|
23539
|
Classical semantics has referents for names, extensions for predicates, and T or F for sentences [Fine,K]
|
|
Full Idea:
A precise language is often assigned a classical semantics, in which the semantic value of a name is its referent, the semantic value of a predicate is its extension (the objects of which it is true), and the value of a sentence is True or False.
|
|
From:
Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
Helpful to have this clear statement of how predicates are treated. This extensionalism in logic causes trouble when it creeps into philosophy, and people say that 'red' just means all the red things. No it doesn't.
|
|
23540
|
Conjoining two indefinites by related sentences seems to produce a contradiction [Fine,K]
|
|
Full Idea:
If 'P is red' and 'P is orange' are indefinite, then 'P is red and P is orange' seems false, because red and orange are exclusive. But if two conjoined indefinite sentences are false, that makes 'P is red and P is red' false, when it should be indefinite.
|
|
From:
Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] This is the problem of 'penumbral connection', where two indefinite values are still logically related, by excluding one another. Presumably 'P is red and P is of indefinite shape' can be true? Doubtful about this argument.
|
|
23546
|
Standardly vagueness involves borderline cases, and a higher standpoint from which they can be seen [Fine,K]
|
|
Full Idea:
Standard notions of vagueness all accept borderline cases, and presuppose a higher standpoint from which a judgement of being borderline F, rather than simply being F or being not F, can be made.
|
|
From:
Kit Fine (Vagueness: a global approach [2020], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
He says that the concept of borderline cases is an impediment to understanding vagueness. Proposing a third group when you are struggling to separate two other groups doesn't seem helpful, come to think of it. Limbo cases.
|
|
16459
|
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.
|
|
16460
|
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!'.
|
|
14484
|
If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson]
|
|
Full Idea:
We cannot accept the existence of vague objects, according to Evans's argument that there cannot be indeterminacy of identity. ...From the assumption that it is indeterminate whether a = b, we conclude, determinately, that it's not the case that a = b.
|
|
From:
report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 05.6
|
|
A reaction:
I think we should keep intrinsic identity separate from identity between entities. A cloud can be clearly identified, while being a bit fuzzy. It is only when you ask whether we saw the same cloud that Evans's argument seems relevant.
|
|
16224
|
There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG]
|
|
Full Idea:
Two things can't be vaguely identical, because then a would have an indeterminacy which b lacks (namely, being perfectly identical to b), so by Leibniz's Law they can't be identical.
|
|
From:
report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978], 4.7) by PG - Db (ideas)
|
|
A reaction:
[my summary of Katherine Hawley's summary (2001:118) of Evans] Hawley considers the argument to be valid. I have grave doubts about whether b's identity with b is the sort of property needed for an application of Liebniz's Law.
|
|
18284
|
Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
|
|
Full Idea:
Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
|
|
From:
Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.
|