Abstract

MENA, Ricardo. Instruments, Artifacts and Context. Anal. filos. [online]. 2018, vol.38, n.1, pp.83-102. ISSN 1851-9636.

It is notoriously difficult to model the range of application of vague predicates relative to a suitable sorites series. In this paper I offer some critical remarks against an interesting view that has received little attention in the literature. According to it, the sharp cut-offs we find in our semantic models are just artifacts of the theory, and, as such, they are harmless. At the end I discuss a contextualist view that, at a cost, may be able to get around the problems related to sharp cut-offs incurred in by other theories of vagueness.

Keywords : Vagueness; Philosophy of Language; Instrumentalism.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )