USES AND ABUSES OF FUZZINESS IN PHILOSOPHY: A SELECTIVE SURVEY OF HOW RECENT PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS TREAT VAGUENESS
David H. Sanford · International Journal of General Systems · 1995
This is a selective summary of work done by philosophers on the concept of vagueness (or fuzziness) accompanied by a selective annotated bibliography organized topically. The main topics covered are: the sorites paradox, the semantic technique of supervaluations, the definition of first-order and higher-order borderline cases by means of a determinacy operator, arguments that the existence of vagueness precludes the coherence of observational predicates, such as color terms, and arguments (“The Problem of the Many”) that the existence of vagueness precludes the existence of ordinary things. Attempts to meet these last two arguments often encounter the problem of inappropriate precision, the problem of importing inappropriately high degrees of exactness into theoretical treatments of inexactness.