Schiffer On Vagueness: The Things We Mean

SCHIFFER ON VAGUENESS
by MATTI EKLUND
Abstract: I go through, and criticize, Stephen Schiffers account of vagueness and the sorites paradox. I discuss his notion of a happy-face solution to a paradox, his appeal to vagueness-related partial belief, his claim that indeterminacy is a psychological notion, and his view that the sorites premise and the inference rule of modus ponens are indeterminate.
I.
Introduction
I will here discuss Stephen Schiffers account of vagueness, as presented in his recent book The Things We Mean (2003).1 The discussion will be critical. However, I should stress that my interest in Schiffer depends on my nding his views quite attractive in outline, and on my being in sympathy with the aim of the overall project. Schiffer motivates his positive view by a brief negative discussion of some of the main theories of vagueness in the literature, epistemicism, supervaluationism, and appeal to fuzzy logic. Epistemicism is criticized on familiar grounds. It is said to have epistemic problems (if vague predicates really have sharp boundaries then we cannot know them and this principled unknowability must somehow be explained ) and semantic problems (if vague predicates really have sharp boundaries then somehow something in our use of them must determine such boundaries but what in our use could plausibly do so?).2 Several objections are presented against supervaluationism and fuzzy logic, but the most theoretically important among them is this.3 Both views are third-possibility views on indeterminacy: they represent indeterminacy (being a borderline case) as a status incompatible with truth or falsity. But this is unsatisfactory, and Schiffer quotes Crispin Wright for the reason:
. . . it is quite unsatisfactory in general to represent indeterminacy as any kind of determinate truth-status any kind of middle situation, contrasting with both the poles (truth and
Pacic Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2006) 1223 2006 The Author Journal compilation 2006 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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falsity) since one cannot thereby do justice to the absolutely basic datum that in general borderline cases come across as hard cases: as cases where we are bafed to choose between conicting verdicts about which polar verdict applies, rather than as cases which we recognize as enjoying a status inconsistent with both.4
These negative points determine Schiffers positive agenda. It is to nd an account of vagueness which avoids the pitfalls of on the one hand epistemicism and on the other hand third possibility views. There are three distinct (but related) things Schiffer says when outlining his own positive view on vagueness: (1) the sorites paradox lacks a happy face solution; (2) vagueness is a matter of vagueness-related partial belief (VPB); (3) the sorites premise is indeterminate.
II.
Happy-face solutions
It is normally assumed, Schiffer notes, that a solution to a paradox should involve identifying the odd-guy-out and showing why the nowundisguised-masquerader seemed so plausible in the rst place, doing so in such a way that the misleading impression is explained away. A solution that manages to do this is he calls a happy-face solution. Schiffer says that few classical philosophical problems have happy-face solutions. The sorites paradox is one example of a paradox that lacks a happy-face solution.5 When Schiffer denies that the sorites paradox has a happy-face solution, what does he mean? One way to deny this might be to deny that there is a determinate odd-guy-out. It might be indeterminate just which is the odd-guy-out. But even if Schiffer in fact holds, with respect to the paradoxes which on his view lack happy-face solutions, that it is indeterminate which is the odd guy out, he would not claim that such indeterminacy is sufcient for a paradox to lack a happy-face solution. Nor, as his discussion makes clear, does he mean to deny that we can explain why the now-undisguised-masquerader seemed so plausible in the rst place. So what is claimed must be that the explaining-away of the plausibility is impossible. But what might this mean? To illustrate my concern here: Consider one type of view one might have on some particular paradox; the sorites paradox as the case may be. The paradox arises because our rules of language are jointly inconsistent: in some cases they yield incompatible verdicts. Since it is a paradox we deal with, what we deal with is an argument where seemingly undeniable premises P1, . . . , Pn by seemingly undeniable reasoning lead to an absurd conclusion C. On the type of view I want to consider, what makes the premises (or at least the premises that can reasonably be singled out as the culprits) seemingly undeniable is that they are, or follow rather
2006 The Author Journal compilation 2006 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
immediately from, semantic rules. The actual truth-conditions of our sentences and utterances are, further, what comes closest to satisfying our jointly inconsistent rules: the idea being that some rules are more heavily weighted than others. Clearly it can be determinate on this type of view what is the odd-guy-out. Suppose P1 is. Now, if anything is an unhappyface solution, a solution of this kind (call it an inconsistency view) should be one. But is not the plausibility of P1 explained away by the solution just given? After all we can imagine a solution of this form given in sufcient detail that we see exactly why P1 must come out non-true. If this is not sufcient for explaining away the plausibility of P1, why is it not? (As I will later discuss, I myself favor an inconsistency view like this. But for now it is brought up only for illustrative purposes.) Perhaps Schiffer just has a psychological understanding of explaining away in mind: to explain away the odd-guy-out, in the relevant sense, is to explain its untruth in such a way that speakers afterwards wont feel attracted to it. Maybe this is what is meant. But then why is this philosophically signicant in any way? Why isnt the question of whether a particular paradox has a happy-face solution just a relatively shallow fact about us? Schiffer can point to one reason for taking an interest in this: not recognizing that some paradoxes can in this sense lack happy-face solutions we may otherwise reject a purported solution to a paradox on the mistaken ground that the plausibility of the odd-guy-out is not explained away in such a way that we do not, after having seen and understood the solution, feel attracted to it. But relevant though this point may be, Schiffer seems to be after something deeper. Return to the inconsistency view described just above. Here is what is striking about that as compared to other types of solution. Whereas it is standardly assumed that our acceptance of the odd-guy-out is simply a mistake, on an inconsistency view this acceptance is underwritten and justied by the rules of the language. The acceptance is a kind of mistake still P1 is after all not true but it is not simply a mistake. Maybe it is this distinction Schiffer is getting at by the distinction between happy-face solutions and unhappy-face solutions. The idea would be that given a happy-face solution our acceptance of the odd-guy-out is explained as simply a mistake, in the sense just indicated. That this should be what Schiffer means is made plausible by his going on to say that:
. . . the reason a philosophical paradox lacks a happy-face solution, when it does lack one, is that there is a glitch in the concept, or concepts, generating the paradox. The glitch is an underived, or basic, feature of the paradox-generating concept, or concepts, that, without making the concept logically inconsistent, nevertheless pulls one in opposing directions without there being anything else in the concept or elsewhere to resolve that tug-o-war. 6
This may not be entirely clear. But still it certainly suggests the interpretation just sketched.
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III.
Vagueness-related partial beliefs
Turn now to the second main aspect of Schiffers view on vagueness: his explanation of the nature of vagueness in terms of vagueness-related partial belief. In order properly to explain what VPB is, Schiffer rst discusses the nature of standard partial beliefs (SPBs) the ordinary kind of beliefs between degree 1 and degree 0. Here are some facts about SPBs: (a) Wed have them even if our language were perfectly precise. (b) SPB is a measure of uncertainty and thus of ignorance. (c) SPBs generate corresponding likelihood beliefs. (d) If one s-believes something to some degree between 0 and 1, one doesnt take oneself to be an ideal position to ascertain the truth of this something.7 By contrast, VPBs, vaguenessrelated partial beliefs, satisfy none of (a)(d). Suppose, to take the example Schiffer uses, that Tom Cruise gets his hairs plucked one by one until he is, intuitively, a borderline case of baldness, and Sally has the best possible knowledge of the state of Toms scalp. Sally acquires the belief to degree 0.5 that Tom is bald. Then, Schiffer would claim, Sally has a VPB belief that Tom is bald, not an SPB belief. This is (a*) a belief she would have even if our language was completely precise, (b*) not a partial belief that measures uncertainty or ignorance, (c*) not a belief that corresponds to a likelihood belief that Tom is bald, and (d*) Sally might well take herself to be in an ideal position to judge Toms baldness.8 Later, Schiffer introduces the notion of a VPB*, which turns out to be of central importance to his account.9 A VPB* is a VPB formed under ideal epistemic conditions. Maybe we have VPBs of the kind Schiffer here describes, and this may well be an important fact about vagueness. But even if so, there is still reason for misgivings. These misgivings primarily have to do with just how explanatory appeal to VPBs is. Having introduced the notions VPB and VPB*, Schiffer makes use of these notions in order to say what vagueness fundamentally consists in. His view is that vagueness is neither semantic nor epistemic in nature: it is a psychological notion.10 Schiffer presents the following principles for consideration: [A] x is a borderline case of being F only if someone could v*-believe11 that x is F. [B] x is a borderline case of being F if someone could v*-believe that x is F. [C] p is indeterminate iff someone could v*-believe that p. [D] x is a borderline case of being F iff someone could v*-believe that x is F.12
Schiffer subscribes to [A] and [C]. But he holds that [B] (and hence [D] too) is false because propositions can be indeterminate for non-vagueness
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related reasons, and already when a proposition is indeterminate for that type of reason you can v*-believe it. (The example used by Schiffer: the proposition that Kennedy would have been elected to a second term if he hadnt been killed.) This brings up the question: what distinguishes vagueness from other forms of indeterminacy? In order to discuss this question of what vagueness consists in, Schiffer asks us to agree for arguments sake that [D] is extensionally adequate. He says that it is still natural to feel that [D] doesnt capture what vagueness consists in the idea being that there must be something deeper that explains why someone could v*-believe that a is G. Schiffer, explicitly appealing to his pleonastic conception of properties,13 rejects this demand for a deeper explanation, saying Its a primitive and underived feature of the conceptual role of each concept of a vague property that under certain conditions we form VPBs involving that concept, and its in this that vagueness consists.14 A number of comments are in order. First, at any rate, Schiffers appeal to pleonastic properties seems to be a red herring. The question is not what properties there are or what they are like but what is required for a thinker to have a particular concept. (i) Suppose you think of properties the way a paradigmatic platonist might. It seems you could still accept what Schiffer says about vagueness, for what is important for this issue is only that what Schiffer says is constitutive of concept possession really is so constitutive. But this appears to be independent of issues in the metaphysics of properties. (ii) Suppose you agree with Schiffer on properties. You may still think that the kind of conceptual role theory Schiffer appeals to is false, or, perhaps more to the point, that whatever conceptual roles are, they cannot be such that any concepts can be like what Schiffer says vague concepts are like. For example, one may think that conceptual roles are always something like inferential roles that they consist of something like instructions like From . . . to infer . . .. I will elaborate on this below. Second, Schiffers rejection of a semantic explanation of vagueness is somewhat puzzling, in two ways. First, isnt Schiffers own explanation of vagueness a semantic explanation? The vagueness of a concept is explained by appeal to something about the nature of the content of that concept, as opposed to, say, something about what in the world the concept stands for. Were Schiffer to talk about linguistic expressions, the way to put his view is that a primitive and underived feature of a vague expressions meaning is that it is thus-and-such. The reason why Schiffer still doesnt describe his account of vagueness as semantic is presumably that on his view vagueness is not a matter of semantic indeterminacy. (Maybe it is misleading to express this as the view that vagueness is not semantic.) Vagueness is a matter of semantic indeterminacy, roughly, just in case a vague expression or concept is indeterminate in meaning/content/reference as between a number of different precisications/acceptable
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assignments. It seems that Schiffer takes this conception to commit us to a third-possibility view. But this takes us to a second point. Cant the view on vagueness as being a matter of semantic indeterminacy be grafted on to Schiffers view? To use the example introduced earlier, the reason Sallys belief to degree 0.5 that Tom is bald is a VPB belief and not an SPB belief is that the sentence Tom is bald is semantically indeterminate this is why, even when all the facts are in, Sally still doesnt believe that Tom is bald to either degree 1 or degree 0. Or suppose there is no semantic indeterminacy in the sentence Tom is bald. Then how on earth could Sally v*-believe that Tom is bald? Schiffer would presumably protest that this semantic indeterminacy view is a third-possibility view on vagueness. I will return to this later. For now, note only that were a semantic indeterminacy view on vagueness acceptable, such a view would nicely explain the phenomenon of VPB belief. Third, why, if Schiffers account of the nature of vagueness is right, should we expect the vague to be higher-order vague?15 Relatedly, Schiffer remarks on his focus on someone rather than anyone in the characterizations of what it is to be a borderline case that it is characteristic of vagueness that people in ideal epistemic circumstances can disagree.16 It seems right that this is a characteristic of vagueness. But why should it be so on Schiffers account? Fourth, Schiffer makes clear that he thinks vagueness is an ineliminable feature of natural language. But why, if Schiffers account of the nature of vagueness is right, shouldnt vagueness be in principle eliminable?17 Fifth, here is a more general worry. What sorts of things are part of a concepts conceptual role? Ordinarily, conceptual role is understood as, roughly, inferential role theres a set of supposedly concept-constitutive inferences, such that (very roughly) to have the concept is to be disposed to make these inferences. The paradigmatic example is the standard introduction and elimination rules for the logical concepts. There are two kinds of views on vagueness which are very naturally grafted onto a conceptual-role semantics. One is that vagueness is all but indeterminacy, and vagueness in a concept consists in its conceptual role being somehow underspecied, and, less popularly, the view that the sorites premise, or some principle amounting to as much, is part of the concepts conceptual role this would be one type of inconsistency view of the kind earlier briey outlined (notice that this is an instance of conceptual role being in a sense overspecied ). Whatever the fate of these suggestions, it is clear that the kinds of things alleged by these suggestions to be part of the conceptual roles of vague concepts are the right kinds of things for being part of conceptual role but how can it be a feature of the conceptual roles of vague concepts that one form VPBs? The most straightforward suggestion would be something like infer from n% of Xs head is covered with hair to: I should v-believe to degree d that X is bald but this seems very
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nave and not like anything Schiffer might plausibly have in mind. Notice that if the conceptual roles of vague concepts are underspecied or overspecied in the way indicated, this can in principle explain why we can form VPB* beliefs. (Note that my arguments here are not meant to imply that we do not form VPB* beliefs of the kind described by Schiffer. My negative remarks are exclusively focused on Schiffers account of the nature of vagueness: his claim, quoted above, that it is a primitive and underived feature of a concept of a vague property that we form VPBs involving that concept and that this is what vagueness consists in.)
IV.
The sorites
Finally, let me turn to the third main aspect of Schiffers view on the sorites: the contention that the sorites premise is indeterminate. Heres the version of the sorites paradox that Schiffer considers (SI): (1) A person with $50,000,000 is rich. (2) n(a person with $n is rich a person with $n-1 is also rich). (3) So, a person with only 37 is rich.18 Its (2), the sorites premise, that must be rejected, but, as Schiffer says, it seems that compelling reasons can be given for its acceptance. Here is an argument for the sorites premise that Schiffer sets out: (i) (ii) ~n(the proposition that [a person with $n is rich & a person with $n-1 isnt rich] is true). ~n(the proposition that [a person with $n is rich & a person with $n-1 isnt rich] is true) n(a person with $n is rich a person with $n-1 is also rich). Hence, by modus ponens, n(a person with $n is rich a person with $n-1 is also rich).19
(iii)
Schiffer says that his account of indeterminacy commits him to saying that the sorites premise is indeterminate.20 (And he remarks that this is best seen when we consider the version of the argument that spells out all the relevant instances of the universal generalization.) When it comes to the argument for the sorites premise, Schiffer holds that premise (i), and maybe also premise (ii), are indeterminate.21 Schiffer says about SI that it is indeterminate whether its premises are true. Its conclusion is of course false. Is the argument valid ? Schiffer argues that this too must be indeterminate. Suppose the argument is valid. Then, given the indeterminacy of whether the premises are true, it should be indeterminate whether the conclusion is false. But then consider the long
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version of the sorites argument, which only makes use of modus ponens. Schiffer is, as he says, committed to saying that it is indeterminate whether modus ponens is valid!22 (And whereas there may be good reason to doubt whether if . . . then of ordinary English obeys this rule of inference, it would appear silly to doubt modus ponens for the material conditional but it seems we can just stipulate that it is the material conditional we use in the sorites reasoning. Hence Schiffers doubts about modus ponens are much more radical than, e.g., Vann McGees, which concern the if . . . then of ordinary English.)23 Odd and counterintuitive? Yes. But, Schiffer holds, that is what we should expect of an unhappy-face solution anyway.24 Schiffer then turns to exactly why the sorites lacks a happy-face solution. The suggestion is that the truth- and falsity-schemas for propositions, and also classical laws of logic like the law of excluded middle, are part of the underived conceptual roles of the relevant concepts (the logical concepts and the concepts of truth and falsity) while it is part of the underived conceptual roles of vague concepts that some propositions formed with the use of these go into the VPB box. But (a) Schiffer does not actually spell out what is the conict here (below I spell out why there are some concerns here); and (b) if this really is why there is a conict, the conict does not seem to have to do with vagueness per se, but with indeterminacy (since [C] holds, but not [D]). But vagueness seems offhand to be a more paradoxical phenomenon than indeterminacy in general, and it would be rather surprising if the reason the sorites-paradox lacks a happy face solution is not specically related to vagueness. What is really puzzling, though, is Schiffers account of indeterminacy. Schiffer takes indeterminacy to be explicated by [C]. At any rate, [C] is held to be extensionally adequate, and it seems to have a more central role as well. Schiffer says nothing to indicate that [C] would not be able to serve to state what indeterminacy consists in, and moreover, Schiffer holds that indeterminacy is psychological notion and this characterization of indeterminacy ts well with taking [C] fully to explicate the notion.25 But then how does indeterminacy relate to truth and falsity? Recall what is Schiffers aim when discussing vagueness. He sees epistemicism and third-possibility views as inadequate, and seeks an alternative account of vagueness. His solution is to introduce the notions of VPB and VPB*-beliefs and of indeterminacy. He takes his appeal to indeterminacy to help avoid both epistemicism and third-possibility views. But is Schiffers appeal to indeterminacy not simply a way of dodging the question? What we wanted to know is what are the semantic values of the relevant premises in the sorites reasoning. If indeterminacy is a psychological notion, how is being told that the premises are indeterminate help at all with respect to our question? Here is a way of emphasizing what the problem is.
20
Either the indeterminacy of P is compatible with Ps having a classical truth-value or it isnt. If it isnt, then we have here a third possibility solution of the kind Schiffer wants to reject. If it is, then Schiffer has yet to distinguish the indeterminacy that he wants to talk about from the kind of principled unknowability that the epistemicist talks about. Nothing commits Schiffer to epistemicism, even on this horn of the dilemma, but the problem is that he has yet to explain what distinguishes his position from epistemicism the stuff about VPBs doesnt help do so. Schiffer would certainly resist the dilemma by rejecting the assumption that there are exactly these two possibilities open to him and he can appeal to independent aspects of his view in replying this way, for he anyway does not accept the law of excluded middle. But this does not remove the worry. The refusal to accept the law of excluded middle relies on, precisely, appeal to indeterminacy, and what we havent yet been told is how appeal to indeterminacy can do the job it is supposed to do.26
V. The inconsistency view

Just why does not Schiffer accept the type of inconsistency view on the sorites paradox that I outlined earlier? Here, to spell it out properly, is the view. Let a predicate be tolerant if and only if it satises a tolerance principle of the following form: Whereas large enough differences in Fs parameter of application sometimes matter to the justice with which it is applied, some small enough difference never thus matters. The sorites paradox shows that no predicate can actually be tolerant. But one inconsistency view on vagueness is that tolerance principles might still be meaning-constitutive principles for vague predicates in the sense that it is part of competence to be disposed to accept that such a principle is true. This explains our intuitive attraction to the sorites premise. Since no predicates can be tolerant, the semantic values of vague predicates cannot actually be such as to make true the meaning-constitutive principles for these predicates. The actual semantic values of vague predicates and of other expressions are what come closest to satisfying a weighted most of the meaning-constitutive principles. (A reasonable speculation is that there will be ties for closeness.) This explanation of the view is of course brief and rough, but for present purposes it will be sufcient.27 There are, to be sure, far-from-unreasonable complaints one might have against this inconsistency view. The view relies on some kind of conceptual 2006 The Author Journal compilation 2006 University of Southern California and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
21
role semantics. More controversially, it presupposes that linguistic rules (or what play the role of linguistic rules) can somehow be inconsistent. These presuppositions of the view are in conict with what many theorists believe, and good objections can be mounted against them. But Schiffer can hardly have complaints on either of these scores. For Schiffer accepts a kind of conceptual-role semantics. And Schiffer holds that linguistic rules can be in conict. So what reason could Schiffer have not to accept something like this view? Notice, too, that the inconsistency view outlined gets around the objections that have here been raised against Schiffers view. The reason the sorites paradox does not admit of a happy-face solution is now explained by vagueness-specic reasons (specically the role of tolerance principles). One thing Schiffer might still have against the inconsistency view is that it appears to be a third-possibility view. Consider the account of referencedetermination provided by the inconsistency view. The semantic values of expressions (or concepts) are what come closest to making true the principles we are disposed by our competence to accept. It appears that this would yield one of two results. Either there is a unique best assignment of semantic values, in which case what we have is in end really a version of epistemicism. Or, more plausibly, there will be no unique best assignment of semantic values; among other things, borderline sentences will receive different truth-values under different acceptable assignments of semantic values. But in this case, we get a tripartite division of sentences into those that are true under all acceptable assignments, those that receive different truth-values under different assignments, and those that are false under all acceptable assignments. By way of response, we should rst note that third-possibility view can be understood two ways. (i) A third-possibility view is a view according to which borderline cases have a status incompatible with truth and falsity. (ii) A third-possibility view is a view according to which vagueness effects a tripartite division of sentences, between what are in effect the perfectly true sentences, the perfectly false sentences and the rest. Focus rst on the rst sense of third-possibility view. The inconsistency view need not be a third-possibility view in this sense. Suppose a sentence is permissibly called true if it is true under some acceptable assignment. Then the inconsistency view does not say of borderline sentences that they have a status incompatible with truth and falsity. The inconsistency view is a third-possibility view in the second sense. There is a tripartite division between sentences true under all acceptable assignments, sentences false under all acceptable assignments, and sentences with different truth-values under different acceptable assignments. But all non-epistemicist views are third-possibility views in this sense. Schiffers own view would appear to be a third-possibility view since there will always be a rst sentence such that someone can v*-believe that
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sentence and a last sentence such that one can v*-believe that sentence. Or consider Wrights view as presented in the quote given early on: that borderline sentences are such that one can permissibly call them true and also permissibly call them false. Here too we have a tripartite division. So there is still no reason why Schiffer should not be able to embrace the simpler inconsistency view. Department of Philosophy University of Colorado at Boulder
NOTES Earlier Schiffer has presented his views on vagueness in the articles (1998), (1999) and (2000). But (2003) contains the fullest statement of Schiffers view. Except where indicated, all page references in what follows are to Schiffer (2003). 2 pp. 18187. 3 pp. 1912. 4 Wright (2001), pp. 6970. 5 p. 196f. 6 p. 197. 7 pp. 199 201. 8 pp. 2017. 9 p. 207. 10 p. 208. 11 That is, have a VPB*-type belief. 12 pp. 208 10. 13 According to which, very intuitively, properties exist but their existence is thin and inconsequential. See Schiffer (2003), ch. 2. The quoted words are from p. 59. 14 p. 212. 15 This problem arises also for many other theories of vagueness, including the view on which vagueness is semantic indecision but this doesnt make it any less serious for Schiffer. 16 p. 214f. 17 Someone who like Schiffer distinguishes between vagueness and semantic indeterminacy might in principle take the line that when intuitively it appears that vagueness is ineliminable, what is really ineliminable is semantic indeterminacy. Schiffer, however, does not take this line but takes vagueness to be ineliminable (see p. 225). Therefore this problem arises for him. 18 p. 180. 19 p. 180. 20 p. 222. 21 p. 223. 22 p. 224. 23 For McGees doubts, see McGee (1985). 24 p. 224. 25 p. 224. 26 Compare the liar paradox. The problem with the original liar sentence (L = L is false ) is that whether we classify it as true or as false we land in contradiction. A simple
1
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way around the problem is to suggest that the liar is neither-true-nor-false untrue without there by being false. But this does not sufce to get around the strengthened liar (SL = SL is not true ). One way around the liar problem thus conceived found for instance in Patrick Greenough (2002) is to instead describe the various liar sentences in different, not truth-theoretic terms. Greenough describes the liar sentence as not presupposition-apt. But this seems just to be to avoid the problem, unless more is said. For describing SL as not presupposition-apt is not yet to say what is the status of SL with respect to truth. (Greenough has an account of why we need not say what is SLs status with respect to truth. Since I am here only bringing up Greenoughs account for illustrative purposes, let me not get into that. Note only that in the end this part of the account will carry the lions share of the burden of making the account acceptable.) Similarly with respect to what Schiffer says about vagueness and bivalence. He describes the phenomena in other terms, but even if this description is adequate as far as it goes it does not answer the question of what are the truth-values of vague sentences. 27 I defend this view on vagueness in (2002) and in (2005).
REFERENCES Eklund, M. (2002). Inconsistent Languages, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64, pp. 25175. Eklund, M. (2005). What Vagueness Consists In, Philosophical Studies 125, pp. 2760. Greenough, P. (2002). Free Assumptions and the Liar Paradox, American Philosophical Quarterly 38, pp. 11535. McGee, V. (1985). A Counterexample to Modus Ponens, Journal of Philosophy 82, pp. 462 471. Schiffer, S. (1998). Two Issues of Vagueness, Monist 88, pp. 193214. Schiffer, S. (2000). Vagueness and Partial Belief, Philosophical Issues 10, pp. 220 57. Schiffer, S. (2003). The Things We Mean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright, C. (1995). The Epistemic Conception of Vagueness, Southern Journal of Philosophy Vol. 33, Suppl., pp. 13359. Wright, C. (2001). On Being in a Quandary: Relativism, Vagueness, Logical Revisionism, Mind 110, pp. 4598.

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SCHIFFER ON VAGUENESS

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

Vagueness-related partial beliefs

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

V. The inconsistency view

PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

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