Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Vagueness, philosophy: there are descriptions of objects or situations that are necessarily not fully determined. For example, the indication whether a given hue is still red or already orange is not always decidable. It is a property of the language to provide vague predicates. Whether vagueness is a property of the world is controversial. See also sorites, indeterminacy, under-determinateness, intensification, penumbra._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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P. Gärdenfors on Vagueness - Dictionary of Arguments
I 44 Vagueness/Language/Gärdenfors: Language is full of vagueness. Since Leibniz, philosophers have dreamed of a precise language. --- I 45 Gärdenfors thesis: vague concepts are necessary in a language for reasons of cognitive economy. The vagueness results for the most part from the fact that we learn concepts through individual examples and counterexamples. --- I 46 Explanation of the vagueness: 1. With changing boundary lines of the domains, there is a different probability for the localization of a prototype. 2. Vagueness stems from the changing weighting of the dimensions in one domain. The different weights result in changing contexts. > Perception/Gärdenfors, > prototypes/Gärdenfors, categories/Gärdenfors. --- I 47 General: cognitive limitations relating to the location of the prototypes and relative weighting of the dimensions explain why terms are generally vague and why categorial perception is omnipresent._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gä I P. Gärdenfors The Geometry of Meaning Cambridge 2014 |