Patrick Greenough

Vagueness and Non-Indexical Contextualism

Contextualism concerning vagueness (hereafter ‘CV’) is a popular response to the puzzle of vagueness.1 The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the most basic components of CV, and to show that it is crucial to distinguish between two types of context-sensitivity in order to evaluate CV properly. In Section 2, we sketch a generic form of CV. In Section 3, we distinguish between Indexical and Non-indexical context-sensitivity and two corresponding versions of CV.2 In Section 4, we discuss the extent to which various forms of ‘blindness’ are problematic for these two versions of CV. Non-indexical CV is found to fare better than Indexical CV in this respect. In Section 5 we address a challenge posed by Keefe (2007) to the effect that CV entails that any speech report of what has been said by a particular vague utterance, where the context of utterance and the reporting context are relevantly different, will almost always be inaccurate. While this challenge is prima facie effective against Indexical CV it proves to be less effective against Non-Indexical CV.3

Deflationism and Truth Value Gaps

Central to any form of deflationism concerning truth (hereafter ‘DT’) is the claim that truth has no substantial theoretical role to play.1 For this reason, DT faces the following immediate challenge: if truth can play no substantial theoretical role, then how can we model various prevalent kinds of indeterminacy, such as the indeterminacy exhibited by vague predicates, future contingents, liar sentences, truth teller sentences, incomplete stipulations, cases of presupposition failure, and such-like?2 It is too hasty to assume that these phenomena are all to be modeled via some epistemic conception of indeterminacy, where indeterminacy is just some special species of ignorance that arises because of our limited powers of discrimination. Some non-epistemic model is called for—at least for certain species of indeterminacy. On what is perhaps the most enduring and popular non-epistemic model, indeterminacy gives rise to truth value gaps.3 But is DT compatible with the possibility of truth value gaps? Compatibilism says Yes; incompatibilism says No.4

On what it is to be in a quandary

A number of serious problems are raised against Crispin Wright’s quandary conception of vagueness. Two alternative conceptions of the quandary view are proposed instead. The first conception retains Wright’s thesis that, for all one knows, a verdict concerning a borderline case constitutes knowledge. However a further problem is seen to beset this conception. The second conception, in response to this further problem, does not enjoin the thesis that, for all one knows, a verdict concerning a borderline case constitutes knowledge. The result is a much simpler and more plausible version of the quandary view.

Conceptual Marxism and Truth: Inquiry Symposium on Kevin Scharp’s Replacing Truth

ABSTRACT In Replacing Truth (2013), Scharp takes the concept of truth to be fundamentally incoherent. As such, Scharp reckons it to be unsuited for systematic philosophical theorising and in need of replacement – at least for regions of thought and talk which permit liar sentences and their ilk to be formulated. This replacement methodology is radical because it not only recommends that the concept of truth be replaced (in troublesome domains), but that the word ‘true’ be replaced too. Only Tarski has attempted anything like it before. I dub such a view Conceptual Marxism. In assessing this view, my goals are fourfold: to summarise the many components of Scharp’s theory of truth; to highlight what I take to be some of the excess baggage carried by the view; to assess whether, and to what extent, the extreme methodology on offer is at all called for; finally, to briefly propose a less radical replacement strategy for resolving the liar paradox.