness of the object, rather than by the vagueness of the sentence?
Maybe for the world to be vague, it must be vague in its foundations? [Hawley]
     Full Idea: There is a question of whether there must be 'vagueness all the way down' for the world to be vague. One view is that if there is a base level of precisely describably facts, upon which all the others supervene, then the world is not really vague.
     From: Katherine Hawley (How Things Persist [2001], 4.5)
     A reaction: My understanding of the physics is that it is non-vague all the way down, and then you get to the base level which is hopelessly vague!
A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent [Merricks]
     Full Idea: Some would say that annihilating grains of stone from the statue of David (playing the 'Sorites Game') could never make its identity vague, because metaphysical vagueness is simply unintelligible.
     From: Trenton Merricks (Objects and Persons [2003], §2.II)
     A reaction: He cites Russell, Dummett and Lewis in support. But Russell is a logical atomist, and Lewis says identity is composition. It strikes me as obvious that identity can be vague; the alternative is the absurdities of the Sorites paradox.