Teaching Documents by Bart van Beek
Papers by Bart van Beek
How I met your Mother and Philosophy
According to the epistemic theory of vagueness a sentence like The apple is red is always determi... more According to the epistemic theory of vagueness a sentence like The apple is red is always determinately true or false. However for an apple that is on the borderline of redness we will forever be ignorant of (1)'s truth-value. For we do not know enough about the meaning of 'red' to ascertain where the boundary between red and non-red lies. It is often objected that this theory severs the relation between our use of vague terms and their meaning. A variety of reasons for this position are discussed: the unintuitiveness of sharp boundaries, the problematic relation between a fuzzy practise of assent and dissent and crisp boundaries, the intended indeterminateness of some vague predicates and the unimaginability of the relation between meaning and use on the epistemic theory. These objections are shown to founder on the overly voluntaristic presupposition that we are in full control of the meaning of the terms of our language.
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Teaching Documents by Bart van Beek
Papers by Bart van Beek