Contextual Effects on Vagueness and the Sorites Paradox: A Preliminary Study
نویسنده
چکیده
Context is a prominent theme in accounts of the semantics of vagueness. Contextual theories of vagueness have been motivated in part by a desire to disarm skeptical arguments that make use of vagueness; another motive is the hope that they might help to resolve the Sorites Paradox. This paper is intended as part of a larger project, which aims at describing and comparing the leading theories that have been presented, to bring out the ways in which contextual theories have informed the semantic phenomenon of vagueness, and to make strategic assesments and suggestions concerning the crucial case of adjectives. It concentrates on Hans Kamp’s 1975 theory, and two recent contributions by Haim Gaifman and Joseph Halpern. The specific goal of this paper is to examine the role of context in the semantics of certain adjectives, and assess to what extent context can help to solve what I take to be the most challenging version of the Sorites Paradox.
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