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A Contextualist Approach to Higher‐Order Vagueness
Author(s) -
Montminy Martin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/sjp.12177
Subject(s) - vagueness , contextualism , predicate (mathematical logic) , epistemology , philosophy , philosophy of language , linguistics , metaphysics , computer science , interpretation (philosophy) , programming language , fuzzy logic
According to contextualism about vagueness, the content of a vague predicate is context sensitive. On this view, when item a is in the penumbra of the vague predicate ‘ F ’, speakers may (truly) utter ‘ Fa ’, or they may (truly) utter ‘not‐ Fa ’, without contravening the literal meaning of ‘ F ’. Unlike its more popular variants, the version of contextualism I defend rejects the principle of tolerance, a principle according to which small differences should not affect the applicability of a vague predicate. My goal is to show how such a rejection allows for a plausible treatment of higher‐order vagueness, and for a dissolution of paradoxes of higher‐order vagueness.