16 ideas
9766 | Study vagueness first by its logic, then by its truth-conditions, and then its metaphysics [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: My investigation of vagueness began with the question 'What is the correct logic of vagueness?', which led to the further question 'What are the correct truth-conditions for a vague language?', which led to questions of meaning and existence. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is the most perfect embodiment of the strategy of analytical philosophy which I have ever read. It is the strategy invented by Frege in the 'Grundlagen'. Is this still the way to go, or has this pathway slowly sunk into the swamp? |
11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II) | |
A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts. |
9775 | Excluded Middle, and classical logic, may fail for vague predicates [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Maybe classical logic fails for vagueness in Excluded Middle. If 'H bald ∨ ¬(H bald)' is true, then one disjunct is true. But if the second is true the first is false, and the sentence is either true or false, contrary to the borderline assumption. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 4) | |
A reaction: Fine goes on to argue against the implication that we need a special logic for vague predicates. |
11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value. |
11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000]) | |
A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge. |
9771 | Logic holding between indefinite sentences is the core of all language [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If language is like a tree, then penumbral connection (logic holding among indefinite sentences) is the seed from which the tree grows, for it provides an initial repository of truths that are to be retained throughout all growth. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 2) | |
A reaction: A nice incidental insight arising from his investigation of vagueness. People accept one another's reasons even when they are confused, or hopeless at expressing themselves. Nice. |
9768 | Vagueness is semantic, a deficiency of meaning [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: I take vagueness to be a semantic feature, a deficiency of meaning. It is to be distinguished from generality, undecidability, and ambiguity. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
A reaction: Sounds good. If we cut nature at the joints with our language, then nature is going to be too subtle and vast for our finite and gerrymandered language, and so it will break down in tricky situations. But maybe epistemology precedes semantics? |
9776 | A thing might be vaguely vague, giving us higher-order vagueness [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There is a possibility of 'higher-order vagueness'. The vague may be vague, or vaguely vague, and so on. If J has few hairs on his head than H, then he may be a borderline case of a borderline case. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 5) | |
A reaction: Such slim grey areas can also be characterised as those where you think he is definitely bald, but I am not so sure. |
9767 | A vague sentence is only true for all ways of making it completely precise [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A vague sentence is (roughly stated) true if and only if it is true for all ways of making it completely precise (the 'super-truth theory'). | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], Intro) | |
A reaction: Intuitively this sounds quite promising. Personally I think we should focus on the 'proposition' rather than the 'sentence' (where fifteen sentences might be needed before we can agree on the one proposition). |
9770 | Logical connectives cease to be truth-functional if vagueness is treated with three values [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: With a three-value approach, if P is 'blob is pink' and R is 'blob is red', then P&P is indefinite, but P&R is false, and P∨P is indefinite, but P∨R is true. This means the connectives & and ∨ are not truth-functional. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 1) | |
A reaction: The point is that there could then be no logic in any way classical for vague sentences and three truth values. A powerful point. |
9772 | Meaning is both actual (determining instances) and potential (possibility of greater precision) [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The meaning of an expression is the product of both its actual meaning (what helps determine its instances and counter-instances), and its potential meaning (the possibilities for making it more precise). | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 2) | |
A reaction: A modal approach to meaning is gloriously original. Being quite a fan of real modalities (the possibilities latent in actuality), I find this intuitively appealing. |
9773 | With the super-truth approach, the classical connectives continue to work [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: With the super-truth approach, if P is 'blob is pink' and R is 'blob is red', then P&R is false, and P∨R is true, since one of P and R is true and one is false in any complete and admissible specification. It encompasses all 'penumbral truths'. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 3) | |
A reaction: [See Idea 9767 for the super-truth approach, and Idea 9770 for a contrasting view] The approach, which seems quite appealing, is that we will in no circumstances give up basic classical logic, but we will make maximum concessions to vagueness. |
9774 | Borderline cases must be under our control, as capable of greater precision [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Any borderline case must be under our control, in the sense that it can be settled by making the predicates more precise. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 3) | |
A reaction: Sounds good. Consider an abstract concept like the equator. It is precise on a map of the world, but vague when you are in the middle of the tropics. But we can always form a committee to draw a (widish) line on the ground delineating it. |
9769 | Vagueness can be in predicates, names or quantifiers [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There are three possible sources of vagueness: the predicates, the names, and the quantifiers. | |
From: Kit Fine (Vagueness, Truth and Logic [1975], 1) | |
A reaction: Presumably a vagueness about the domain of discussion would be a vagueness in the quantifier. This is a helpful preliminary division, in the semantic approach to vagueness. |
3178 | A fast machine could pass all behavioural tests with a vast lookup table [Block, by Rey] |
Full Idea: Ned Block proposes a machine (a 'blockhead') which could pass the Turing Test just by looking up responses in a vast look-up table. | |
From: report of Ned Block (works [1984]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 5.3 | |
A reaction: Once you suspected you were talking to a blockhead, I think you could catch it out in a Turing Test. How can the lookup table keep up to date with immediate experience? Ask it about your new poem. |
11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role). |