Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction and Fundamentals
1.1. Whirlwind Tour of Competing Theories of Vagueness
1.2. Initial Observations (1): Blurred Boundaries, Sharp Boundaries, and Stopping Places
1.3. Initial Observations (2): Vagueness and Gradability
1.4. Initial Observations (3): Vagueness and Soriticality
1.5. Initial Observations (4): Vagueness and Context-Sensitivity
1.6. Vagueness and Rule-following
1.7. Two Policies and a Caveat
1.8. Selective Review
1.9. Looking Ahead

2. The In's and Out's of Borderline Cases
2.1. Lay of the Land
2.2. The Standard Analysis
2.3. The Incompatibilist Analysis
2.4. Objections and Replies
2.5. Symmetry, Indeterminacy, Higher-Order Borderlines, Accessibility; and Some Advantages of the Incompatibilist Analysis
2.6. Independently Fishy Features of Higher-Order Borderlines
2.7. Selective Review
2.8. Looking ahead.

3. Framework for a Semantics of Vagueness
3.1. Vagueness and Indexicality
3.2. Two Ingredients of Sense for Vague Words
3.3. A Refinement: Contexts of Utterance vs Intended Contexts
3.4. Selective Review
3.5. Looking Ahead

4. The Multiple Range Theory of Vagueness
4.1. Vagueness and Reference
4.2. Why Ranges of Application Are Not Precisifications
4.3. Progress Report and Two Criteria of Vagueness
4.4. Evaluation
4.5. Solving the Sorites
4.6. Verdicts on Some Specific Predicates
4.7. Vagueness, Soriticality, Borderlines, V-index-sensitivity, Gradability,
and Indeterminacy: Relatives or Just Friends?
4.8. Selective Review
4.9. Looking Ahead
Figures

5. The Competent Use of Vague Words
5.1. A Pragmatic Sorites
5.2. Testing for Hysteresis
5.3. Non-perceptual Hysteresis: Does Our Hypothesis Generalize?
5.4. Meaning and Use: Implementing the Multi-Range Semantics
5.5. An Etymological Speculation
5.6. The Truth About Tolerance
5.7. Looking Back: Rules, Reasons, and the Governing View
Figures

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Diana Raffman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. She has published a number of papers in the philosophy of mind, primarily about consciousness and perception, in the philosophy of language, primarily about vagueness, and in the philosophy of art, primarily about music. She is currently writing a series of papers about the role of vagueness in legal language.

Reviews

"Unruly Words is a pleasure to read, and it provides plenty of material for thought and discussion. I strongly recommend it for anyone involved or interested in the philosophical debate on vagueness."--Jonas Akerman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews