Readings

This section features the two books used most often in this course and a list of readings by session. Students are especially encouraged to read the starred (*) texts.

Required Texts

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Keefe, Rosanna, and Peter Smith, eds. Vagueness: A Reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN: 0262112256.

Buy at Amazon Williamson, Timothy. Vagueness. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 0415033314.

Readings by Session

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Why Bother?

* Russell, Bertrand. "Vagueness." In Vagueness: A Reader.

Williamson, Timothy. "The ideal of precision." Chapter 2 in Vagueness.
2 Degrees of Truth

* Machina, Kenton F. "Truth, belief and vagueness." In Vagueness: A Reader.

* Sainsbury, R. M. "Concepts without boundaries." In Vagueness: A Reader.

Williamson, Timothy. "Many-valued logic and degrees of truth." Chapter 4 in Vagueness.
3 Supervaluationism (Part 1)

* Fine, Kit. "Vagueness, truth and logic." In Vagueness: A Reader. (No need to feel guilty if you skip section 5.)

Williamson, Timothy. "Supervaluations." Chapter 5 in Vagueness.
4 Supervaluationism (Part 2)

* McGee, Vann, and Brian McLaughlin. "Distinctions without a Difference." Southern Journal of Philosophy (Supplement) 33 (1995): 203-51.

McGee, Vann. "A Semantic Conception of Truth?" Philosophical Topics 21 (1993): 83-111.

Williamson, Timothy. "Supervaluations." Chapter 5 in Vagueness.
5 Vagueneess in the World

* Evans, Gareth. "Can there be vague objects?" In Vagueness: A Reader.

* Lewis, David. "Vague identity: Evans misunderstood?" In Vagueness: A Reader.

Williamson, Timothy. Chapter 9 in Vagueness.
6 Epistemicism (Part 1)

* Williamson, Timothy. "Vagueness as Ignorance." Chapter 7 in Vagueness.

———. "Inexact Knowledge." Chapter 8 in Vagueness.
7 Epistemicism (Part 2)

* Williamson, Timothy. "Inexact Knowledge." Chapter 8 in Vagueness.
8 Contextualism

* Graff, Delia. "Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness." Philosophical Topics 28 (2000): 45-81.

Raffman, Diana. "Vagueness Without Paradox." Philosophical Review 103, no. 1 (January, 1994): 41-74.
9 Nihilism

* Wright, Crispin. "Language Mastery and the Sorites Paradox." In Vagueness: A Reader.

Williamson, Timothy. "Nihilism." Chapter 6 in Vagueness.
10 Eklund Extravangza

Guest Lecturer: Matti Eklund (Cornell University)

* Dummett Michael. "Wang's Paradox." In Vaugeness: A Reader. (With special emphasis on Dummett's positive view, discussed toward the end.)

* Eklund, Matti. "What Vagueness Consists in." In Philosophical Studies 125 (2005): 27-60.


Also, The following are very-much-non-required readings

Eklund, Matti. "Vagueness and Second-Level Indeterminacy." (Very much work in progress.)

Weatherson, Brian. "Vagueness as Indeterminacy." October 19, 2006.
11 My Own Views

*Rayo, Agustín. "Vague Representation." October 20, 2006.

Buy at Amazon Stalnaker. "Assertion." In Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0198237073. (This is an important book. You should buy it, if you don't own a copy already.)

Buy at Amazon Lewis, David. "Scorekeeping in a Language Game." In Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN: 0195032039. (This too is a collection you should own.)
12 Latter-Day Crispinology

* Buy at Amazon Wright, Crispin. "Vagueness: A Fifth Column Approach." In Liars and Heaps. Edited by J. C. Beall. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 0199264813.

———. "On being in a Quandary: Relativism, Vagueness, Logical Revisionism." Mind 110 (2001): 45-98.