5 ideas
| 21628 | 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. |
| 14798 | All communication is vague, and is outside the principle of non-contradiction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The 'vague' might be defined as that to which the principle of contradiction does not apply. For it is false neither that an animal (in a vague sense) is male, nor that an animal is female. No communication between persons can be entirely non-vague. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) | |
| A reaction: Note that he makes vagueness largely a matter of the way we talk, which is David Lewis's approach, and looks right to me. |
| 14797 | Vagueness is a neglected but important part of mathematical thought [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Logicians have too much neglected the study of vagueness, not suspecting the important part it plays in mathematical thought. It is the antithetical analogue of generality. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Critical Common-Sensism [1905], I) |
| 3570 | Maybe knowledge is belief which 'tracks' the truth [Nozick, by Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Nozick suggests that knowledge is just belief which 'tracks the truth' (hence leaving out justification). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981]) by Michael Williams - Problems of Knowledge Ch. 2 |
| 2748 | A true belief isn't knowledge if it would be believed even if false. It should 'track the truth' [Nozick, by Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Nozick says Gettier cases aren't knowledge because the proposition would be believed even if false. Proper justification must be more sensitive to the truth ("track the truth"). | |
| From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981], 3.1) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 3.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a bad idea. I see a genuine tree in my garden and believe it is there, so I know it. That I might have believed it if I was in virtually reality, or observing a mirror, won't alter that. |