Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox

Beall / Liars and Heaps Final Proof 4.11.2003 10:13am page iii Liars and Heaps New Essays on Paradox edited by JC Be...

Author: JC Beall

117 downloads 1337 Views 3MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Beall / Liars and Heaps Final Proof 4.11.2003

10:13am page iii

Liars and Heaps New Essays on Paradox

edited by

JC Beall

CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD


10:13am page i

Liars and Heaps


10:13am page ii


10:13am page iv

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Saõ Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß the several contributors 2003 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-926480-5 ISBN 0-19-926481-3 (pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by T.J. International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall


10:13am page v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The papers in this collection grew out of a conference at Storrs, Connecticut. The conference was sponsored by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (UCHI), the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, the UConn Philosophy Department, and the University of Connecticut Research Foundation. Special thanks to Richard Brown (director of UCHI) for his support and guidance throughout the conference. Tim Elder (Head of Department, UConn Philosophy) was typically supportive throughout the conference, as was Shelly Burelle (UConn Philosophy); to them I give thanks. Michael Glanzberg not only contributed to this volume but was also a coorganizer of the conference; without his help neither the conference nor this volume would have existed. (Thanks, Michael.) Thanks also to Peter Momtchiloff (of Oxford University Press) for his efficient guidance in the publication of this volume; his patience, competence, and humor make the publication process enjoyable. Finally, I thank Katrina Higgins, who, despite being sick and tired of hearing about paradox, continues to be a source of great support. JC Beall Storrs, 2003


10:13am page vi


10:13am page vii

CONTENTS

Notes on the Contributors

ix

Introduction JC Beall

1

PART I: SORITICAL PARADOXES

7

1. A Site for Sorites Graham Priest

9

2. Cut-Offs and their Neighbors Achille C. Varzi

24

3. Vagueness and Conversation Stewart Shapiro

39

4. Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites Rosanna Keefe

73

5. Vagueness: A Fifth Column Approach Crispin Wright

84

6. Semantic Accounts of Vagueness Richard G. Heck, Jr.

106

7. Higher-Order Vagueness for Partially Defined Predicates Scott Soames

128

8. Against Truth-Value Gaps Michael Glanzberg

151

9. Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence, and Infinitely Higher-Order Vagueness 195 Delia Graff


10:13am page viii

viii / Contents PART II: SEMANTIC PARADOXES

223

10. A Definite No-No Roy A. Sorensen

225

11. Reference and Paradox Keith Simmons

230

12. On the Singularity Theory of Denotation JC Beall

253

13. The Semantic Paradoxes and the Paradoxes of Vagueness Hartry Field

262

14. New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory S. Yablo

312

15. A Completeness Theorem for Unrestricted First-Order Languages Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson

331

16. Universal Universal Quantification Vann McGee

357

Index

365


10:13am page ix

NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

JC Beall, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut. He is co-author (with Bas van Fraassen) of Possibilities and Paradox: An Introduction to Modal and Many-Valued Logic (Oxford University Press, 2003) and co-author (with Greg Restall) of Logical Pluralism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Beall works mainly in philosophy of language and logic (especially issues of paraconsistency), and is currently working on a monograph on truth, falsity, and paradox (Oxford University Press, forthcoming); he has published in those areas in Analysis, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Nouˆs, Philosophia Mathematica, Philosophical Quarterly, and the Journal of Philosophical Logic. Beall likes to write and read short papers, and he also likes cats. Hartry Field, Professor, Department of Philosophy, New York University. His books include Science Without Numbers (Princeton University Press, 1980), Realism, Mathematics and Modality (Blackwell, 1989), and Truth and the Absence of Fact (Oxford University Press, 2001). Field’s main research areas include metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, and philosophical logic; he has published on those topics in the Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Nouˆs, the Philosophical Review, and the Journal of Philosophical Logic. Michael Glanzberg, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto. Glanzberg works mainly in logic and philosophy of language; he has published articles on truth, paradox, the semantics– pragmatic boundary, and the nature of linguistic context in Mind and Language, Nouˆs, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, and Synthese. Delia Graff, Assistant Professor, Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell University. She co-edited (with Timothy Williamson) Vagueness (Ashgate, 2002). Graff works chiefly in the areas of philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology, and metaphysics; she has published papers in those areas in journals including Mind, Philosophical Studies, and, among others, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.


10:13am page x

x / Notes on the Contributors Richard G. Heck, Jr. Professor, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University. He edited Language, Thought, and Logic: Essays in Honor of Michael Dummett (Oxford University Press, 1997). Heck works mainly in philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics; he has published in those areas in journals including Analysis, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, Mind, Nouˆs, the Philosophical Review, the Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophia Mathematica, The Monist, and others. Rosanna Keefe, Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield. She is the author of Theories of Vagueness (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and co-editor of Vagueness: A Reader (MIT Press, 1997). Keefe works primarily in philosophy of language and philosophical logic; she has published in those areas in Analysis, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Mind, and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Vann McGee, Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT. He is the author of Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox (Hackett, 1991). McGee works chiefly in philosophy of language (truth, reference, conditionals), philosophy of mathematics, philosophical logic (provability logic), foundations of probability, and recursion theory; he has published in those areas in Analysis, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Symbolic Logic, the Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophia Mathematica, Philosophical Issues, and, among other places, Philosophical Topics. Graham Priest, Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, and Arche´ Professorial Fellow at the University of St Andrews. His published books include In Contradiction (Kluwer, 1987), Beyond the Limits of Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1995; Oxford University Press, 2002), and Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (Cambridge University Press, 2001). Priest works on many topics in metaphysics, the history of philosophy, and formal and philosophical logic, especially those topics connected with paraconsistency. He also works on anything else that captures his imagination. Priest has published in various journals, including Analysis, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Symbolic Logic, and the Journal of Philosophical Logic. Time not spent doing philosophy is most happily spent practising karatedo. Agustıń Rayo, Arche´ Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews and, as of July 2004, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. Rayo works mainly in the philosophies of logic, mathematics, and


10:13am page xi

Notes on the Contributors / xi language; he has published papers on those topics in various journals, including Analysis, Nouˆs, and the Journal of Symbolic Logic. Stewart Shapiro, O’Donnell Professor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, and Arche´ Professorial Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of Foundations Without Foundationalism: A Case for Second-Order Logic (Oxford University Press, 1991), Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure and Ontology (Oxford University Press, 1997), and Thinking about Mathematics: The Philosophy of Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 2000). Shapiro works chiefly in the philosophy of mathematics, logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of language; he has published in those areas in Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, and the Journal of Symbolic Logic. Shapiro is a workaholic who, in addition to work, likes to jog and listen to the Grateful Dead and the Incredible String Band. Keith Simmons, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina. He is the author of Universality and the Liar: An Essay on Truth and the Diagonal Argument (Cambridge University Press, 1993) and co-editor (with Simon Blackburn) of Truth (Oxford University Press, 2000). Simmons’s main areas of research are logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of language; his articles in those areas have appeared in various journals, including the Journal of Philosophical Logic, Nouˆs, and Philosophical Studies. He is currently working on Russell’s paradox and the paradoxes of definability, and on deflationism and truth. Scott Soames, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University. He is the author of Understanding Truth (Oxford University Press, 1999), Beyond Rigidity (Oxford University Press, 2002), and the two-volume Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2003). Soames’s main areas of research are philosophy of language and the history of twentieth-century analytic philosophy; he has published on those topics in various journals including the Journal of Philosophy, Linguistics and Philosophy, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Nouˆs, the Philosophical Review, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophical Perspectives. Roy A. Sorensen, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Dartmouth College. He is the author of several books, most recently Vagueness and Contradiction (Oxford University Press, 2001) and A Brief History of the Paradox (Oxford University Press, 2003). Sorensen works mainly in philosophy of language and logic, and has published in those areas in various journals, including


10:13am page xii

xii / Notes on the Contributors Analysis, the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Nouˆs, the Philosophical Quarterly, and the Journal of Philosophical Logic. Achille C. Varzi, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University. His books include An Essay in Universal Semantics (Kluwer, 1999), Parts and Places (with R. Casati; MIT Press, 1999), Theory and Problems of Logic (with J. Nolt and D. Rohatyn; McGraw-Hill, 1998), and Holes and Other Superficialities (with R. Casati; MIT Press, 1994). Varzi’s main research interests are in logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of language; his papers in those areas appear in several books and journals, including the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, Mind, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Nouˆs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophical Topics. Currently Varzi is an editor of the Journal of Philosophy and an advisory editor of The Monist and of Dialectica. Timothy Williamson, FBA, FRSE, Wykeham Chair of Logic, Oxford University. He is the author of Knowledge and its Limits (Oxford University Press, 2000), Vagueness (Routledge, 1994), and Identity and Discrimination (Blackwell, 1990), and co-editor (with Delia Graff) of Vagueness (Ashgate, 2002). Williamson’s chief research interests include philosophical logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind (especially externalism); he has published numerous articles in those areas in Analysis, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, the Journal of Symbolic Logic, Mind, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, Studia Logica, and other journals and collections. Crispin Wright, FBA, Wardlaw Professor, University of St Andrews, and Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. His books include Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics, Realism Meaning and Truth, Truth and Objectivity, Rails to Infinity, Saving the Differences, Frege’s Conception of Numbers as Objects, and (with Bob Hale) The Reason’s Proper Study. His numerous journal articles range over topics in epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, metaethics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of logic. He is founder and co-director of the AHRB research centre, Arche´, at the University of St Andrews. Stephen Yablo, Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT. He works chiefly in metaphysics (which is MIT-speak for areas other than ethics). His articles in ‘metaphysics’ have appeared in Analysis, the Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophical Logic, Nouˆs, and the Philosophical Review.


9:25pm page 1

Introduction JC Beall

Philosophers work at the limits of language; that is where standard principles are challenged; that is where paradoxes are found. The task, at least with respect to natural language, is to learn from such limiting cases; the task is to figure out what the paradoxes teach us about the very language we speak. The papers in this volume address (for the most part) two sorts of paradox: semantic and soritical.1 Typical semantic paradoxes include truth-theoretic paradoxes (e.g. the Liar family, Curry’s), paradoxes of denotation (e.g. Berry’s, Richard’s, Ko¨nig’s), and, in some of its guises, Russell’s paradox (qua paradox about naive extensions).2 Typical soritical paradoxes (from the Greek sorites, meaning heap) involve a series of conditionals to the effect that an object y is 1 Two papers address ‘really unrestricted’ quantification, a topic connected not only to Russell’s paradox but also to ontological pursuits. 2 My own view is that, in the end, Russell discovered two paradoxes, one concerning the naive theory of extensions and the other concerning mathematical sets. Inasmuch as sets are constructed within and for mathematics, Russell’s set-theoretic paradox may be solved by mere stipulation— much as is done in ZF or the like. (Mathematical sets, by my lights, are constrained only by ‘whatever works’ for mathematics.) Extensions are a different matter; they are constrained by our ‘intuitions’ about language, much as truth, denotation, etc. are so constrained; mere stipulation will not resolve those paradoxes. That semanticists simply adopted the mathematicians’ sets to play the role of extensions does not mean that they can simply adopt the mathematicians’ stipulations concerning paradox; extensions, as said, are constrained in ways that (mathematical) sets are not. Whether, in the end, any of the mathematicians’ sets (ZF, etc.) will adequately serve the role of (semantic) extensions is an open question. While that question is relevant to some of the papers in this collection (notably Rayo and Williamson’s, Ch. 15), it is (regrettably) one that I must now set aside.


9:25pm page 2

2 / JC Beall (say) bald if x is bald and x differs from y by only one hair. Example (where m is a single millisecond): (1) Any 1-year-old girl is a child. (2) If x is a child at time t, then x is a child at t þ m. Pick your favorite 1-year-old girl, who by (1) is a child. By premise (2), your chosen girl will remain a child even after seventy (or more) years. While each of (1) and (2) appears to be true, the conclusion—that Granny is a child— appears to be false (or, at least, untrue). Each of the mentioned sorts of paradox has been around for a long time, and by now each is fairly familiar (and, so, I skip further review). But what do such paradoxes teach us about English (or whatever natural language we may happen to speak)? To that question there is no settled answer, but there are many answers; some of them are explored in this collection.

Common Themes Contextualism. A lesson that many philosophers have drawn from the Sorites paradox is that vague predicates—predicates that give rise to soritical paradox—are contextually sensitive; they change extension from context to context. Many of the philosophers represented in this volume discuss such ‘contextualism’ with respect to the Sorites, and some discuss it with respect to semantic paradox. Unified solution. Philosophers love simplicity and uniformity. While few philosophers have advanced a unified solution to both semantic and soritical paradoxes, the virtues of such a framework (whatever it might look like) are evident—treating both sorts of paradox as instances of the same basic phenomenon (whatever that might be). One avenue towards such unification may be contextualism: if (as a growing number of philosophers think) the semantic paradoxes teach us that ‘is true’, ‘denotes’, etc. are contextually sensitive, then one might combine such a view with a contextualist response to the Sorites paradox.3 Contextualism, however, is not the only route towards unification; perhaps, as Field (Chapter 13 in this volume) suggests, the two sorts of paradox are instances of an indeterminacy that calls for a non-classical but detachable conditional. 3 In his Understanding Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) Scott Soames advocates such a position, at least with respect to the Liar and sorites.


9:25pm page 3

Introduction / 3

The Contributions The papers, for the most part, come in pairs, with one of the papers either responding to or extending the topic of the other.4 Each of the authors does a nice job of clearly advancing her/his own thesis and arguments, and so there is little point in repeating those theses or arguments here. Instead, I will simply indicate the target topic of each (pair of ) paper(s).5

Soritical Paradox Graham Priest (Chapter 1) advances a novel (fuzzy) approach to identity, taking the lesson of the Sorites to require as much. In response Achille Varzi (Chapter 2) suggests not only that vague phenomena may require psychological (cognitive scientific) explanation, as opposed to philosophicalcum-logical, but also that a supervaluational approach to the semantics of vagueness is at least as promising as Priest’s novel fuzzy approach. Stewart Shapiro (Chapter 3) extends the work of Diana Raffman (see Shapiro’s citations) by advancing a pragmatic, contextual approach to vagueness, discussing ways in which the pragmatic facts yield semantic facts. Rosanna Keefe (Chapter 4) not only raises worries about pragmatic approaches in general; she also questions the extent to which Shapiro’s account can block the Sorites. Crispin Wright (Chapter 5) propounds a novel account of vagueness, one that has been overlooked by the (often thought to be exhaustive) trio of standard conceptions—semantic, in rebus, and epistemic. Wright sketches a broadly epistemic account of borderline cases while advancing agnosticism with respect to vague instances of bivalence (bivalence applied to vague 4 One exception is Roy Sorensen’s paper (Ch. 10), which, for reasons that Sorensen notes, neither responds to nor extends the topic discussed by Delia Graff. 5 NB: The division into ‘soritical’ and ‘semantic’ paradoxes is slightly misleading on two fronts. First front: some of the papers under ‘semantic’ (e.g. Field’s, Yablo’s, Glanzberg’s; Chs. 13, 14, 8) bear on soritical paradox as much as they do on semantic. That said, the term ‘semantic’ is appropriate; it marks a point of emphasis in the given set of papers. Second front: Rayo and Williamson’s paper, and also McGee’s (Chs. 15, 16), are connected more closely to what Ramsey would have classified as ‘logical paradox’ (at least inasmuch as Russell’s paradox is relevant to the issue of absolutely unrestricted quantification) than to semantic paradox—at least on Ramsey’s division. For present purposes, it may be best to ignore Ramsey’s ‘distinction’, which is controversial anyway.


9:25pm page 4

4 / JC Beall predicates). Richard Heck (Chapter 6) does not directly challenge Wright’s novel position; instead, he defends one of the standard conceptions of vagueness (namely, the semantic conception) against Wright’s arguments. Scott Soames (Chapter 7) expands on his earlier (partial predicates) approach to vague terms; specifically, he tackles the problem of ‘higher-order vagueness’. Michael Glanzberg (Chapter 8) responds to Soames’s position and others like it by challenging ‘gappy’ approaches to paradox, in general. Delia Graff (Chapter 9) advances novel and, if sound, wide-ranging arguments against (higher-order) ‘gap principles’. In turn, she challenges the extent to which supervaluationists can endorse classical logic.

Semantic/Logical Roy Sorensen (Chapter 10) turns the discussion towards semantic paradox; he discusses a novel paradox within a family of so-called (by Sorensen) no-no paradoxes. Keith Simmons (Chapter 11) applies his (contextual) ‘singularity theory’ to the paradoxes of denotation; he also presents a novel (infinite) paradox of denotation, and argues that his singularity theory handles it. JC Beall (Chapter 12) challenges Simmons’s position; he argues that Simmons’s position is either inconsistent or unwarranted. Hartry Field (Chapter 13) advances a novel response to the Liar paradox, one that seems to generalize across all other semantic paradoxes and also to the soritical paradoxes. Stephen Yablo (Chapter 14) raises some questions about Field’s approach and opens up novel variations. Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson (Chapter 15) present a novel approach to (absolutely) unrestricted quantification, one that avoids Russell-like paradox; they present a completeness theorem for their system. Vann McGee (Chapter 16) discusses not only the logical significance but also the philosophical import of Rayo and Williamson’s framework, especially with respect to robust ontological pursuits.

Requisite Background The papers in this collection cover a wide range of issues and presuppose an equally wide range of background. There is no easy way of providing this, at


9:25pm page 5

Introduction / 5 least not without making this introduction the longest ‘contribution’ in the collection. Fortunately, there are a few introductory sources to which one can go for at least much of the background:6 . On vagueness and the Sorites: . The introductory chapter in Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith (eds.), Vagueness: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1987). . R. M. Sainsbury and Timothy Williamson, ‘Sorites’, in R. Hale and C. Wright (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). . On semantic paradoxes: . Mark Sainsbury, Paradoxes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). . Michael Clark, Paradoxes from A to Z (New York: Routledge, 2002). . For common non-classical logics: . JC Beall and Bas van Fraassen, Possibilities and Paradox: An Introduction to Modal and Many-Valued Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). . Graham Priest, An Introduction to Non-classical Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). While the foregoing sources will not provide everything that one might want or need, they provide a start. 6 The exception is Rayo and Williamson’s paper (Ch. 15), which presupposes more technical background than the others. Perhaps the most useful approach to that paper (at least for those lacking the requisite background) is first to read Vann McGee’s contribution (Ch. 16) and some of the cited material in each of the two given lists of references.


9:25pm page 6


9:22pm page 7

I SORITICAL PARADOXES


9:22pm page 8


9:22pm page 9

1 A Site for Sorites Graham Priest

1. Introduction The Sorites is a very hard paradox; I think it is harder than the paradoxes of self-reference. A measure of this is the fact that the paradoxes of self-reference may be solved by abandoning the law of non-contradiction. This has seemed to some a very drastic solution. But even this cannot help solve the Sorites: Sorites arguments lead not just to contradictions that can be isolated, but to wholesale contradiction. Using Sorites arguments one can prove nearly everything. For example, we can prove that you are scrambled egg as follows. Let b0 be you, and suppose that there are n molecules in your body; let b0 , b1 , ..., bn be a sequence of objects each of which is obtained from its predecessor by replacing one molecule of you with a molecule of scrambled egg, so that bn is all scrambled egg. Let bi be the statement that you are bi . Then clearly b0 , and for any i, bi ! biþ1 . Hence by n applications of modus ponens bn : you are scrambled egg. I used to think that solving the Sorites paradox was an issue of logic; specifically, that one needed to give an account of the conditional that Versions of this paper were given at a meeting of the Australasian Association of Philosophy held at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 2002, at the conference ‘Liars and Heaps’ held at the University of Connecticut, Oct. 2002, and at seminars at the University of St Andrews, Dec. 2002. I am grateful to the many members of the audiences on those occasions for many helpful thoughts and criticisms. The commentator on the second of these occasions was Achille Varzi, whose reply also occurs in this volume. In fairness to Achille, I have not modified the paper in response to his interesting comments. It is not easy to hit a moving target; further discussion can take place elsewhere.


9:22pm page 10

10 / Graham Priest showed why the argument fails, though we are ineluctably drawn to it. But, this, I now think, is false. The Sorites phenomenon has nothing, at root, to do with conditionals, validity, or any other apparatus of the logician. The phenomenon arises at a much more fundamental level, one prior to the engagement of any logical paraphernalia. It arises simply because we are forced to recognize the existence of cut-off points where both common sense and philosophical intuition scream that there are none. Thus, the only thing left for a solution to do is to explain why we find the existence of a cut-off so counter-intuitive. This is the site at which a solution to the Sorites needs to be sought. The paper has three parts. The first explains why, I take it, we are stuck with cut-offs. The second formulates the beginnings of an explanation for this fact. The third discusses some issues that need to be addressed for this explanation to become a fully adequate solution to the Sorites paradox.

2. The Existence of Cut-Offs 2.1 The Forced March Sorites The existence of a cut-off of some kind is forced upon us by a version of the Sorites sometimes called the ‘forced march Sorites’, which is, in fact, very close to the original version of the argument.1 We can formulate this as follows. Consider the Sorites argument above. Let qi be the question ‘Is it the case that bi ?’ If asked this question, there is some appropriate range of answers. What these are exactly does not matter. They might be ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘I don’t know’, ‘yes, probably’, ‘er . . . ’, or anything else. All that we need to assume is that an appropriate answer is justified by the objective state of affairs; specifically, by the nature of bi .2 Now, suppose I ask you the sequence of questions: q0 , q1 , ... Given any question, there may be more than one appropriate answer. For example, you might say ‘yes’; you might same ‘same answer as last time’ (having said ‘yes’ last time). All I insist is that 1 The term ‘forced march Sorites’ was a coined (as far as I know) by Horgan (1994, sect. 4). The version I give here is slightly different from, and, it seems to me, tougher than, the version he gives there. His version is a metalinguistic identity Sorites. In due course, it will become clear how to deal with this. For the original formulation of the argument, see Williamson (1994, ch. 1) and Keefe and Smith (1997, ch. 2). 2 The justification here is semantic, not epistemic. The answerer is personified simply to make the situation graphic.


9:22pm page 11

A Site for Sorites / 11 once you answer in a certain way you stick to that until that answer is no longer appropriate. Suppose that in answer to the question q0 , you answer a. This may also be justified in answer to q1 , q2 , and so on. But there must come a first i where this is no longer the case, or it would be justified in answer to qn , which it is not. Thus, for some i, bi1 justifies this answer; bi does not. The objective situation therefore changes between bi1 and bi in such a way. And this, of course, is where intuition rebels. How can a single molecule make a difference? And by changing the example, we can make the difference between two successive states in a Sorites progression as small as one pleases. The difference may therefore fall below anything that is cognitively accessible to us; but vague predicates just don’t seem to work like this. Of course, how we should theorize this cut-off is another matter. Different theorists do this in different ways. A cut-off may be theorized as a change from truth to falsity; a change from truth to neither truth nor falsity, or to both truth and falsity; a change from being 100 per cent true to less than 100 per cent true; a change from maximal degree of assertibility to less than maximal degree; and so on. But never mind the details. What the forced march Sorites demonstrates is that any solution must face the existence of a cut-off. It cannot disappear it. All that is left for a solution to do is to theorize the nature of the cut-off, and to explain why we find its existence so counterintuitive. This is the only form that a solution to the Sorites can take. Let us consider a couple of replies. Here is one. The existence of a cut-off point seems odd because of the apparently arbitrary nature of its location. Suppose that the correct answer in the forced march Sorites changed at every question. The arbitrariness, and so the oddness, would then disappear. How could this be? One possibility is that to answer the question I simply show you the object at issue—which is changing from stage to stage. Another is that an answer is of the form ‘It is true to degree r’—as in fuzzy logic—where r is a different real number every time. The response to the first suggestion is fairly obvious. Let us not quibble about whether responding by showing is linguistic. If it is, the language is not ours. The problem into which the Sorites leads us is posed by the use of our language with its vague predicates, questions, and answers. We want a solution that applies to that language. One response to the second suggestion is similar. Even though, in this, the response to the question is by saying, not showing, a language with an uncountably infinite number of replies is not ours. But I think that there are greater problems with this response. However


9:22pm page 12

12 / Graham Priest one conceptualizes degrees of truth, there are Sorites progressions where truth value does not change all the time. Thus, even if you were changed by replacing one molecule of your body with a molecule of scrambled egg, you would still be as you as you could be. You change more than that every morning after breakfast. Similarly, dying takes time, and so is a vague notion. But when your ashes are scattered to the four winds—and thereafter, if not before—you are as dead as dead can be. And if a correct answer to the relevant question does not change at every point, we face a counter-intuitive cut-off. A second reply is to the effect that the answerer may ‘‘refuse to play the game’’. Of course, if they do this for subjective reasons, such as the desire to be obstreperous, this is beside the point. They might, however, do so for a principled reason, namely that the rules of the ‘‘game’’ are impossible to comply with. They lead the answerer, at some point, into a situation where they cannot conform. Now, it would certainly appear that it is possible to comply with the rules at the start: the first few answers present no problems. But then we may simply ask them to play the game as long as it is possible. If the answer changes before this, the point is made. If, however, they stop at some point before this, it must be because the situation is such as to require them both to give and not give the same answer as before. This was not the case at the question before, so the semantic situation has changed at this point. The only other possibility is for the answerer to say that the game in unplayable right at the start. But this can only be because there is no appropriate answer they can give even in the first case—and presumably, therefore, in all subsequent cases. This is not only implausible; it means that even in the most determinate case there is no answer that can be given. We are led to complete and unacceptable semantic nihilism.

2.2 Epistemicism and Contextualism Of the solutions to the Sorites paradox currently on the market, very few address the counter-intuitiveness of the cut-off point explicitly. Perhaps the one that might be thought to do so most naturally is the epistemicism of Sorensen and Williamson.3 Sorensen and Williamson subscribe to classical logic. In effect, then, they take all predicates to be semantically precise ones. In a sense, there are no vague predicates. In a soritical progression there is therefore a precise cut-off where the sentences turn from true to false or vice versa. 3 See Sorensen (1988, esp. 189–216) and Williamson (1994, esp. chs. 7, 8).


9:22pm page 13

A Site for Sorites / 13 The distinctive feature of epistemicism is an attempt to explain why we find the existence of the cut-off point counter-intuitive in terms of features of our knowledge. We do not know where it is—indeed, there are reasons why we cannot know where it is: the location of the cut-off is in principle unknowable. This is why we find its existence counter-intuitive. It should be noted that, though Sorensen and Williamson deploy epistemicism in defence of classical semantics, it could be deployed equally in defence of any of the standard semantics for vagueness. As I have noted, they all entail the existence of cut-off points, and all, therefore, are in need of an explanation of why this is counter-intuitive. Epistemic considerations of the kind in question can be invoked. Williamson’s explanation of the in-principle unknowability of the cut-off point can be put in various different ways, but at its heart it depends on the fact that knowledge supervenes on an evidential basis. If two situations are effectively the same in the evidence that they provide (are relevantly similar) then I cannot know something about one but not about the other. In particular, then, if I know something about one such situation, that thing must be true in the other situation too—or, being false, I would not know it. Williams calls this the ‘margin of error principle’. In particular, suppose that b0 , b1 , ... , bn is a soritical sequence of statements. Suppose that bi and all prior members are true, that biþ1 and all subsequent members are false, and that one knows where the cut-off is, i.e. one knows that bi is true and that biþ1 is not. Since I know that bi is true, by the margin of error principle, biþ1 must be true too—which, ex hypothesi, it is not. Though epistemicism is in the right ball-park for an explanation, it does not stand up well to the cold light of inspection. A major worry is that the very phenomenon that explains why we cannot know where the cut-off point is undercuts its very existence. The meanings of vague predicates are not determined by some omniscient being in some logically perfect way. Vague predicates are part of our language. As a result, their meanings must answer in the last instance to the use that we make of them. It is therefore difficult to see how there could be a semantic cut-off at a point that is in principle cognitively inaccessible to us. Of course, cut-off points for crisp predicates may be inaccessible to us too in a certain sense. Thus, if an electron accelerates uniformly from rest to some velocity, there must be a precise instant at which it has half that velocity. Even if we know the terminal velocity in question, we may not be able to determine that instant, due to the limitations of our measuring instruments, etc. But the in-principle unknowability of the


9:22pm page 14

14 / Graham Priest cut-off points for vague predicates is quite different from this. In the case of the electron we know exactly what it is about the world that determines where the cut-off point resides, and why that particular fact settles the matter. In the case of the vague predicate, we have neither of these things. To suppose that such exists would appear to be a form of semantic mysticism.4 Worse, and crucially in the present context, it is doubtful, in the end, that epistemicism can explain why we find the existence of cut-off points so counter-intuitive. There are many things that we cannot know and whose existence we do not find puzzling in the same way at all. For example, there is a well-known model of the physical cosmos according to which the universe goes through alternating periods of expansion and contraction. In particular, the singularity at the big bang was just the end of the last period of contraction and the beginning of the current period of expansion. Suppose this is right. Then there must be many facts about what happened in the phase of the universe prior to the big bang—for example, whether there was sentient life. Yet all information about this period has been wiped out for us—lost in the epistemic black hole that is the big bang. Yet we do not find the existence of determinate facts before the big bang counter-intuitive. Indeed, we seem to have no problem imagining there to be such things, though they are and ever will be cognitively inaccessible to us. To explain why we cannot know the existence of something does not, therefore, explain why we find its existence counter-intuitive. Another account of vagueness that might be thought to lend itself to explaining why we find the existence of precise cut-off points counterintuitive is contextualism, of the kind proposed by Graff (2000). For present purposes, the pertinent features of the view are as follows. First, vague predicates are contextually dependent. This is plausible: ‘tall’ for a basketball player and ‘tall’ for a pygmy certainly have different extensions. Second: what is psychologically salient is part of the context. This seems plausible too. When we point in a general direction, and say ‘that’, we expect the hearer to take the referent of the demonstrative to be whatever is salient in that direction. Third, and most importantly here, is what Graff calls the similarity constraint: if, given a fixed context, two salient objects are relevantly similar with respect to a predicate, then it applies to both or neither. This, too, is not implausible: it is a localized version of the natural idea that vague predicates are tolerant with respect to small changes. Given these ideas, we might try to explain why we find the existence of a cut-off point counter-intuitive as 4 As Crispin Wright puts it his detailed critique of epistemicism (1995). See also Horgan (1994, sect. 5).


9:22pm page 15

A Site for Sorites / 15 follows. Whenever we look to find the relevant cut-off at a certain point, this thrusts those objects on either side of the point into salience. Thus, because of the similarity constraint, the cut-off point relative to that context is not there. In other words, wherever we look for the cut-off point it is not there. So we come to believe that there isn’t one. Again, one may have worries about this sort of account of vagueness quite generally. Can’t I have a very short Sorites, say with a handful of colour strips, where it is clear that the endpoints have different colours, and yet where every strip in the context is salient? After all, I may not be able to get a hundred strips into mental focus at the same time, but I would certainly seem to be able to get five or six. But setting this aside, it is not clear that contextualism really does explain why we find the existence of a cut-off counter-intuitive. Suppose that we look to find the cut-off at some point or other. The similarity constraint explains why it is not there. With respect to that context it must therefore be elsewhere—outside the area of salience. But the thought that there is a sharp cut-off point somewhere else is still as puzzling as before. The tolerance of vague predicates seems, after all, to be a general phenomenon, not simply localized to the area of salience. What could make that the cut-off point is therefore just as puzzling as before. At least as applied in the most obvious ways, then, neither epistemicism nor contextualism provides an explanation as to why we find the existence of a cut-off counter-intuitive. What could provide an explanation? Conceivably there could be many putative explanations. Maybe epistemicism or contextualism can be deployed in some other way. Maybe an appropriate explanation could be purely psychological: some deep psychological mechanism produces the illusion of cut-off freedom. And if we are lucky enough to come up with a number of viable explanations, we will have to determine which is the best. But at the moment, this is a non-issue; for presently we have none. In the next part of the paper I want to sketch one possible explanation. This is neither epistemic nor purely psychological, but logical.

3. An Explanation 3.1 Vague Identity The explanation is parasitic on fuzzy logic—though fuzzy logic is not, in itself, a solution to the problem, as I have already noted. The logic is harnessed to allow a certain explanation of the counter-intuitiveness of a


9:22pm page 16

16 / Graham Priest precise cut-off point. For the sake of definiteness, let us suppose that the logic is determined by the continuum-valued semantics of Łukasiewicz—though other fuzzy logics could also be employed. The details of the logic are well enough known for me not to have to repeat them here.5 I remind you of just one fact. For something to be acceptable, it does not have to have unit truthvalue. A value high enough will do. In practice, the context will determine some value 0 < e < 1, such that a value greater than or equal to e is sufficient to make a sentence acceptable. The inferences that preserve acceptability whatever value of e is chosen are precisely those whose conclusions are always at least as true as (the conjunction of) their premises.6 Now, let us start by recalling that there are Sorites arguments that depend not on modus ponens but on the substitutivity of identicals.7 Consider a soritical sequence of colour patches such that each is phenomenologically indistinguishable from its immediate neighbours, which begins with a pure shade of red and ends with a pure shade of blue. For the sake of definiteness, let us suppose that there are 100 such patches. Let ci be the colour of the ith patch. Clearly, c1 ¼ c1 , and for all 1 i < 100, ci ¼ ciþ1 . By a sequence of substitutions c1 ¼ c100 . This argument shows that identity itself must be a fuzzy predicate; identity statements must therefore have degrees of truth. An appropriate semantics for identity is as follows.8 The domain of quantification is furnished with a normalized metric. This is a map, d, from pairs of objects to real numbers satisfying the conditions: 0 d(x, y) 1 d(x, x) ¼ 0 d(x, y) ¼ d( y, x) d(x, y) d(x, z) þ d(z, y). An identity statement, a ¼ b, has degree of truth 1 d(a, b), where a is the denotation of a, etc. The members of the domain, as furnished with the appropriate notion of identity, can be thought of as fuzzy objects, objects whose identity comes by degrees. 5 See e.g. Priest (2001, ch. 11). 6 See Priest (2001: 11.4.10). 7 See Priest (1991). 8 See Priest (1998). Note that that paper reverses the usual conventions concerning 1 and 0 as degrees of truth.


9:22pm page 17

A Site for Sorites / 17 It is not difficult to show that the transitivity of identity is not (globally) valid in these semantics. Indeed, a model of the colour Sorites is provided by the interpretation where: d(ci , cj ) ¼

jijj 100 .

The truth-values of c1 ¼ c2 and c2 ¼ c3 are 0.99; the truth-value of c1 ¼ c3 is 0.98. Hence the inference c1 ¼ c2 , c2 ¼ c3 ‘ c1 ¼ c3 is invalid. Although the transitivity of identity is invalid, there is a weaker notion of validity that it satisfies: local validity. Loosely, an inference is locally valid if its conclusion will be acceptable provided that its premises are true enough. A crucial property of locally valid inferences is that a chain of locally valid inferences is itself locally valid, though the degree of truth required by the premises becomes higher and higher the longer the chain is. Consequently, locally valid inference can be used a few times to make conclusions acceptable, but prolonged use is liable to end in something unacceptable. (Details of how to make these ideas formally precise can be found in Priest 1998.) Not only is the transitivity of identity invalid but locally valid; so is modus ponens.

3.2 Fuzzy Truth-Values With this background, we can now turn to the required explanation. The idea is, very simply, to take semantic values themselves to be fuzzy objects. Thus, the relevant domain of quantification is the set of real numbers between 0 and 1 (thought of as fuzzy real numbers), and we take the metric on these to be the standard distance metric jx yj. To explain how things work, it will be easiest to take a simple example. Suppose that a0 , ..., a9 is a soritical sequence of sentences whose semantic values are as shown in the following table. I write the truth-value of ai as t(ai ). The second row tabulates the value of the sentence t(a0 ) ¼ t(ai ). ai

a0 a1 a2 a3 a4

t(ai ) 1 t(a0 ) ¼ t(ai ) 1

1 1

a5 a6 a7 a8 a9

1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

0 0

0 0

Let us suppose that the cut-off for acceptability, e, is 0.7. As the forced march Sorites requires, there is a first sentence where t(ai ) is distinct from t(a0 ). In fact, this is a4 , since 4 is the first i for which


9:22pm page 18

18 / Graham Priest t(a0 ) ¼ t(ai ) is not acceptable (less than 0.7). So far, no surprises. But now, and crucially, why do we find the existence of such a cut-off counterintuitive? As is easy to check, the truth-values of t(a3 ) ¼ t(a4 ) and t(a4 ) ¼ t(a5 ) are both 0.8, which is greater than 0.7. Thus the value of a4 is identical with that of each of its neighbours! This is why we find the existence of the cut-off counter-intuitive! In fact, as is easy to check, for all 0 i 9, the value of t(ai ) ¼ t(aiþ1 ) is 0:8 (the bound being obtained at several places). Hence the value of the sentence 8i t(ai ) ¼ t(aiþ1 ) is 0.8 too. Hence, every sentence has the same truth-values as its neighbours. Note that we cannot use this fact to show that truth-values are identical all the way down the Sorites, since the transitivity of identity fails.9 The precise numbers employed in the preceding example are, of course, simply illustrative. The general point that they illustrate is that the truthvalue of the sentences must change eventually as we go down the sequence, despite the fact that it never changes as we go from each sentence to its neighbour. Unlike the epistemic solution to the Sorites, this does not fly in the face of common sense. It is exactly what common sense seems to tell us! What this solution gives us is an account of how the trick is turned. Not all sequences make a cut off-point counter-intuitive, of course. Thus, suppose we consider three stages of a person’s life: age less than 10, age 10–20, and age over 20. Let us ask at which stage they change from being a child to not being a child; the answer is in the second stage, and there is nothing counterintuitive about this. The idea of the solution just adumbrated is that when the existence of a cut-off point is counter-intuitive, the distribution of truthvalues and the relevant level of acceptability conspire to make it so in the way indicated.10

9 A little computation shows that the value of the sentence 9i(t(ai ) ¼ t(a0 ) ^ t(aiþ1 ) 6¼ t(a0 )) is less than 0.7. It might therefore be suggested that the model does not verify the existence of a cut-off point. The sense in which there is a cut-off point is that there is an i such that t(ai ) ¼ t(a0 ) is acceptable and t(aiþ1 ) ¼ t(a0 ) is not. To express this in the language we would need to extend it, as we could do, to express the thought that a sentence is acceptable. 10 Let me comment on one other feature of the present proposal. It is frequently objected to fuzzy logic that the supposition that a sentence has a real-valued truth-value—with all its infinite precision—is itself highly counter-intuitive. The theory of fuzzy truth-values can be seen as addressing this problem too. The truth-value of a sentence is a fuzzy real. If, suppose, it is 0.7, it may equally be 0.65 and 0.75.


9:22pm page 19

A Site for Sorites / 19

4. Further Issues 4.1 Degrees of Truth and Local Validity So much for the idea. In the final sections of the paper I will reflect on issues that need to be faced if this solution to the Sorites is to be articulated into something that is fully adequate. Suppose that one has a language with vague predicates, including identity, L1 . We may, in a metalanguage, give a theory, T, which provides an account of a continuum-valued semantics for the language (including the nontransitive semantics for identity). While the underlying logic of T would normally be left at an informal level, a natural enough assumption would be that this is classical logic. All this is orthodox and routine enough. In one sense, the preceding construction can be seen as a particular example of this. The language in question, L1 , has names for the sentences of some language, L0 (which might or might not be the same is L1 ), and for real numbers; it contains function symbols, including t and those naturally interpreted as expressing arithmetic functions; finally, it contains an identity predicate, and possibly various others. We may give a semantics for this language in the way just described. In a sense, this is all that is presupposed in the preceding considerations. However, as will be clear, the particular language, L1 , in question is not any old language. It is itself a language containing metalinguistic notions. Hence, one might reasonably expect that it be not only the language whose semantics is in question, but the vehicle for the metalinguistic theory about L0 itself. If we think of it in this way, we can certainly no longer take the logic of the metatheory to be classical logic: it must be a fuzzy logic of some kind. What ramifications does this have? The matter is far from straightforward. Part of the problem is that there are at least two distinct purposes for which metalinguistic reasoning may be engaged, though these are often not clearly distinguished. One is in an investigation of truth; the other is in an investigation of validity. Let us take these two matters in turn. One matter for which metalinguistic reasoning is employed is to articulate a notion of truth, and establish certain things as true or otherwise. In the present case, it is not truth simpliciter that is at issue, but degree of truth. Thus, we suppose that L1 contains axiom schemata such as:


9:22pm page 20

20 / Graham Priest (Neg) t(h:ai) ¼ 1 t(hai) where, now that we are being more precise about the syntax, h:i is an appropriate name-forming device. Given that we also have other axioms that specify the degrees of truth of atomic sentences (or allow us to infer them from more fundamental axioms concerning the denotations of their parts), we may infer the degrees of truth of more complex sentences. Now the crucial question: what underlying logic is required for this project? A full answer to this question can be provided only by working out the project in detail, for which this is not the place. But the amount of logic required would seem to be surprisingly little. Suppose, for example, that we have established that, for some particular a, t(hai) ¼ 0:5. The computation of the value of :a goes as follows: t(hai) ¼ 0:5 t(h:ai) ¼ 1 t(hai) t(h:ai) ¼ 1 0:5 1 0:5 ¼ 0:5 t(h:ai) ¼ 0:5

Already established Neg SI Arithmetic theorem TI

Here, SI and TI are, respectively, the substitution of identicals and the transitivity of identity. Though the argument deploys a somewhat minimal amount of logic, the most notable thing in the present context is that the argument uses inferential moves concerning identity that are not valid, notably TI. This is the first issue that needs to be faced. The problem is not, in fact, as desperate as it may at first appear. Even though TI is not valid, it is locally valid. This means that, though we cannot use it over ‘‘long distances’’, it is perfectly all right to employ short chains of inference involving it. (It should be noted that though SI—of which TI is a special case—is not valid, an appropriate form is also locally valid.11) This raises two questions. The first, and most obvious, is how short ‘short’ is. The answer to this depends on factors such as how true the initial axioms are, what degree of truth is acceptable, and so on. While these questions demand to be addressed in detail, it can be said that if things are set up right, the short may be very long—maybe longer than any chain of inference that anyone can construct in practice. The invalidity may not, therefore, be a practical problem. 11 See Priest (1998, sect. 6).


9:22pm page 21

A Site for Sorites / 21 Eventually, though—wherever eventually is—the acceptability of the arguments may give out. The second question is what to make of this. The obvious answer is that our (meta)theoretical machinery will cease to be sufficient to determine degrees of truth for certain sentences. Perhaps this is something that can simply be faced with equanimity. Maybe there just is no fact of the matter concerning the degrees of truth of such sentences. If these sentences are really long—say, longer than anything constructible in practice, and so transcending anything humanly meaningful—this is perhaps not implausible.

4.2 Kicking Away the Ladder The second purpose for which metalinguistic reasoning may be employed is in an investigation, not of truth, but of validity. A metatheory is used to formulate a semantic notion of validity for languages of a certain kind, and to investigate what inferences, couched in those languages, are and are not valid. In addition, we may hope to isolate a set of proof procedures and show them to be sound, and maybe also complete, with respect to the semantic notion. What of the means of inference employed in these investigations themselves? Suppose that the language of the metatheory is itself a language of the kind in question. Then if the metatheoretic reasoning is to be understood as giving an account of, or justification for, those inferences that are acceptable for languages of this kind, the inferences employed should not be ones that are demonstrably invalid. More generally, one might hope, one should be able to demonstrate the soundness of the class of inferences employed. This is the situation we are in if we take the language L1 as a fuzzy language in which an account of fuzzy validity is to be given. How do things stand with this? A definition of validity is easy enough to formulate. Sticking to the onepremise case, for simplicity, we can define the validity of an inference with premise a and conclusion b, V(haihbi), as follows: V(haihbi) $ 8u(u(hai) u(hbi)). But what inferences should one be allowed to use to reason about this notion of validity? It is clear, for a start, that it is no longer to be expected that this is classical logic. The whole point of applying fuzzy logic to the Sorites is that inferences like modus ponens and TI are not valid. A better guess is that we take it to be fuzzy logic itself. Such a logic, however, is too weak. Establishing that various inferences are valid, let alone establishing general soundness (and


9:22pm page 22

22 / Graham Priest completeness) results, is going to require inferences such as TI, SI, and modus ponens. Merely consider, for example, the natural argument to show that the inference from a ^ b to a is valid: u(ha ^ bi) ¼ Min(u(hai), u(hbi) ) Truth condition Min(u(hai), u(hbi) u(hai) ) Arithmetic theorem u(ha ^ bi) u(hai) SI 8u(u(ha ^ bi) u(hai) ) Universal generalization It is therefore clear that the arguments employed must include locally valid inferences as well. This raises the same kind of issue that we met in the last section. In particular, there is a question of the extent to which such inferences are acceptable in this context. It may also mean that certain inferences are neither demonstrably valid nor demonstrably invalid. Maybe, then, there is no fact of the matter here. But a new question is also posed. Is reasoning of this kind sufficient to show the validity (including local validity) of the very reasoning in question? That is, can the soundness of this reasoning be demonstrated employing the reasoning itself ? Moreover, but less crucially, can it also establish it to be appropriately complete. No doubt it can using classical logic. Can the classical ladder be kicked away? The question cannot be answered without detailed investigation, but the following comments are in order. As it is not uncommon for bright students to observe, demonstrating the validity of a principle of inference tends to employ the very principle in question (together with some fairly basic logical apparatus, such as modus ponens, etc.—which we have, in this case, though it is only locally valid). One would therefore expect that most sensible logics would be able to establish the validity of any inference it holds to be valid. This much, at least, ought to be possible in the case at hand. And this is enough to ensure that the logic is selfcoherent. Establishing a formal soundness theorem requires somewhat more by way of reasoning; for example, it requires that one can define the set of axioms and reason appropriately about its members. This requires a certain amount of set theory—at the very least the ability to define certain sets by recursion. And the corresponding completeness proof requires even more—that one can show the existence of various counter-models and demonstrate their properties. This does not necessarily require classical logic. Recall that there are intuitionistically valid soundness and completeness proofs for intuitionistic


9:22pm page 23

A Site for Sorites / 23 propositional logic.12 But constructing such proofs is not at all a routine matter. Witness the problems around the production of an intuitionistically valid completeness proof for intuitionistic predicate logic.13

5. Conclusion The issues that I have raised in the last part of the paper all need to be addressed to make the solution to the Sorites that I have suggested fully articulated. Some of these are distinctly non-trivial. For this reason, I do not claim that the solution I have suggested is right. It does, however, seem to me to be one that is both plausible and worthy of further investigation.

REFERENCES D u m m e t t , M. (1977), Elements of Intuitionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press). G r a f f , D. (2000), ‘Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness’, Philosophical Topics, 28: 45–81. H o r g a n , T. (1994), ‘Robust Vagueness and the Forced-March Sorites’, Philosophical Perspectives, 8: 159–88. K e e f e , R., and Smith, P. (eds.) (1997), Vagueness: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). P r i e s t , G. (1991), ‘Sorites and Identity’, Logique et Analyse, 135–6: 293–6. —— (1998), ‘Fuzzy Identity and Local Validity’, The Monist, 81: 331–42. —— (2001), Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). S o r e n s e n , R. (1988), Blindspots (Oxford: Oxford University Press). W i l l i a m s o n , T. (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge). W r i g h t , C. (1995), ‘The Epistemic Conception of Vagueness’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 33: 133–59. 12 See e.g. Dummett (1977, esp. 214).

13 See Dummett (1977, sect. 5.6, esp. p. 259).


10:14am page 24

2 Cut-Offs and their Neighbors Achille C. Varzi

I agree with Priest: the Sorites is a very hard paradox, possibly harder than the Liar.1 For the Liar can be isolated, whereas the Sorites is everywhere and can take us anywhere. And I agree that the paradox is so hard because it systematically imposes upon us the existence of unbelievable or otherwise unacceptable cut-off points. No solution can avoid explaining why this happens. But I have two points of disagreement with Priest’s account of the matter. The first concerns the emphasis that he places on the working of natural language. And the second, more important problem concerns the line of explanation that Priest offers of the reason why we are stuck with cutoff points—hence his tentative solution to the paradox.

1. Sorites Progressions and Linguistic Vagueness Let’s focus on the forced march Sorites, in the form given by Priest. We have got a series of questions q0 ...qn , each of the form ‘Is it the case that bi ?’, and the facts are such that the answer to the first question, a0 , is different from the answer to the last question, an . Given these facts, there is no way out: the series of answers must involve a cut-off point. No matter what form the answers take, and no matter how we feel about the relative indistinguishability of any two successive bi ’s, if a0 6¼ an there must be a first k > 0 such that a0 6¼ ak . Thanks to Matthew Slater for helpful exchanges on the topic of this paper. 1 Unless otherwise specified, all references are to Priest, Ch. 1 in this volume.


10:14am page 25

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 25 Now, Priest takes the problems into which this scenario may lead us to be problems posed by the vagueness of our language. So where exactly does language play a role in this scenario? Not in the answers, for these can be anything we like, including straight Yes or No answers. Besides, as Williamson made clear a while ago, the answers are actually irrelevant since the problem concerns what one should believe, not just what one should say.2 So language must play a role in the questions, the qi ’s, hence in whatever bits of language we use to express the statements corresponding to the bi ’s. (The locution ‘Is it the case that . . . ?’ is ultimately redundant.) In Priest’s example, each bi is a statement to the effect that you are bi , namely, an object that comes from you, b0 , by i successive replacements of one molecule of your body with a molecule of scrambled egg. In other words, each bi is an identity statement of the form (1) b0 ¼ bi . The notion of replacement, we may suppose, is defined with precision, for the predicate ‘scrambled egg’ that occurs in our description of the procedure can be defined in precise terms. And we may also suppose that your body, b0 , is defined with similar precision, though in actual circumstances this may be a hard thing to do. Accordingly, we can safely assume that in each case the two terms flanking the identity predicate in (1) have a precise semantics. That leaves only the identity predicate itself; no other bit of language is involved in our questions. But don’t we know exactly what this predicate stands for? It stands for the identity relation. So either we say that there really are many, slightly distinct candidates for this relation, at least as we conceive of it when we use the identity predicate in ordinary discourse, or else language plays no role at all in the picture and the burden of the Sorites would be entirely on the identity relation itself. (We would then have a case of ontological vagueness.) Thus, when Priest says: ‘‘How can a single molecule make a difference? . . . [V]ague predicates just don’t seem to work like this,’’ he is making a claim that goes beyond the data. Vague predicates play no role in this scenario except for identity. At most we can say: ‘The identity predicate doesn’t work like this’. And we can say that only if we reject the thought that the burden of the Sorites is on the identity relation. Now, I am happy to reject that thought, so let’s put ontological vagueness to one side. The question is, what are we to make of the fact that the burden 2 Williamson (1994: 14).


10:14am page 26

26 / Achille C. Varzi of the forced march Sorites is entirely on the identity predicate? One obvious response is that this is just a byproduct of the particular example under discussion. After all, in the scenario described by Priest the questions involve identity statements, but they could be questions of a different sort. For example, the qi ’s could be questions of the form ‘Is it the case that bi ?’, where each bi is a statement of the form (2) bi is a heap, with bi defined in the obvious way. In that case the reasoning above would show that the burden of the Sorites is on the predicate ‘heap’, not the identity predicate. So by generalization we would get to the desired point: generally speaking, the Sorites forces us to recognize the existence of cut-offs in the extensions of natural language predicates, whereas common sense and linguistic practice scream that there are no cut-offs. At this point, however, we could also go further in the generalization, and this is where I get my concerns. Why should the Sorites consist in a series of questions in natural language? Questions are stimuli of a peculiar sort, prompting specific reactions in the form of answers. But we can imagine a Sorites in which the stimuli come in a different format. Consider, for instance, the following variant of the scenario described by Priest. We have got a series of visual stimuli s0 ... sn , each in the form of a digitalized cartoon drawing. The first stimulus, s0 , is a picture of Snow White; the last stimulus, sn , is a digital picture of a monster; and each intermediate stimulus is obtained from its predecessor by changing just one pixel. So the whole series is a short movie where Snow White is gradually warped into a monster. You are a little kid and you are sitting in front of the video screen. At the beginning you react with joy. At the end you are scared. So your initial response, r0 , is different from your terminal response, rn . So there we are: there must be a first k > 0 such that r0 6¼ rk . Sooner or later there must be a change—a cut-off—in the way you respond to your visual stimuli. And yet the process is perfectly gradual; the difference between any two successive frames falls below anything that is cognitively accessible to you. We are forced to recognize the existence of a cut-off point where both common sense and psychological intuition scream that there is none. I doubt that we can say language plays any role in a scenario of this sort. Maybe concepts do—I’m not sure. But there is no reason to suppose that the relevant concepts are the intensions of linguistic predicates. And there are of course many such scenarios. For another example, consider a game-theoretic


10:14am page 27

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 27 setup in which the series is construed as a centipede, i.e. as a game of take it or leave it. Money on the table accrues gradually. At the beginning of the game it is rational for you to leave the money on the table, for your opponent will do the same. At the end it is rational for you to take the money, for otherwise your opponent would take it instead. So there must be a cut-off point somewhere, a point during the game where the rational thing for you to do changes from the first type of response (leave the money) to the second (take the money). But of course the game can be construed so that the difference between any two successive stages is completely negligible for both players. For instance, we may suppose that the amount on the table accrues at the rate of just one penny each time. So there we are again. We are stuck with a cut-off that we cannot accept. And forget the fact that we can give a linguistic description of what goes on in the game. That would certainly allow us to blame it on the predicates that we use, for example on the predicate ‘amount of money that a rational player (i.e. a player following the standards of ideal rationality) ought to leave on the table’. That such a predicate is ultimately vague would be an interesting result by itself.3 But of course this is not the main story. At bottom, the problem is not one of language. It is one of rationality tout court. Besides, it is not difficult to imagine scenarios in which the soritical victims are non-linguistic creatures.4 A pigeon is trained via a regime of reward and punishment to peck to the right on the presentation of red stimuli, and to the left for other (clearly distinct) colors. Presented with a soritical series of stimuli of color patches, running from red to yellow with each patch pigeon-visually indistinguishable from its neighbor, the pigeon is bound to find itself stuck in the business of switching from right-pecking to leftpecking. Surely this has nothing to do with the vagueness of ‘red’, even if we could blame the trainer for scarcity of instructions. So I think Priest is right in pointing his finger on the cut-offs. That’s where we get into troubles—troubles that cannot be solved by playing around with our logical paraphernalia. But the cut-offs as such don’t seem to have much to do with language, either. The troubles they originate are deeper and more general and I doubt they can be handled any better by exercising our semantic paraphernalia. The troubles arise at the level of cognition broadly understood. And language is but one significant part of but one sort of cognitive system. 3 See Collins and Varzi (2000). 4 Thanks to the OUP reader for suggesting the following example.


10:14am page 28

28 / Achille C. Varzi This is not to deny that a linguistic account can be useful, of course. In some cases a semantic theory can be worked out that helps us understand why we are stuck with unexpected cut-off points in the presence of vague predicates, just as a rational decision theoretic account (for example) can help explain why we are stuck with cut-offs in the centipede. Of the semantic theories presently on the market Priest only mentions epistemicism and contextualism in this connection; I think supervaluationism is also in the right ballpark—whether or not it stands up well to ‘‘the cold light of inspection’’. I’ll get back to that shortly. What I don’t think is that any such theory is in the right ball-park for a general explanation of the phenomenon. In fact I am not even sure that philosophy itself is in the right ball-park for a general explanation. At bottom it may well be a phenomenon that calls for a psychological account. It may well be that cognitive science and the behavioral sciences at large are the only good candidates for a general explanation of the phenomenon. And it may well be that this sort of explanation is part and parcel of a general explanation of why it is that we have such a hard time dealing with the changes in our environment, when the changes are gradual. Philosophy has little to say about this—let alone semantics. (This applies to other features of the Sorites paradox, too, such as the variability with which different subjects react to the same stimuli. In the Snow White scenario, for example, some children would start to get terrified as soon as Snow White’s nose starts turning red while others would not get scared until the process is almost over, but it is unreasonable to suppose that such variability reflects differences in their vague idiolects or conceptual apparatuses. This is something that we might only be able to explain by looking into the children’s individual psychophysiology. Ditto for the other cases.)

2. Semantic Explanations Having said this, let us put the business of a general explanation aside. Let us try and focus on the limited task of assessing the explanatory force of a semantic theory—a theory designed to explain the Sorites phenomenon at least inasmuch as it arises in the presence of vague predicates. Ideally, this would have to be a theory that follows from the big theory. But since the big theory is still too far away, we might as well try to work out our views bottom-up.


10:14am page 29

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 29 What options are there? As I mentioned, Priest considers two options— epistemicism and contextualism—and he has misgivings about both. On this I am inclined to agree. Concerning the first option, Sorensen and Williamson have given us a sophisticated explanation of why it is impossible to identify the semantic cut-offs of vague predicates.5 But such an explanation does not amount to an explanation of why we are deeply disturbed by the thought that such cut-offs must exist. As Priest puts it, to explain why we cannot know the existence of something is not to explain why we find its existence counter-intuitive—and I agree with that. I also agree that the second option—contextualism—leaves the issue unresolved: the thought that there is a cut-off point in a soritical series is puzzling even if we convince ourselves that it must lie outside what Graff calls the area of ‘‘salience’’ set by the context.6 I do not, however, agree that these are the only two accounts on the market to be considered in this connection. On my reckoning, supervaluationism provides a valuable alternative—in fact a better alternative. For supervaluationism does offer an explanation. Supervaluationally, the reason why we are disturbed by the existence of the cut-offs is that we cannot pin them down in any way. Ordinarily, when we recognize the truth of an existential statement we can also recognize the truth of one of its instances. We recognize the truth of a statement such as (3) There is a number k > 0 such that k is greater than 32 but less than 42 because we can specify a value k > 0 that satisfies the condition (4) k is greater than 32 but less than 42 . This natural impulse to demand an instance whenever an existential statement is asserted (or a counterinstance whenever a universal statement is denied) is perfectly justified in the ordinary semantics for precise languages. It is not, however, a defining feature of the meaning of the existential quantifier. At least, it is a controversial issue whether it is a defining feature; it certainly isn’t in classical logic, for in classical logic existential statements are not constructive. In any event, there is no guarantee that the impulse is justified when it comes to vague languages. And this is precisely what the supervaluational account tells us. When it comes to statements asserting the existence of a cut-off point in the extension of a vague predicate, there is a 5 See Sorensen (1988: 189 ff.) and Williamson (1994, chs. 7–8).

6 Graff (2000).


10:14am page 30

30 / Achille C. Varzi tension between our natural impulse to ask for an instance, on the one hand, and the impossibility to deliver an instance, on the other.7 We recognize the truth of a statement of the form (5) There is a number k > 0 such that bk1 and not bk , where the bi ’s involve vague predicates, because we recognize that this statement is true for every precisification of those predicates. If it is true for every precisification of those predicates, then we can’t go wrong if we say that it is true simpliciter—or so goes the story. But we cannot recognize the truth of any instance of the form (6) bk1 and not bk because no such instance is true for every precisification. It is true that there exists a k that marks the cut-off, but there is no k such that it is true of it that it marks the cut-off. This is disturbing, no question about that. Indeed it is because of this disturbing feature that many philosophers dislike the supervaluational account. (‘A true existential statement must have true instances!’, stamp the foot, bang the table.8) But I would rather say that the account deserves consideration precisely because of its ability to dispel this disturbing feature. Supervaluationism is in the right ball-park for an explanation of the Sorites phenomenon precisely because it tells us why we are disturbed by the existence of cut-off points. We are disturbed because we can recognize the truth of an existential without being able to recognize the truth of any instance—and this goes against our natural inclination to always demand a true instance.

3. Vague Identity and Fuzzy Truth-Values It is not my intention to insist further on the merits of supervaluationism. There may be other reasons why one could be dissatisfied with that theory— for instance, reasons having to do with the intuition that the vagueness of a predicate is part of its sense, which would make the notion of a precisification incoherent9—but this is not the place to take up such issues. I just wanted to illustrate my reasons for thinking that supervaluationism is in the right 7 The tension is diagnosed in McGee and McLaughlin (1995: 207) and Keefe (2000: 185). 8 See e.g. Tappenden (1993: 564). But the objection is a popular one. 9 See e.g. Fodor and Lepore (1996).


10:14am page 31

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 31 ball-park for a semantic explanation of the Sorites. Let me now turn to Priest’s own account, as presented in the second section of his paper. As I said, I believe there is a problem with this account, even if we confine ourselves to the modest task of providing an explanation of linguistic vagueness. Let me first make a methodological remark. A great deal of Priest’s account focuses on the intuition that the identity predicate is not globally transitive, and that is what I want to focus on. But Priest’s working example is misleading in this regard. We are supposed to consider a sequence c0 ...cn of color patches such that each is phenomenologically indistinguishable from its immediate neighbors, and we are asked to agree with the soritical premise (7) For every k > 0, ck1 ¼ ck . This cannot be right, for surely phenomenological indistinguishability falls short of identity. What we want to say is that if we take the identity predicate to express phenomenological indistinguishability, then (7) holds. Since this is a can of worms, however, I think it is better to bypass the issue altogether and work with an example that does not involve phenomenological issues, at least not explicitly. So I am going to stick to the initial example—the forced march Sorites determined by the series b0 ...bn that begins with you, b0 , and ends in scrambled egg, bn . Here we are stuck with a paradox in so far as the statement (8) For every k > 0, bk1 ¼ bk is prima facie true. And unless you have reasons to accept ontological vagueness, this means that the identity predicate is vague. Now, Priest’s account consists of three basic claims. The first, which for the sake of the argument I shall embrace, is that the vagueness of the identity predicate must be cashed out in terms of a fuzzy semantics—that is, identity statements have degrees of truth. The second claim is that the appropriate fuzzy semantics for the identity predicate is defined by the following truth conditions, (9) t(a ¼ b) ¼ 1 d(a, b), where t is the (continuum-valued) valuation function, d is a normalized metric, and a, b are the denotation of a, b. I am going to accept this claim, too, for (9) seems to me to be the only reasonable option for a fuzzy semantics. The third claim is that the semantic values should themselves be treated as fuzzy objects, that is, objects about which we can make fuzzy identity statements. This is actually the main idea, and it is here that we find a sketch


10:14am page 32

32 / Achille C. Varzi of how a fuzzy-theoretic apparatus can provide the required explanation. It is with this sketch that I have concerns. Take our soritical series, suppose for simplicity that n ¼ 9, and consider the semantic values in the following table (which correspond to Priest’s): bi

b0 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8 b9

(bi ) 1

1

1 0:8 0:6 0:4 0:2 0

0

0

In a degree-theoretic semantics we can define, besides truth, 1, and falsity, 0, a third semantic condition with respect to which a statement can be classified. We can say that a statement is acceptable if its truth-value does not fall below a certain threshold, e, which in practice is determined by the context. Let us follow Priest in supposing that in the present case e ¼ 0:7. And let us follow Priest in taking the notion of a cut-off point to be defined with respect to acceptability rather than perfect truth. This amounts to saying that our responses to the relevant series of questions change in the relevant sense only when their numerical values fall below the threshold of acceptability. An acceptable identity statement is, after all, contextually acceptable even if its truth-value is not the unit. So a cut-off point is not to be thought of as the first k > 0 such that (10) (bk ) 6¼ (b0 ) but, rather, as the first k > 0 such that (11) (bk ) < e. Taking the metric to be the standard distance jx yj, it is now easy to see how the proposed explanation works. With regard to the series consisting of the fuzzy answers to our soritical questions, i.e., equivalently, the series consisting of the identity statements (di ) (b0 ) ¼ (bi ),

(0 i n)

the cut-off is given by i ¼ 4. But the existence of such a cut-off point is not backed up by a corresponding cut-off in the series consisting of the following identity statements, (si ) (bi1 ) ¼ (bi ),

(0 < i n)

i.e., effectively, the identity statements where each answer (here: the fuzzy truth-value of bi ) is compared to its neighbors. In fact, every identity


10:14am page 33

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 33 statement in this second series gets a truth-value 0:8 and is therefore acceptable, including the special case t(b3 ) ¼ t(b4 ). So the explanation is this: Our answers will eventually hit the cut-off; and yet, given any two neighboring answers, it is acceptable to say that they have the same truthvalues. In other words, as Priest puts it, the acceptability of the bi ’s must drop eventually as we go down the series, despite the fact that it never drops as we go from each bi to its successor. One might be tempted to object that this answer depends too heavily on the availability of a fixed value for the threshold of acceptability, e. In order for the explanation to be satisfactory, we need an account of how the threshold value for e is determined, and all we are told is that this value is determined by the context. But if the context determines the threshold of acceptability—the objection goes—then it also determines the cut-off between truth and falsity in a classical, bivalent setting. After all, once we settle on a value for e we have a straightforward mapping of our fuzzy semantics into a bivalent semantics by matching acceptability with full truth: (12) f (bi ) ¼ 1 iff t(bi ) e. So if the context does the job with respect to e, then it should also do the job with respect to classical logic. This objection misfires, though. For Priest’s point is that the explanation does not come from the choice of e. It comes from the fact that given any reasonable choice for e, the truth-values of the (si ’s) are all higher than e and so these equations are all acceptable. But, of course, this property is not preserved by the map to classical bivalent semantics. With reference to our example, the equation (13) f (b2 ) ¼ f (b3 ) is true (hence classically acceptable) but the next equation, (14) f (b3 ) ¼ f (b4 ), is false (and classically unacceptable). There is another potential objection to Priest’s account that misfires. As Priest observes in a footnote (n. 10), the truth-values of his fuzzy semantics should be thought of, not as precise real numbers, but as fuzzy reals— otherwise we run into a familiar objection to fuzzy logic. (Assigning a precise truth-value between 0 and 1 is tantamount to ascribing infinite precision to vague statements.) If so, then one might be tempted to protest that whether a


10:14am page 34

34 / Achille C. Varzi given statement falls below the acceptability threshold may itself be indeterminate in some cases. This is not the case in our example, but that is just because the example is oversimplified. In general the (fuzzy) distance between the truth-values of the soritical statements is much less than 0.2 and therefore there may be genuine indeterminacy with regard to their acceptability. This objection is also inappropriate, though. It misfires because the relevant indeterminacy is immaterial. The counter-intuitiveness of Sorites phenomena lies in the fact that there must be a cut-off, regardless of where exactly it is located in the soritical sequence. And Priest’s explanation is that regardless of which elements of the sequence fall below the acceptability threshold, e, any two neighboring statements in the sequence turn out to be acceptable. So much for bad objections. But here are two worries that I believe deserve consideration. The first concerns the fact that the proposed explanation depends heavily, if not on the precise choice of e, on the standards of precision that determine this choice. In the example under discussion, e is set at 0.7 and the explanation goes through because each si gets a value 0:8. But suppose the context was such as to determine a higher threshold, say e ¼ 0:9. In that case, only the first two and the last two si ’s would turn out to be acceptable and the explanation would break down. In fact, we would immediately get a cut-off at i ¼ 3. This would not be the same cut-off that we hit as we move along the series of the di ’s, but that is hardly a difference that can explain why we find the latter counter-intuitive. So what are we to say in cases like this? I suppose Priest would simply say that we are dealing with an implausible scenario: the threshold is just too high. After all, in the limit case where acceptability coincides with perfect truth (i.e. when e ¼ 1) we are back to a classical bivalent scenario, where no explanation is available at all. So, more generally, the explanation may fail when acceptability is dangerously close to perfect truth. This may be right. But the question remains of why 0.9 (or any other value greater than 0.8, for that matter) should be regarded as a dangerous threshold in this respect. More generally, inspection shows that the proposed explanation only works when the value of e is lower than the least value attached to the si ’s. But I don’t see how this constraint can be implemented without rendering the explanation itself dangerously circular. The second worry is more general. As it stands, Priest’s account relies on his third claim, to the effect that the basic fuzzy semantic framework must be supplemented by an account whereby the semantic values themselves are fuzzy objects. The worry is: What exactly is the cash value of this supplemen-


10:14am page 35

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 35 tary move? Suppose we don’t do that. Then we could mimic Priest’s explanation of what goes on as follows. Relative to the soritical series consisting of the identity statements (bi ) b0 ¼ bi

(0 i n)

we are forced to accept a cut-off point (in the given example: the cut-off given by i ¼ 4). But relative to the series consisting of the following identities (gi ) bi1 ¼ bi

(0 < i n)

there is no cut-off point. For every such statement is assumed to be acceptable, if not plainly true. Therefore, the acceptability of the bi ’s must drop eventually as we go down the series, despite the fact that the acceptability of the gi ’s never drops. End of the story. Would this be a good explanation of why we find the existence of the cut-off counter-intuitive? If it were, then the detour through the meta-identity statements proposed by Priest would be unnecessary. And if it were not a good explanation then the question is what makes Priest’s explanation any better. Here is why I don’t think this explanation would be a good one. It would not be a good explanation because it would simply amount to a redescription of the puzzle. After all, the Sorites phenomenon is puzzling precisely because the difference between any two neighbors of the given sequence is negligible whereas the difference between the first member and some later, distant member is not negligible. Small differences accrue—that’s exactly the problem. Of course a fuzzy logician can infer from this that the identity predicate is not globally transitive, but that doesn’t add much. Unless we tell a story that explains why this outcome is at odds with the intuition that identity is transitive, the claim that identity is not globally transitive simply reports the facts. I am sure Priest agrees with this, for otherwise he would have thought that his earlier attacks on the problem already had the explanatory force that he is after. (On such earlier accounts, the explanation traded on the difference between local and global validity. We mistakenly think that inferences that can be used over short distances—such as inferences exploiting the transitivity of identity—are reliable over long distances as well, which is not the case: in particular, identity is transitive locally but not globally.10) 10 See e.g. Priest (1998).


10:14am page 36

36 / Achille C. Varzi So if this simplified explanation is not good, what exactly do we gain by making the extra step of treating the semantic values themselves as fuzzy objects? As far as I can see we don’t gain much. It is true that the gi ’s and the si ’s are distinct: in one case we have a series of identities concerning pairs of neighboring bi ’s (the objects obtained by replacing i molecules of your body with i molecules of scrambled egg); in the second case, corresponding to Priest’s strategy, the series of identities concern pairs of neighboring bi ’s (which are statements to the effect that you are identical with the object obtained by replacing i molecules of your body with i molecules of scrambled egg). And whereas we may suppose that the identities of the first series are all perfectly true, the identities of the second series need not be true: what matters is that they are acceptable. However, such differences are irrelevant when it comes to the requested explanation. We are going from one soritical series to another, and what we are told about the second case is exactly what the simplified account tells us about the first: in both circumstances we are dealing with a series of neighbor-identities (the gi ’s and the si ’s, respectively) all of which are acceptable despite the fact that the corresponding distance-identities (the bi ’s and the di ’s) eventually drop below the acceptability threshold. To put it differently, Priest’s semantics satisfies the following biconditionals: (15) bi is acceptable iff di is acceptable (0 i n) (16) gi is acceptable iff si is acceptable (0 < i n) i.e., effectively: (15’) b0 ¼ bi is acceptable iff t(b0 ) ¼ t(bi ) is acceptable (0 i n) (16’) bi1 ¼ bi is acceptable iff t(bi1 ) ¼ t(bi ) is acceptable (0 < i n) And since acceptability is what matters, it seems to me that this makes the detour proposed by Priest redundant. If it is redundant, it adds no extra value. If it adds no extra value, then the explanation that we get by taking the detour cannot be any better than the explanation that we get without taking the detour. And as we have seen, the explanation that we get without taking the detour is not good enough.

4. Conclusion My conclusion, therefore, is not too optimistic. I don’t think the novel account offered by Priest will take us closer to the heart of the problem.


10:14am page 37

Cut-Offs and their Neighbors / 37 On my reckoning, the supervaluational account would still fare better, but never mind that. At this point I would rather be inclined to end on a note of methodology. We have got many semantic accounts. None of them seems capable of delivering the whole story, but many succeed in diagnosing at least some of the peculiarities of the Sorites phenomenon. So perhaps a good thing to do at this point would be to try and put the pieces together. On the other hand, because of my earlier remarks about the non-linguistic nature of the phenomenon in its most general form, I am not too optimistic that this strategy will take us very far, either. The Sorites is a deep and bewildering puzzle precisely because it arises at a deep and fundamental level, one that appears to be prior to the engagement of any logical and semantic paraphernalia. Unless we take that into serious account, I doubt we can achieve the sort of explanation Priest is after, which is why I think we are still stuck with the puzzle. In Herzog, Saul Bellow tells a story about a club in New York that most of us should find familiar.11 It’s that club where people are the most of every type. There is the hairiest bald man and the baldest hairy man; the shortest giant and the tallest dwarf; the smartest idiot and the stupidest wise man. And what do they do? On Saturday night they have a party. Then they have a contest. And if you can tell the hairiest bald man from the baldest hairy man—says Herzog—you get a prize. My impression is that if we entered the contest we might perform better than our fellow non-philosophers. At the end of the day, however, I suspect we would still be puzzled. We would still find ourselves looking at the prize with an overwhelming sense of incredulity—that sense of incredulity that we experience whenever we hit a cut-off.

REFERENCES B e l l o w , S. (1964), Herzog (New York: Viking Press). C o l l i n s , J. D., and A. C. Varzi (2000), ‘Unsharpenable Vagueness’, Philosophical Topics, 28: 1–10. F o d o r , J. A., and E. Lepore (1996), ‘What cannot be Evaluated cannot be Evaluated, and it cannot be Supervalued Either’, Journal of Philosophy, 93: 516–35. G r a f f , D. (2000), ‘Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness’, Philosophical Topics, 28: 45–81. 11 See Bellow (1964: 295–6).


10:14am page 38

38 / Achille C. Varzi K e e f e , R. (2000), Theories of Vagueness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). M c G e e , V., and B. McLaughlin (1995), ‘Distinctions without a Difference’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 33 (suppl.): 203–52. P r i e s t , G. (1998), ‘Fuzzy Identity and Local Validity’, The Monist, 81: 331–42. S o r e n s e n , R. A. (1988), Blindspots (Oxford: Clarendon Press). T a p p e n d e n , J. (1993), ‘The Liar and Sorites Paradoxes: Toward a Unified Treatment’, Journal of Philosophy, 90: 551–77. W i l l i a m s o n , T. (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge).


9:23pm page 39

3 Vagueness and Conversation Stewart Shapiro

‘I don’t know what you mean by ‘‘glory,’’ ’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’’ ’ ‘But ‘‘glory’’ doesn’t mean ‘‘a nice knock-down argument,’’ ’ Alice objected. ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)

This paper is a pilot for a longer work, which includes a model-theoretic semantics and a treatment of so-called higher-order vagueness. My biggest debt is to my colleague and friend Diana Raffman, whose work inspired the present account, and who continues to give me valuable advice. Thanks also to the members of a graduate seminar on vagueness that we gave together in the spring of 2002: Julian Cole, Sven Walters, Steven James, Jack Arnold, and Michael Jaworski. I am also indebted to the audiences at the ‘Liars and Heaps’ conference held at the University of Connecticut in the autumn of 2002, an Arche´ workshop and subsequent seminar at the University of St Andrews, the Hebrew University Logic Colloquium, and the Philosophy Colloquium at the University of Maryland. I have received valuable feedback from Carl Posy, Mark Sainsbury, Crispin Wright, Agustıń Rayo, Patrick Greenough, Delia Graff, Barbara Scholz, Tim Williamson, Neil Cooper, Roy Cook, Rosanna Keefe, Brian Weatherson, Graham Priest, Michael Morreau, and Georges Rey.


9:23pm page 40

40 / Stewart Shapiro

1. Determinacy The present account of how vague terms arise in natural language, and how their meaning is determined, begins like that of Vann McGee and Brian McLaughlin (1994) (see also McGee 1991). It is a truism that the competent users of a language somehow determine the meaning of its words and phrases, by what they say, think, and do. Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty says that it is a question of ‘which is to be master’. When it comes to meaning, the proverbial we—the community of competent, sincere, honest, wellfunctioning speakers—are master. To be sure, I have no special insights to bring as to how words acquire their meaning. There is also a nice question concerning who, exactly, are the competent speakers of a natural language like English. Or, perhaps better, what is it to be a (competent) speaker of English? Who are ‘we’? Let F be a monadic (possibly complex) predicate in a natural language. McGee and McLaughlin (1994, §2) introduce a technical term ‘definitely’ as follows: ‘to say that an object a is definitely an F means that the thoughts and practices of speakers of the language determine conditions of application for . . . F, and the facts about a determine that these conditions are met’. In a note, they add that the word ‘determinately’ would be better, since it captures the underlying idea. I will use the latter term here. In general, when ‘a sentence is [determinately] true, our thoughts and practices in using the language have established truth conditions for the sentence, and the [presumably] non-linguistic facts have determined that these conditions are met’. McGee and McLaughlin insist that the ‘determinately’ operator is not, or may not be, compositional. It may be that a sentence of the form ‘F _ C’ is determinately true even if it is not the case that F is determinately true, nor is it the case that C is determinately true. More notably, it may be that a sentence F fails to be determinately true without :F being determinately true. With McGee and McLaughlin, I believe that this is the source of vagueness. An object a is a borderline case of a predicate F if Fa is ‘unsettled’, i.e. if a is not determinately F, nor is a determinately non-F. Since we are still at the level of truisms and definitions, nothing should be all that controversial so far. McGee and McLaughlin are free to define technical terms as it pleases them, and I am free to follow suit. One point of contention is whether or not ‘determinately’, so defined, is well-defined. I will have a bit more to say on this by way of further articulation (e.g. Section 6 below), but will just assume for now that we have hold of at least a vague


9:23pm page 41

Vagueness and Conversation / 41 notion here, which can give us a start on theorizing. Another point of contention is the thesis that determinateness is not compositional. I do not know how to defend this, and so will take it as a premise toward what follows. A more crucial point of contention is whether there are any borderline cases at all—as the term ‘borderline’ is defined here (in terms of the technical notion of determinateness). Famously, Timothy Williamson’s (1994) epistemicism maintains that the thoughts and practices of language users fix precise extensions, and complementary anti-extensions, for every predicate of the language. Consider, for example, the sentence ‘Josh arrived around noon’. According to Williamson, the established use of language determines a real number n such that if Josh arrived exactly n seconds after noon, then the sentence is true, but if he arrived n þ 0:0000001 seconds after noon, the sentence is false. Williamson would thus have little use for the above definition of ‘borderline’, since on his view, there simply are no ‘unsettled’ cases. Williamson defines the word ‘borderline’ in terms of what can be known, rather than in terms of truth conditions, as above. Here, of course, I insist on the above definition, noting that the property might be empty (but hoping that it isn’t).

2. Tolerance and Open-Texture Crispin Wright (1976, §2) defines a predicate F to be tolerant with respect to a concept f, ‘if there is . . . some positive degree of change in respect of f insufficient ever to affect the justice with which F applies to a particular case’. Vague predicates, or at least some vague predicates, are said to be tolerant. Wright’s language suggests that the issue concerns proper judgement, which I take to be an important insight. Consider the predicate ‘bald’, which is arguably tolerant with respect to number and arrangement of head hair. Suppose that two men h, h’ differ only marginally in the amount and arrangements of their head-hair. Wright’s principle seems to say that if someone competently judges h to be bald, then she must judge h’ to be bald too—either both are bald or neither are. Similarly, the predicate ‘red’ is tolerant with respect to indistinguishable, and perhaps small, differences in color. If two colored patches p, p’ are visually indistinguishable, and if someone judges p to be red, she must judge p’ to be red as well. As plausible as this interpretation of tolerance may seem, especially in the case of the colored patches, it leads to absurdity in the


9:23pm page 42

42 / Stewart Shapiro now familiar manner. In general, a Sorites series arises when we have a (prima facie) tolerant predicate P, and a series of objects running from a clear (or definite) instance of P to a clear non-instance of P, with each differing marginally from its neighbors. Perhaps we can agree on the following weaker principle of tolerance: Suppose a predicate P is tolerant, and that two objects a, a’ in the field of P differ only marginally in the relevant respect (on which P is tolerant). Then if one competently judges a to have P, then she cannot judge a’ to not have P. This, I submit, is the key to avoiding contradiction. Suppose that h and h’ differ only marginally in the amount and arrangements of their head-hair. It is compatible with the principle of tolerance that someone judge h to be bald and leave the bald-state of h’ unjudged (one way or the other). It does violate tolerance, in the present sense, if a subject judges h to be bald and decides to leave h’ unjudged. The observation here is that the subject does not violate tolerance if he has not considered the state of h’. The principle of tolerance demands that if this person were then asked, or forced, to judge h’, and does not change his mind about h, then he must judge h’ to be bald. Suppose that our subject judges h to be bald and we inquire about h’. Then he can satisfy the principle of tolerance by either judging h’ to be bald, or by judging h’ to be not bald and taking back his previous judgement that h is bald. I suggest that in the cases of interest, the meaning of the word ‘bald’ and the semantic and non-semantic facts allow this option. Let P be a tolerant predicate for which there is a Sorites series: a list a1 , ... , an , where it is determinate that Pa1 , it is determinate that :Pan , and for each i < n, the difference between ai and aiþ1 is insufficient to affect the justice with which P applies. As noted above, I take it as a premise (without much in the way of argument) that somewhere in the series there is a borderline case of P. There is a j such that Paj is neither determinately true nor determinately false. Since P is a predicate of a natural language like English, and aj is in its range of applicability, our ‘thoughts and practices in using the language have established truth conditions for’ the sentence Paj . My premise is that, despite this, the (presumably) non-linguistic facts have not determined that these conditions are met. Moreover, language users have established truth conditions for :Paj , and those conditions have not been met either. As far as the language has evolved to date, Paj is still open. As McGee and McLaughlin put it, the sentence is ‘unsettled’.


9:23pm page 43

Vagueness and Conversation / 43 To be sure, this is not to say that a given competent speaker, when asked about Paj (under normal conditions, whatever those are), realizes that the sentence is indeterminate, or has the phenomenological feel that there is nothing to say or that she can go either way. Some competent speakers may feel that way, but other competent speakers may be inclined to assert Paj , while still others might be inclined to assert :Paj —all under the same circumstances. The claim now is only that if Paj is borderline, then the meanings of the words, the non-linguistic facts, etc. do not determine a verdict, even if some individual language users do themselves competently assert a verdict in some circumstances. The presence of ‘unsettled’ cases is precisely the sort of situation that suggests a supervaluational semantics, much like the one provided by McGee and McLaughlin (and Fine 1975). The idea is to introduce a notion of an admissible sharpening, or precisification, of the language. In the case at hand, a sharpening of the language would contain a sharp (i.e. non-vague) predicate P such that for all x in the range of P, if Px is determinately true, then P x, and if :Px is determinately true, then :P x. A sentence F is super-true if it comes out true under all admissible sharpenings of the language. So super-truth coincides with determinate truth, as that notion is defined above. I agree that the overall supervaluational framework is natural and helpful here—eventually—but there are features of the use (and thus the meaning) of vague terms that need to be incorporated into it. Since we encounter, and effectively and competently decide, borderline cases regularly, there is more to truth than super-truth, and there is more to validity than the necessary preservation of super-truth. Suppose, again, that a is a borderline case of P. I take it as another premise that, in at least some situations, a speaker is free to assert Pa and free to assert :Pa, without offending against the meanings of the terms, or against any other rule of language use. Unsettled entails open. The rules of language use, as they are fixed by what we say and do, allow someone to go either way in the borderline region. Let us call this the open-texture thesis. Wright (1987: 244) seems to endorse the open-texture thesis (at least parenthetically): ‘Borderline cases are . . . cases about which competent speakers are allowed to differ.’ And Sainsbury (1990, §9): ‘Given the nature of boundarylessness, semantics give freedom. There is some number of minutes such that the nature of the concept of a person, together with the nature of the world, makes it neither mandatory nor impermissible to apply the concept to a foetus of that age in minutes.’


9:23pm page 44

44 / Stewart Shapiro Open-texture is a more or less empirical claim about the proper use of vague terms in language. However, I have very little in the way of empirical evidence to offer for it from this armchair, beyond a few intuitions. That’s why I call it a ‘premise’. I realize that with the assertion of open-texture, I am leaving the comfort of consensus and truism (if it has not been left already). Some supervaluationists claim that if a is a borderline case of P, then a lies outside the extension of P, and so it is (determinately) incorrect to assert Pa. It is a platitude that one should assert only truths (of which, see Section 6 below). And, again, the supervaluationist idea is that truth is super-truth. Since, by hypothesis, Pa is not super-true, it is not correct to assert it—or so argue these supervaluationists. Similarly, those inclined toward a fuzzy approach claim that if a is a borderline case of P, then Pa is less than completely true. Since, strictly speaking, one should assert only full truths, these theorists hold that in strict circumstances, it is not correct to assert Pa, in agreement with our supervaluationists. The fuzzy logicians might add that even in less strict situations, one should assert only near truths, and some borderline cases are not near truths. In contrast, I would take the premise of open-texture to apply generally, to any borderline case, no matter how ‘far’ it is from a determinate one. I will not pause to offer arguments against these opposing views, or the intuitions that lie behind them, but will rest content to let the entire framework serve as a rival account. Let’s be clear as to what the open-texture premise is, and what it is not. Suppose that a is a borderline case of P. As above, the open-texture thesis does not entail that a given competent speaker will always be conscious of the fact that he can go either way. The open-texture thesis is that in some circumstances, he can, in fact, go either way without offending against the meaning of the terms, the non-linguistic facts, and the like. Second, even if a is a borderline case of P, it is not true that the rules for language use allow a speaker to assert Pa in any situation whatsoever. For example, one is not free to assert Pa if one has just asserted (and does not retract) :Pa. This would offend against logic (dialetheism notwithstanding). Similarly, one is not normally free to assert Pa if one has just asserted (and does not retract) :Pa’, where a’ is only marginally different from a. That would offend against tolerance.1 1 This is not to say that tolerance can never be violated. To follow an example from Sainsbury (1990), consider an art shop that has red paints on one shelf, marked ‘‘red’’, and orange ones on another, labeled ‘‘orange’’. The proprietor would not be judged incompetent concerning English if one cannot really tell the last red jar from the first orange one.


9:23pm page 45

Vagueness and Conversation / 45 In short, if a sentence F is determinate, then one can correctly assert it at any time and can never correctly deny it. If :F is determinate, then one can correctly deny F at any time, and can never assert it. If F is unsettled, then it depends on the conversational situation one is in. We need a mechanism to track the features of a situation that allow and disallow certain moves. For this, I turn to Lewis (1979).

3. Conversational Score It is often noted that the truth values of instances of vague predicates are often relative to a comparison class. A short professional basketball player would not be a short business executive. A person can be wealthy in some nation, or neighborhood, while someone else with exactly the same resources is not wealthy in other situations. Similarly, the truth value of an instance of a vague predicate can vary with an instance to which it is compared. An income may be paltry with respect to Bill Gates, but not so with respect to George W. Bush. Or, to follow Graff (2000, §3), a man can be bald with respect to Yul Brynner and not so with respect to Mikhail Gorbachev (even though the comparison class is the same in both cases—all men). The present program introduces another relativity, to a conversational context. This includes not only the environment of the conversation, what it is about, and the implicit or explicit comparison class or paradigms, but also what has already been said in the course of the conversation. For this purpose, I borrow the notion of a conversational score, or conversational record, invoked by some linguists interested in pragmatics. The record, or score, is a local version of common knowledge. David Lewis’s influential ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’ (1979) develops the idea in sufficient detail for present purposes. During a conversation, the score contains the assumptions, presuppositions, and other items implicitly or explicitly agreed to. For example, the conversational score contains the range of quantifiers like ‘everyone’ and the denotata of proper names like ‘Barbara’ and ‘Joe’. It also settles the relevant comparison class and/or paradigm cases for predicates like ‘tall’ (professional basketball players, executives, etc.) and ‘bald’ (Brynner, Gorbachev). The score also contains propositions that have been (implicitly or explicitly) agreed to, and are not up for dispute or discussion, at least for the moment. Among these are the ‘presuppositions’ to the conversation.


9:23pm page 46

46 / Stewart Shapiro The conversational record is a sort of running database. It is continually updated, in that items are put on the record and, notably here, removed from it in the course of a conversation. Items get removed when the topic changes, when what is agreed to or some presupposition comes into question, or when some of the participants change their minds about items that are on the record. Since the participants in a conversation may be mistaken about what has been agreed to and what has not, they may be mistaken about what is on the conversational score. Normally, this sort of thing gets cleared up in due course, if it turns out to be important. Lewis (1979: 345) delimits some features of the conversational database, most of which are relevant here: (1) . . . the components of a conversational score at a given stage are abstract entities. They may not be numbers, but they are other set-theoretic constructs: sets of presupposed propositions, boundaries between permissible and impermissible courses of action, or the like. (2) What play is correct depends on the score. Sentences depend for their truth value, or for their acceptability in other respects, on the components of the conversational score at the stage of the conversation when they are uttered . . . [T]he constituents of an uttered sentence—subsentences, names, predicates, etc.—may depend on the score for their intension or extension. (3) Score evolves in a more-or-less rule-governed way. There are rules that specify the kinematics of score: (3)

If at time t the conversational score is s, and if between time t and time t’, the course of the conversation is c, then at time t’ . . . the score is some member of the class S of possible scores, where S is determined in some way by s and c.

(4) The conversationalists may conform to directives, or may simply desire, that they strive to steer components of the conversational score in certain directions . . . (5) To the extent that conversational score is determined, given the history of the conversation and the rules that specify its kinematics, these rules can be regarded as constitutive rules akin to definitions.

Lewis points out that unlike most games, conversations tend to be cooperative. Indeed, that is often the point of having a conversation in the first place. ‘[R]ules of accommodation . . . figure prominently among the rules governing the kinematics of conversational score’ (1979: 347). The idea is that the conversational record tends to evolve in such a way that, other things equal, whatever is said will be construed as to count as correct. The record will be updated to make this so, if possible. Suppose, for example, that


9:23pm page 47

Vagueness and Conversation / 47 someone utters a sentence like ‘Harry no longer smokes unfiltered cigarettes’, which has the presupposition that Harry used to smoke unfiltered cigarettes. Unless someone objects, the presupposition goes on the record. To be sure, cooperation is ‘not inevitable, but only a tendency’, as Lewis puts it. And, of course, presuppositions can be retracted later. Lewis goes on to illuminate six diverse features of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language by using this notion of conversational score. The list includes definite descriptions, performatives, and a painfully brief treatment of our present topic, vagueness (1979: 351–4). That discussion begins by noting that with a vague predicate like ‘bald’, ‘nothing in our use of language’ fixes a sharp border between the bald and the non-bald. This much echoes the above McGee–McLaughlin theme, and like them, Lewis gestures toward the framework of supervaluation. Suppose that Fred is a borderline case of ‘bald’. Then whether the sentence ‘Fred is bald’ is true depends on ‘where you draw the line’. Relative to ‘some perfectly reasonable ways of drawing a precise boundary between bald and non-bald, the sentence is true. Relative to other delineations, no less reasonable, it is false.’ Philosophers and linguists cannot settle on a single, precise border, but ‘must consider the entire range of reasonable delineations’. Lewis says that if ‘a sentence is true over the entire range, true no matter how we draw the line, surely we are entitled to treat it simply as true’. In other words, simple truth is super-truth. But this is truth only in a strict sense. Lewis goes on to recognize a looser use of language: But also we treat a sentence more or less as if it is simply [i.e. super-]true, if it is true over a large enough part of the range of delineations of vagueness. (For short, if it is true enough.) If a sentence is true enough (according to our beliefs) we are willing to assert it, assent to it without qualification . . .

He notes that we usually do not get into any trouble with this loose use of language, although we can and sometimes we do—witness Sorites paradoxes. Lewis (1979) uses the notion of conversational score to resolve an issue that concerns his notion of ‘true enough’: When is a sentence true enough? Which are the ‘large enough’ parts of the range of delineations of vagueness? This is itself a vague matter. More important for our present purposes, it is something that depends on context. What is true enough on one occasion is not true enough on another. The standards of precision in force are different from one conversation to another, and may change in the course of a single


9:23pm page 48

48 / Stewart Shapiro conversation. Austin’s ‘France is hexagonal’ is a good example of a sentence that is true enough for many contexts, but not true enough for many others. Under low standards of precision it is acceptable. Raise the standards and it loses its acceptability.

To adapt Lewis’s example, suppose that someone says ‘France is hexagonal’, and gets away with it in a conversation. The rules of accommodation suggest that appropriately loose standards thereby go on the conversational record, since such standards are needed to make the assertion true (i.e. true enough). Thereafter, ‘Italy is boot shaped’ is also true enough, since that conforms to the same low standard (assuming that Italy is at least as boot shaped as France is hexagonal). But if someone later denies that Italy is boot shaped, insisting on the differences, then the standards are thereby raised, and ‘France is hexagonal’ is no longer true enough. So it comes off the record. Lewis then provides a clean, effective reply to Peter Unger’s (1975: 65–8) argument that nothing (or hardly anything) is flat. Unger claims, and Lewis agrees, that nothing can be flatter than something that is flat. So suppose someone says that Kansas is flat. This cannot be correct, since a level sidewalk is flatter than Kansas. But this sidewalk is not flat either, since a sheet of metal is flatter than that. And a sheet of metal is not flat, since . . . So we can only say that Euclidean planes are flat. No physical objects qualify. Clearly, Unger’s conclusion offends against language use. We use the word ‘flat’ in all sorts of contexts, and presumably we know what we are talking about. We also manage to communicate using the word. To echo Humpty Dumpty, who is master? To be sure, someone who says that Kansas is flat does not mean that it is perfectly flat. To use Lewis’s terminology, the speaker says that it is flat enough. When the remark about Kansas is made, the rules of accommodation require a relatively low standard, since Kansas does have small hills here and there (not to mention the curvature of the earth). Now suppose that later in the conversation, someone says that his sidewalk is flatter than Kansas, or complains that his sidewalk is not flat. According to Lewis, the truth of this assertion requires a higher standard for ‘flat’ (or ‘flat enough’) than had been established with the statement about Kansas. The rules of accommodation thus put a higher standard on the record. On this new standard, Kansas is not flat (enough). So once the standards are raised, ‘Kansas is flat’ is removed from the record.


9:23pm page 49

Vagueness and Conversation / 49

4. Conversation and Sorites Unfortunately, this is the extent of the treatment of vagueness in Lewis (1979), and I am not aware of any use of conversational score with respect to vagueness in his other writings (including his extensive writing on vagueness). In particular, Lewis (1979) does not invoke conversational score to deal with Sorites. Indeed, the only (possible) reference to the paradox is a remark that loose thinking sometimes leads to trouble. Given the framework he proposes, Lewis accepts the standard supervaluational resolution. Recall our premise of open-texture: borderline cases of vague predicates can go either way in some conversational contexts. So once a borderline case is ‘resolved’ in the course of a conversation, that information goes on the conversational record, and will remain on the record unless it is implicitly or explicitly retracted. To develop a fully general account of reasoning with a conversational score, we would need a paraconsistent logic, since it is possible for conflicting propositions to be put on a record, without the group retracting any of them. The participants may not realize they have contradicted themselves. Even if they do realize the contradiction, they may not want to retract the statements, since they remain attracted to each of them individually, and do not know which one(s) to give up. Such is paradox. The presence of a contradiction on the conversational record (whether detected or not) does not commit the group to every proposition whatsoever. Nevertheless, I take it that consistency is a regulative ideal for a conversational record, in the sense that the participants try to achieve consistency, retracting questionable items from the score as needed (Priest 1987 notwithstanding). For present purposes, however, we need not invoke paraconsistency, since our focus is on admittedly artificial cases in which consistency is easily enforced. Let us begin with a conversational version of a Horgan-style ‘forced march’ Sorites situation (see Horgan 1994). Suppose we have a series of 2,000 men lined up. The first is a mature Yul Brynner, who is clearly bald—he has no hair at all (or so we will assume). The last man is Jerry Garcia, in his prime, who we will take as a paradigm case of a man who is not bald. The hair of each man in the series (who has hair) is arranged in roughly the same way as his predecessor. After the first, each man differs from the one before by having only slightly more hair, perhaps imperceptibly more. Now suppose that the participants in a conversation start asking themselves about the baldness-state of each man in the series, starting with Yul


9:23pm page 50

50 / Stewart Shapiro Brynner, and they insist on a communal verdict in each case. As each question in the form ‘Is man n bald?’ is put, they are to provide a ‘yes or no’ answer. This forced bivalence is only a convenience. The situation would be essentially the same if we gave them the option to answer ‘borderline bald’, ‘unsettled’, ‘no fact of the matter’, etc. It would also be the same if we gave them the option to agree on silence. To paraphrase Raffman (1994: 41 n. 1), it isn’t merely that there is tolerance between (determinate) cases of baldness and (determinate) cases of non-baldness. There is tolerance between baldness ‘and any other category—even a ‘‘borderline’’ category’. Or Wright (1976, §1): ‘no sharp distinction may be drawn between cases where it is definitely correct to apply [a vague] predicate and cases of any other sort’. What matters for present purposes is that the participants in our conversation must answer (or refuse to answer) by consensus—whatever the allowed answers may be. If, at any point, they want to stop answering, they must agree to shut up. We do not allow them to stop the march by simply failing to agree on a verdict. So let us allow the simplifying assumption that only two answers are allowed: ‘bald’ and ‘not bald’. Being competent speakers of English, the conversationalists all agree that Yul Brynner is bald, that the second man is bald, etc. Eventually, they will move into the borderline area, and encounter cases whose baldness state is ‘unsettled’, as in Section 1 above. Again, the thoughts and practices in using the language have established truth conditions for statements about baldness, and truth conditions for non-baldness. In the borderline region, the non-linguistic facts have not determined that either of these truth conditions are met. Nevertheless, the conversationalists in this exercise will probably continue to call the men bald as they move through the borderline area—for a while. If they call man n bald, they will probably call man n þ 1 bald as well, since by hypothesis, they can barely tell the two heads apart in the relevant respect. This is all right, so far as their language competence goes. Given our opentexture premise, borderline cases can go either way (without offending against meaning and the facts), and the participants in this conversation are just going one way rather than the other as they enter the borderline area from this direction. Again, it does not matter whether they realize that they can go either way in any of these borderline cases. For some of the conversationalists and for some of the cases, it certainly won’t feel like they can go either way. Following their instructions, they just call ’em as they see ’em.


9:23pm page 51

Vagueness and Conversation / 51 And as they start to move into the borderline cases, they continue to see ’em to be bald—for a bit. This puts propositions like ‘Man 923 is bald’ and ‘Man 924 is bald’ on the conversational score (assuming that those are borderline cases). Now recall the principle of tolerance: Suppose a predicate P is tolerant, and that two objects a, a’ in the field of P differ only marginally in the relevant respect (on which P is tolerant). Then if one competently judges a to have P, then she cannot judge a’ to not have P. Let us assume that tolerance is in force in the present conversation. Arguably, it is part of the meaning of ‘bald’ that it is tolerant, and so there is usually no option to violate tolerance while being true to the meaning of the words of the language (but see note 1 above). In particular, if we were to present any adjacent pair from the series to the conversationalists at the same time, they would agree that either both of the men are bald or that neither are (or that both are borderline, etc., if we suspend the forced bivalence). This explains why they are likely to see man 924 as bald if they have just declared that man 923 is bald. Nevertheless, since the participants in the exercise are competent speakers of English, we can be sure that they will not blindly go through the entire series, and call #2000, Jerry Garcia, bald. That way lies madness (or at least incompetence). Eventually, a few of the participants will demur from calling one of the men bald. If this group finds themselves in a small minority, they will go along with the majority, to maintain the consensus—for a while. As the group proceeds through the borderline area, more and more of the participants will demur, or feel like demurring. At some point, enough of them will demur that the consensus on ‘this man is bald’ will break down. Given the ‘forced march’ instruction, where they must achieve consensus on each answer, the group will eventually agree to call one of the men ‘not bald’. Suppose this first happens with #975. Recall that they have just agreed, perhaps reluctantly for many of them, that #974 is bald, and so they put ‘Man 974 is bald’ on the conversational score. Of course, when they then said that #975 is not bald, they did not contradict themselves. Nor have they violated the tolerance principle. At that point, the tolerance applies in reverse—we take the contrapositive. In declaring man 975 to be not bald, they implicitly deny that man 974 is bald, and so ‘Man 974 is bald’ is removed from the conversational record. It is similar to what happens when any


9:23pm page 52

52 / Stewart Shapiro presupposition is challenged (or contradicted) in the course of a conversation. The event as described here is quite similar to the outcome in one of Lewis’s scenarios, recounted in the previous section. In that story, the participants in a conversation first agree to a ‘low’ standard when they accept ‘France is hexagonal’. Later, when they demur from ‘Italy is boot shaped’, the standard is raised, and so ‘France is hexagonal’ is implicitly removed from the record. Similarly, when the present conversationalists explicitly declare that #975 is not bald, they implicitly retract the statement that #974 is bald. In short, the conversational score is the device that enforces tolerance. Just as ‘Man 974 is bald’ comes off the record, so does ‘Man 973 is bald’; ditto for a few more of their recent pronouncements. We cannot and thankfully need not set a precise boundary as to how many sentences are removed from the record once they jump. Exactly what is and what is not on the conversational record is itself a vague matter. Typically, borderline cases of ‘what is on the record’ do not interfere with a conversation. If a question arises about a specific case—say #967—the participants can ask each other about that fellow, and so the status of that case can be made explicit. So let us continue the thought experiment by reversing the order of query. We assume that man #975 is the first ‘jump’, where our participants shift and deny that the man is bald. Suppose that we explicitly ask them about #974 again, after reminding them that they just called that man ‘bald’, and that they can barely distinguish #974 from #975 (if at all). Although I don’t intend to apply for a grant to confirm this empirical hypothesis, I’d speculate that they would explicitly retract that judgement, saying that #974 is not bald (and thus put ‘Man 974 is not bald’ on the record). The new consensus on the non-baldness of #975 will spread backward to cover #974. Suppose that we then ask them about #973. They would retract that judgement as well. Then we can ask about #972. Of course, they will not move all the way back down the series, and end up denying that #1, Yul Brynner, is bald. After all, he has no hair at all. At some point, they will jump again, and declare a certain fellow to be bald—suppose it is man 864. This again will result in the removal of certain items from the conversational record, such as the denial that man 865 is bald. If our conversationalists do not lose patience with us, we can then go back up the series, but the pattern is clear enough. They would declare men they encounter to be bald for a while, eventually jumping. In general, our conversationalists will move backward and forward through the


9:23pm page 53

Vagueness and Conversation / 53 borderline area. Tolerance is enforced at every stage, by removing judgements from the conversational record whenever a jump occurs. Notice, incidentally, that pending empirical research, there is no reason to think that the participants will always jump at the same place(s) as they move back and forth through the middle part of the series. We only know that come hell or high water, they will eventually jump, well before they call Jerry Garcia bald and well before they deny that Yul Brynner is bald—assuming of course that they remain competent speakers of English and do not go batty as a result of this experiment. We know this, since we are ourselves competent speakers of English. So how, exactly, is the Sorites paradox resolved? Consider the version that uses a single, inductive premise: for each i < n, if Pai then Paiþ1 . It is outright false that for each i < 2000, if our conversationalists judge man i to be bald, then they will in fact judge man i þ 1 to be bald. As they go through the forced march, sooner or later they will jump. And this jump does not undermine their competence as speakers of English. Indeed, if they did not jump, and went on to call man 2000, Jerry Garcia, bald, they would thereby display incompetence. Moreover, as we have seen, a jump does not violate tolerance, since it comes with a retraction of items from the conversational record. Something similar happens with the version of Sorites that avoids a single, inductive premise in favor of each instance of it. Whenever the conversationalists jump from ‘bald’ to ‘not bald’, they thereby undermine one of the premises in the long argument. Although the inductive premise is never true (in full splendor), notice that in the forced march version of the Sorites, the conversational score never contains what may be called a ‘strong counterexample’ to the inductive premise—so long as tolerance is in force. That is, there is never a number n, such that ‘Man n is bald’ and ‘Man n þ 1 is not bald’ are both on the record at the same time. If they jump to ‘not bald’ at n þ 1, then ‘Man n is bald’ is retracted, and removed from the score. In the scenario as envisioned, tolerance is enforced on the conversational record. This may just be a feature of the forced march, however. Suppose instead that the participants consider the men in the series in random order. Then they very well might judge man n to be bald and sometime later judge man n þ 1 to be not bald without explicitly or implicitly retracting the first


9:23pm page 54

54 / Stewart Shapiro judgement. Indeed, they might even judge man n to be not bald and later judge man n þ 1 to be bald—violating a penumbral connection. In fact, if they are not careful, they might even judge a man to be bald and a bit later judge the very same man to be not bald. In such cases, they have not noticed the violation of tolerance, penumbral connection, or consistency. But once the violation is pointed out, they will retract at least one of the judgements, and so one of the offending propositions will go off the record. One nice feature of the forced march is that tolerance, penumbral connection, and consistency are easily enforced. Not so in general. In the forced march, there will surely be cases m, where, for example, ‘Man m is bald’ is on the record and ‘Man m þ 1 is bald’ is not on the record. But that does not undermine tolerance, as that notion is defined above (Section 2). Since man m and man m þ 1 differ only marginally, the participants cannot judge them differently at the same time, but there is nothing to prevent them from judging one and not the other.2 It follows, incidentally, that the conversationalists cannot simultaneously judge every member of the series and remain competent in the use of the term ‘bald’, assuming again that tolerance remains in force. That is, the participants cannot have a judgement for every man on the conversational record all at once. If they did, they would either violate tolerance, or else they would call Yul Brynner not bald, or call Jerry Garcia bald. At any time, some of the baldness states will have to be left unjudged. That’s life. Perhaps they can get to a point where they have done a maximal amount of judging. Suppose, for example, that they judge every man from #1 to #974 to be bald, and they judge every man from #979 to #2000 to be not bald. Moreover, suppose that they cannot make a judgement about any of #975 through #978 without jumping—without retracting some of their previous judgements. Such is the nature of the series.

5. Raffman on Vagueness The present resolution of the Sorites paradox has the same structure as that of Raffman (1994, 1996), and I acknowledge a deep debt to that penetrating work. Raffman envisions a single subject who is marched through a Sorites 2 As noted in Sect. 2 above, it would violate tolerance if the conversationalists judge man n to be bald, and decide to leave man n þ 1 unjudged.


9:23pm page 55

Vagueness and Conversation / 55 series consisting of color patches. She is explicit, however, that her account is to apply to vague terms generally. To adapt her program to our series above, the subject would begin by calling the first few fellows bald, and continue that way a bit into (what I call) the borderline area. But she eventually jumps and calls one of the men not bald. Again, suppose that this first occurs at #975. Raffman says that at that point, the subject has changed to a different psychological state. In the new state, it is not true that, say, #974 is bald. Once again, it is a commonplace that many properties are relative to context. For example, a lightweight internal lineman among high school football players would be an extremely heavy jockey. That is what Raffman calls an ‘external’ relativity to a comparison class. For vague predicates generally, Raffman proposes that there is an additional, internal relativity, to a psychological state. Patches look red, or are red only relative to the state of a competent person judging them to look red. A man is bald, or not, only relative to the state of a competent person judging whether he is bald. Raffman argues that (something like the tolerance principle entails that) a competent subject cannot give different verdicts to ‘Man 974 is bald’ and ‘Man 975 is bald’ at the same time—and while in the same state. As above, if the subject is presented with any adjacent pair and asked to judge them both, she will agree that they are either both bald or neither bald: ‘at no time are adjacent [members] of the series simultaneously category-different’ (1994: 53). So it is never the case that an instance of the inductive premise is false. So long as the subject remains in the same state, she will not differ in her judgement concerning any adjacent pair of men in the series. Drawing on some psychological research, Raffman (1994: 50) proposes that when the subject jumps during the forced march, she moves into a new psychological state. There is a ‘category shift’ in which the judged category— ‘not bald’ in this case—‘spreads backward’ along a string of the preceding men in the series. In the new state, the extension of non-bald ‘expands backward, instantaneously’, to include some of the men that formerly fell in the extension of ‘bald’. To adapt Raffman’s narrative to the present example: My hypothesis is that, at the moment of judging [#975], the speaker undergoes a kind of Gestalt shift that embraces [#974] (and probably some of [his] predecessors) as well as [#975]. At the moment of shift to [‘not bald’], the speaker is disposed to judge both [#974] and [#975] (plus some [men] on both sides) as being [not bald], thereby allowing for a change in kind while preserving the effective continuity of the series.


9:23pm page 56

56 / Stewart Shapiro Intuitively speaking, a string of [men] shift their [baldness state] simultaneously, so that [#974] and [#975] never differ . . . at the same time. Like the duck-rabbit and Necker cube, these [men] can ‘go either way’: they can be ‘seen as [bald]’ or ‘seen as [not bald]’—now one way, now the other . . . If asked to reverse direction and retrace his steps down the series toward #1, the speaker would now judge [as not bald] some [men] that he previously judged [bald]. At some point, of course, he would shift back to [‘bald’]; for example he might judge [#974] through [#903] [not bald], but then undergo a Gestalt switch back to [‘bald’] at [#902]. And so forth . . . (Raffman 1996: 178) My claim is that whenever marginally different items are assigned incompatible predicates relative to the same external context, a Gestalt-like shift has occurred so that those predicates are assigned relative to different internal contexts. (Raffman 1996: 180)

The reference to gestalt shifts is suggestive. A subject’s perception of a Necker cube, for example, changes without any changes in the drawing itself. With a vague predicate, the judgement shifts with a small but perhaps imperceptible change in the item being judged.3 The relativity to psychological state allows for an distinction between a ‘categorical judgement’, which consists of a subject considering a single case, and a ‘comparative judgment’, where the subject deals with two (or more) instances at once. Raffman illustrates this, and the relativity, by envisioning a forced march in which the items are presented in pairs. Let us return to our series of 2,000 men. We first ask the subject, or the participants, to judge the pair . Both are judged to be bald. Then we present the pair . Both bald. Then , and so on. Since the pairs are marginally different, perhaps indistinguishable, the subject(s) will always judge each pair alike. But, again, the subject(s) will eventually jump. They won’t go on to call Jerry Garcia and his predecessor both bald. Suppose that the pair are judged to be bald, but the pair are judged to be not bald a few seconds later. If we do not allow for a contextual shift of some sort—be it a change in psychological state, a change in the conversational record, or something else—the subjects will have contradicted themselves at that point. Since man 888 is in both pairs, he is judged to be bald and then judged to be not bald a moment later. There are not many options for interpreting this scenario. The theorist can conclude that vague predicates like ‘bald’ have some contradictory cases, or that any language (like English) with vague predicates is incoherent generally 3 Thanks to an anonymous referee.


9:23pm page 57

Vagueness and Conversation / 57 (following Dummett 1975). Or the theorist can find fault with the scenario. Perhaps there is something illegitimate in demanding a forced march through a Sorites series. I presume that Williamson (1994) would counsel this reply. According to this staunch epistemicist, the subject(s) should refuse to answer when they get near the (precise) border, despite their instructions. Since they do not and cannot know where the border is, they have no business venturing an opinion on the state of baldness of the fellows near that border. Or the theorist can claim that the subject(s) are incompetent, or have made some sort of mistake with their answers. But what sort of mistake? The subjects are told to call them as they see them. What did they do wrong? Or the theorist can follow Raffman and the present program and say that a shift of context has occurred. Man 988 is bald in one context and not bald in another. Raffman’s contextualist framework complements the present one. She sees the extensions of vague predicates as varying with the psychological states of (competent) speakers of the language, while I see the extensions as varying with conversational records among (competent) speakers. In one sense, her thought experiment is a special case of the present one. We might think of hers as a limiting case of a ‘conversation’ consisting of only one participant. The ‘conversational score’ would contain features of the psychological state of the subject. Of course, a conversation consists of its individual members, and Raffman’s notion of psychological state is intended to explain what happens in the mind of those individuals. The communal, conversational analogue of Raffman’s gestalt shift is what I call a ‘jump’, the combination of a breakdown of consensus among the members of the conversation, and the forging of a new consensus on a new verdict. A consensus breaks down only if enough of the individual participants demur from the communal judgement, and if Raffman is correct this happens when enough of them have made the relevant gestalt shift (and refuse to switch back even for the sake of conversational harmony). So if Raffman’s account can be sustained, it is more basic than mine. I have little to contribute to the articulation of the relevant notion of psychological state, nor to the psychological explanation of individuals as they judge vague predicates. The present account focuses instead of the communal aspects of language use, such as the role of language in public communication. Surely, it is individuals who communicate, and these individuals are in different psychological states at different times. I do not have much to say by way of a detailed


9:23pm page 58

58 / Stewart Shapiro account of how this works. What is the bridge between the different psychological states of individual communicators and the public side of communication? The cooperative features of conversations that Lewis (1979) sketches and, in particular, the defeasible drive for consensus, feed into the role of conversational record in handling borderline cases of vague predicates. They suggest the more communal sort of relativity that the present work focuses upon.

6. Determinacy Revisited, Truth, and Classical Semantics The time has come to further articulate, or refine, the notion of determinacy, to indicate the contextual elements that are relevant to its extension.4 Let F be a monadic (possibly complex) predicate in a natural language. Recall the previous definition of determinacy, quoted from McGee and McLaughlin (1994, §2): ‘to say that an object a is [determinately] an F means that the thoughts and practices of speakers of the language determine conditions of application for . . . F, and the facts about a determine that these conditions are met’. A first and hasty interpretation of this is that a is determinately an F if and only if the (linguistic) meaning of the predicate F and the non-linguistic facts determine or guarantee that Fa holds. In short, Fa is determinate in this sense if its truth supervenes on meaning and non-linguistic fact. Since English is a public language, it seems plausible that the meaning of its words is at least largely independent of the context of utterance (ambiguity and considerations like those in Davidson (1986) notwithstanding). Otherwise, we are left with the specter of Humpty Dumpty’s claim to Alice, and no real communication. And, of course, most non-linguistic facts (such as the amount and arrangement of hair on a person’s head) are independent of the context of utterance. So the present interpretation of determinacy would allow virtually no contextual elements into the notion. Suppose, for example, that Harry just went to see a baseball game, the only game in town at the time. No vagueness about that (or none that matters here). Still, the sentence ‘Harry went to the game’ would not be determinately true, since nothing about the meaning of the words and the relevant facts about Harry, the players, etc., determines 4 I am indebted to Agustıń Rayo here.


9:23pm page 59

Vagueness and Conversation / 59 that this sentence is true. The (linguistic) meaning of the phrase ‘went to the game’ does not fix which game we are talking about. Similarly, on the present interpretation, the sentence ‘Everyone is present and accounted for’ would not be determinately true (in any context), since the meanings of the words by themselves do not fix who we are talking about. The sentence, ‘I am hungry’, would also fail to be determinately true in any context, since meaning and relevant facts do not determine the referent of ‘I’. McGee and McLaughlin did not have such an austere notion of determinacy in mind. Surely, ‘the thoughts and practices of speakers of the language’ conspire to fix some items in various contexts of utterance. In the first example, the members of the conversation would determine which game they are talking about, by what they say, do, and think. So ‘Harry went to the game’ would be determinately true, on the McGee and McLaughlin notion. Similarly, in a given context, the sentence ‘Everyone is present and accounted for’ would be determinately true or determinately false (unless there is some vagueness involved). The conversation would fix the extent of ‘everyone’, and this information would be on the conversational score. If a hungry speaker says ‘I am hungry’, then what she says is determinately true. I conclude, then, that at least some contextual elements should be included in the analysis of determinacy. In particular, when it comes to vagueness, determinacy is sensitive to the comparison class, the paradigms, or the comparison cases. Suppose, for example, that during a conversation about professional basketball players, somebody says that a player who is six feet one inch tall is short. That sentence is determinately true (in that context). The conversational record would indicate the comparison class, and given that class, the sentence is true. So far, I presume that everything is in line with the notion of determinacy invoked by McGee and McLaughlin (1994). However, I suspect that I am about to part company with them. I propose that the borderline cases of a vague predicate that have been decided in the course of a conversation not be included in what fixes determinate truth. Suppose that the relevant comparison class, paradigm cases, or comparison cases for ‘baldness’ are fixed. Assume that Harry remains a borderline case. According to the foregoing open-texture thesis, in some situations, speakers are free to assert ‘Harry is bald’ without undermining their competence, and they may likewise assert ‘Harry is not bald’ in some situations. Unsettled entails open. So suppose that someone asserts ‘Harry is bald’, in the course of a conversation, and this


9:23pm page 60

60 / Stewart Shapiro assertion goes unchallenged. As above, the sentence (or proposition) ‘Harry is bald’ goes on the conversational score. One might take it that ‘Harry is bald’ would then be determinately true in the context after the utterance, at least until the assertion is retracted (in which case the context changes). After all, once the utterance is accepted onto the record, the thoughts and practices of (those) speakers have fixed a truth value for this sentence. Nevertheless, I propose that ‘Harry is bald’ is not determinately true in the context of this conversation. As noted in Section 5 above, Raffman (1996) distinguishes the ‘external’ context of a judgement (concerning a vague predicate), which fixes the comparison class and the like, from the internal context, consisting of the subject’s psychological state. Just about everyone accepts that the extensions of vague predicates can vary with the external context. Raffman’s thesis is that these extensions also vary with the internal, psychological context. Once again, I invoke a similar distinction here, in the broader perspective of public conversations. The present proposal is that ‘external’ factors—comparison class, paradigm cases, comparison cases, etc.—are included in what fixes determinate truth and determinate falsehood, but internal factors, and in particular, the decided borderlines cases, do not modify the extension of determinate truth and determinate falsehood. When it matters, I will use the phrase ‘e-determinate’ to indicate the present notion, and distinguish it from the broader McGee–McLaughlin notion, where all contextually fixed factors, including decided borderline cases, are included. To mark the contrast, I’ll use the word ‘established’ for the broader McGee–McLaughlin notion. Since the word ‘determinacy’ is a term of art, I am free to define it as I please, so long as the definition is coherent (even if vague). Nevertheless, the reader deserves a word of justification for my notion of e-determinateness. One advantage of the broader notion of ‘established’ is that it allows, or may allow, the imposition of ordinary classical semantics. That is, within a fixed context, one can coherently maintain that vague predicates have precise extensions, and complementary anti-extensions. Raffman, for example, uses counterfactual conditionals to fix the extensions. Consider, for example, our paradigm Sorites series, consisting of 2,000 men ranging from Yul Brynner to Jerry Garcia. Fix what Raffman calls the external context, and consider a single competent subject in a particular psychological state s. Then a given man m is in the extension of ‘bald’ in s if it is the case that the subject would judge m to be bald when in state s, and m is in the anti-extension of ‘bald’


9:23pm page 61

Vagueness and Conversation / 61 otherwise. To be sure, at any given time, neither the observing subject nor an outside examiner can learn the baldness statuses of all of the men relative to the psychological state s, or at least not in the straightforward manner. As noted, for some of the men in the series, if the subject actually did judge them to be bald, or not bald, she would no longer be in the state s. Some judgements trigger a shift to a new psychological state. Once that happens, we are no longer able to determine the status of the other men in the original state s (unless we could get the subject back into s). Nevertheless, on Raffman’s view, for each external context and each psychological state, there is a fixed and precise extension for each vague predicate in that state, fixed by the indicated conditionals, most of which are counterfactual. Raffman’s proposal might be imported full-blown into the present conversational context. Let us define a man in our series to be in the extension of ‘bald’ at a given stage in a conversation, if the conversationalists would judge him to be bald, if they were asked that question. In the limit, however, we can actually determine the status of only a few of the men that way. Once we ask the conversationalists about any of the men in the borderline area, and get an answer, we thereby change the context, since the conversational record changes at that point. We are now at a new stage in the conversation, and all bets are off concerning the original stage. Nevertheless, the status of each man in the series is fixed at any given time by how the subjects would respond, if queried about that man. Another prominent contextualist, Delia Graff (2000), holds that at any given time, there are sharp borders in the Sorites series. The problem is that the borders shift with the focus of the subjects. The reason a subject never sees or notices the border is that it is never located at the place where she is looking—the border is never (and can never be) salient. Such is the nature of contextually determined vague predicates. Graff’s view is an epistemicism of sorts. With the imposition of precise extensions (and complementary antiextensions) in each context, the foregoing contextualists thus invoke an ordinary, classical model-theoretic semantics. With that comes classical logic, a neat package. To accomplish this, however, the Raffman framework assumes that the counterfactuals are all well-defined, and each has a unique truth value. In particular, there must be a fact of the matter concerning how the subject would respond in the given psychological state, if queried about a given case. If there is any vagueness, or indeterminacy, in the counterfactuals, the


9:23pm page 62

62 / Stewart Shapiro imposition of classical semantics might fail. The same goes for the potentially similar treatment in the conversational context. There must be a fixed fact of the matter concerning how the conversationalists would respond to each query. Similarly, Graff’s imposition of classical semantics stands or falls with the assumption that at any given time, there are indeed precise, but unknowable, borders that lie outside of the range of consideration. I do not intend to challenge these assumptions or premises of my fellow contextualists. Let me just register skeptical agnosticism concerning the presuppositions, and then concede, for the sake of argument, that we can indeed achieve classical semantics, and classical logic, if we invoke the broad notion of determinacy (i.e. establishment). That is, I assume for the sake of argument that if the external context and the internal psychological state are both held fixed, then we can and should reason classically. Note, however, that the relevant internal context can change very rapidly. In Raffman’s case, it is an empirical question exactly when, and how often, a given subject’s psychological state changes. At a minimum, the state changes whenever one of the counterfactuals if asked about man #i, the subject would respond ‘bald’ changes its truth value. It is not implausible that this happens every moment, or every few moments (given how delicate things can get in the borderline area, see § 8 below). In the present conversational framework, the context changes every time something is added to the score, which happens every time something not already established is said. For Graff, the extension of vague predicates changes every time the subject’s attention shifts more than a little. This is not a complaint against classical logic. It is a commonplace that one can reason classically only so long as the references of the terms and the extensions of the predicates in an argument remain fixed. We remind introductory students of this, noting the ancient fallacy of four terms and the like. On the views under discussion, the extensions change with every change in internal or external context, and we can reason correctly only if we are aware of this. This observation also explains why the Sorites reasoning seems so tempting, and it indicates how to resist the key premise. However, the constant shifting of context puts a damper on the appropriateness of classical logic when reasoning with vague predicates (if indeed it is appropriate). The supposedly precise extensions of the predicates can change in the very act of


9:23pm page 63

Vagueness and Conversation / 63 our considering them as we go through an argument, trying to reason in an ordinary context. We might call this a Heraclitus problem. The river changes every time we step into it. The extensions of vague predicates change momentarily, right before our eyes, even as we are considering the premises of an argument. As noted, I will not mount a challenge to the assumptions that lead to the imposition of classical model-theoretic semantics and classical logic. Nevertheless, I am interested in a notion of ‘context’ and of correct reasoning therein, where the shifts are not so erratic. It seems to me that it is plausible to hold the external context fixed for a period of time, since that does not change quite so rapidly, nor need it change without notice. Again, the external context fixes the comparison class, the paradigm cases, and/or the comparison cases (as well as the extensions of proper names and pronouns like ‘everyone’). I submit that this is the normal background of reasoning with vague predicates, and I am interested in the norms of correct reasoning in such contexts. Let the actual extensions of vague predicates vary within such a context, as we reason about them. For this purpose, the current notion of e-determinacy is an interesting and important one for the logic of vague predicates. Unfortunately, this can be pursued in detail only on another occasion. It is clear that e-determinate truth is not the same thing as truth. There is no analogue of the supervaluationist slogan that truth is super-truth. Suppose, again, that external factors are fixed and that Harry remains a borderline case of baldness. And suppose that a given competent subject judges Harry to be bald, in a given conversational context. Then it is true in that context that Harry is bald. Nevertheless, it is not e-determinately true that Harry is bald in that context. As far as e-determinacy goes, Harry remains a borderline case. There is, I presume, a norm of conversation that one should only assert truths (other things equal, of course).5 The norm is not that one should only assert e-determinate truths. That would preclude us from deciding any borderline cases, even temporarily. The norm is that one should only assert truths, and on the present account, truth varies with context. If Harry is borderline bald, and nothing on the conversational score (thus far) precludes judging Harry to be bald (e.g. it is not the case that ‘Harry is not bald’ is on the score), then a speaker cannot help satisfying the norm in sincerely asserting (or denying) Harry’s baldness. The acceptance of ‘Harry is bald’ 5 I am indebted to Patrick Greenough here.


9:23pm page 64

64 / Stewart Shapiro onto the conversational score thereby makes the sentence true in that context, and thus automatically satisfies the norm. Of course, this holds only for items in the borderline area. Anyone who calls Jerry Garcia bald or denies that Yul Brynner is bald has violated the norm.

7. What does all this Conversational Stuff have to do with Semantics and Logic? A common, perhaps natural, response to the present program (and to Raffman’s) is that it focuses on the pragmatics (or psychology) of the use of vague terms, and has nothing to do with semantics, and thus nothing to do with logic.6 The underlying objection seems to be that the correct resolution of the Sorites paradox should turn exclusively on the meaning of the terms. Logic flows from meaning. This presents a false dilemma. Raffman (1994: 43) writes that her ‘story is at bottom a psychological one, resting on a hypothesis about the mental representations that underlie our usage of vague words’ and so ‘where vague predicates are concerned, logic and semantics are more intimately entwined with psychology than might have otherwise been supposed’. The present story turns more on the pragmatics of conversations involving vague terms, and so I would conclude instead (or, better, in addition) that where vague predicates are concerned, logic and semantics are intimately entwined with pragmatics. Along similar lines (perhaps), Wright (1987: 277) proposes that we seek a semantics according to which linguistic competence is understood ‘on the model of a practical skill, comparable to the ability to . . . ride a bicycle’. Of course, unlike bicycle riding, we exhibit the practical skill of language mastery in concert with each other (more or less). Otherwise, there would be no communication, which is, after all, the point of this enterprise. The meanings of vague terms are intimately tied up with the proper display of this skill. As Humpty Dumpty ought to have put it, competent users of the language are its masters. I submit that the correct use of vague terms is bound up with psychology and pragmatics. The notion of open-texture (see Section 2 above), 6 Much of the argument in this section must be heavily revised, due in large part to the criticisms brought in Rosanna Keefe’s contribution to this volume (Ch. 4), and due to conversations with Diana Raffman and Crispin Wright.


9:23pm page 65

Vagueness and Conversation / 65 which is shared between the present account and Raffman’s (and Wright’s), shows how this is so. This requires at least some revisions of some widely held views on semantics, meaning, and extensions. Raffman (1994: 69–70) articulates the following biconditional: (B) [A]n item lies in a given category if and only if the relevant competent subject(s) would judge it to lie in that category.

See also Wright (1976, 1987). Although Raffman only invokes (B) in the context of vagueness, I would think that for a vast range of predicates—vague or not—in public languages, the thesis is in the neighborhood of a truism. A piece of metal is gold if and only if relevant competent subjects would judge it to be gold (if asked); an animal is a marsupial if and only if relevant competent subjects would judge it to be a marsupial; a natural number is prime if and only if relevant competent subjects would judge it to be prime. And a man is bald if and only if relevant competent subjects would judge him to be bald. My suggestion that many cases of (B) are true depends crucially on what it is to be a ‘relevant competent subject’. The claim, so far, is only that in a lot of cases, it is possible to specify what it is to be a relevant competent subject in such a way that (B) comes out largely true. Moreover, the ‘if and only if’ in (B) is only a material biconditional. No causal or semantic connections are postulated. In each case, even after the class of relevant competent subjects is specified, so that (B) is largely true (when it is), there is a question as to which is the chicken and which the egg. It is an instance of what Wright (1992: 108–40) calls the Euthyphro contrast. To adapt one of Wright’s examples, consider the following instance of (B): A story is funny if and only if competent subjects would judge it to be funny. In this case, competent subjects are those with normal senses of humor, and I presume that with this stipulation, there is no controversy over the truth of this instance of (B). It is plausible that in this case, the judgements of these competent judges are somehow constitutive of funniness. What makes a story funny is that people tend to find it funny. Plausibly, then, humor is responsedependent, or, to paraphrase Raffman, judgement-dependent. Let us call this the Euthyphro reading of (B).


9:23pm page 66

66 / Stewart Shapiro Contrast this with another case of (B): A number is prime if and only if competent subjects would judge it to be prime. In this case, the relevant competent subjects are those good at arithmetic, or perhaps (some) mathematicians. With this stipulation, the material biconditional is largely true, at least for smallish numbers. But in this case, of course, it is not the judgements of these competent subjects that make the number prime.7 A number is prime if it has exactly two (distinct) factors: itself and 1. A subject is competent here only if she gets it right most of the time, other things equal. In this case, competent judges track the truth; their judgements do not constitute it. Call this the Socrates reading of (B). A Euthyphro reading of an instance of (B) is a thesis about the extension of the predicate in question (‘funny’). A Socrates reading is a thesis about what it is to be competent. To be sure, I do not claim that this distinction is a sharp one, nor that it is an all or nothing matter. I presume that many predicates have a mixture of Socratic and Euthyphronic factors, and perhaps there are no, or very few, pure cases of either. Recall our current example: A man is bald if and only if competent subjects would judge him to be bald. In this case, the specification of ‘competent’ is rather broad. A subject is competent if she understands the language, and is accurately perceiving the man in question under normal conditions (so she can see at least roughly how much hair each of them has and how it is arranged). Raffman (1994: 70) writes that thesis ‘B is true with respect to borderline cases because our competent judgements of borderline cases determine their category memberships; conversely B is true with respect to clear cases because clear cases determine what counts as competent judgement.’ In present terminology, if the predicate is vague, then (B) is at least largely Socratic for clear cases. If someone asserts that Yul Brynner is not bald, or that Jerry Garcia in his prime is bald, then we would regard her as at least temporarily or locally incompetent—either as not understanding the meaning of ‘bald’, or not looking carefully, or misperceiving. But when it comes to borderline cases, (B) is to be read with Euthyphro. Since, by open-texture, borderline cases can go either 7 What is at stake here is the objectivity of the relevant discourse (see Wright 1992). Readers sympathetic to (semantic) anti-realist accounts of mathematics should pick another example. The present distinction is more complicated, if available at all, for anti-realists about all discourse.


9:23pm page 67

Vagueness and Conversation / 67 way, the judgements of otherwise competent subjects determine whether the man is bald—in the relevant conversational (or psychological) context.8 As Raffman (1994: 44) puts it early on, ‘an adequate treatment of vague predicates and their Sorites puzzles must appeal to the character of our judgements about the items in the series’. Every vague predicate is judgementdependent in its borderline area. In any case—and on either reading—thesis (B) is not a statement about the meaning of the predicate in question (whether it is vague or not). Raffman (1994: 58) writes that the ‘sorites . . . is solved independently of any particular meaning analysis of the predicate . . . On the contrary, all that is required to solve the puzzle is a claim about the correct application or extension . . . of the predicate at issue.’ A bit later, she elaborates: I do not claim that the meaning analysis or intension of a vague predicate includes a judgmental element. For instance, I do not claim that in calling an object red one means or is saying, in either the ‘speaker’ or ‘semantic’ sense, that the object is merely red-relative-to-me-now or red-relative-to-such-and-such-a-context . . . Rather, I claim that the extension of ‘red’—the class of objects that satisfy the predicate—is always relativized to certain psychological (and nonpsychological) contexts. The sorites is a puzzle about the correct application of vague predicates, and that is all my story addresses. (Raffman 1994: 66)

The first entry in Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary for ‘bald’ reads ‘having little or no hair on the scalp’.9 There is no reason to challenge this definition, which makes no mention of—or even implicit reference to—the judgements of competent uses. Clearly, however, what counts as having little hair on the scalp depends on what Raffman calls the ‘external’ context. Is it a sales meeting of a company that makes shampoo, or a sales meeting of a company that makes toupees, or a sales meeting of a company that makes sunscreen? And if the foregoing account is correct, what counts as having little hair can also vary with the shifting internal context of a conversation (or, on Raffman’s account, it varies with psychological state). When Alice objected to Humpty Dumpty’s claim that his words mean just what he chooses them to mean, he replied that it is a question of who ‘is to be master’. Surely, our sympathies here are with Alice. Individual speakers are not ‘masters’ of the meanings (or intensions) of the words they use, 8 To be sure, ‘borderline bald’ and ‘competent speaker’ are both vague. Thus, it may not be determinate in a given case whether (B) is to be read with Socrates or with Euthyphro. 9 The relevant entry in the Oxford English Dictionary reads in part ‘having no hair on some part of the head where it would naturally grow’.


9:23pm page 68

68 / Stewart Shapiro independently of the thoughts and actions of the wider community of language users (up to the compelling points in Davidson 1986). But in the borderline region, individual, competent speakers are indeed ‘masters’ of the extensions of vague terms. Humpty Dumpty is right in this limited domain.

8. Underground in the Borderline Area Recall the Sorites series introduced in Section 4 above, which consists of 2,000 men ranging from Yul Brynner to Jerry Garcia in his prime. We envisioned a forced marched conversation through this series, starting with Yul Brynner. Given their instructions, and assuming their competence in English (and normal observation), the participants to the conversation will eventually jump and call one of the men not bald. Again, suppose that this first happens with man 975. If we were to run the same series with the same group of English speakers (in the same order) on another occasion, they might jump at a different place, say #967 or #984. They would almost certainly jump at a different place if they were marched through the series in the reverse order, starting with Jerry Garcia, and moving down. Presumably, something causes the jumps when they occur. The events are too macroscopic for quantum randomness to be involved (or are they?). The point here is that so long as the man being judged for baldness is in the borderline area, the meanings of the word ‘bald’, the external contextual factors, and the non-linguistic facts (about the number of and arrangements of his hair) do not determine a correct response. So as far as the normativity of meaning goes, they can go either way. Raffman (1996) emphasizes that the exact location of the jump carries ‘no normative force’; it underwrites ‘no distinction between correct and incorrect usage’. A different group, or the same group on another occasion, that jumps at a different place is not thereby in error. Raffman elaborates further: ‘there is no reason to [jump], hence no justification for [jumping], at any particular #n in the series (as opposed to #(n 1) or #(n þ 1)). If there were a reason, then either the predicate in question would not be vague or the differences between adjacent items in the series would not be marginal in the sense required to generate a paradox.’ By ‘reason’, Raffman presumably means a ‘semantic reason’. It is virtually analytic that if semantic rules (and non-linguistic facts) always determine when the jump is supposed to occur, then the predicate is not vague after all—there are no borderline cases.


9:23pm page 69

Vagueness and Conversation / 69 The situation is (vaguely) reminiscent of the old saw about Buridan’s ass. The animal finds itself exactly midway between two bales of hay. Since he does not have any reason to walk toward the first bale (as opposed to the second), he does not approach that bale. Similarly, he does not have any reason to go to the second bale (as opposed to the first). So the poor animal remains where it is, and starves to death. An unfortunate and irrational outcome. He really should have gone one way or the other, and it does not matter which. Similarly, our conversationalists do not have a semantically compelling reason to jump at man 974, nor do they have a semantically compelling reason to jump at #975, nor do they have a semantically compelling reason to jump at #976, etc. But they are required to jump somewhere, and they become semantically incompetent if they do not. Raffman (1994: 46) writes: Now one thing we know is that at some point on each (complete) run of judgements along the series . . . a [jump] just does occur: the subject’s slide down the slippery slope is broken . . . Just where the shift does occur on any given run will depend on a constellation of factors, including the direction in which the subject proceeds along the series, where in the series he begins his judgements, his perceptual state at the time, and so forth . . . But occur it does, on every run.

It is straightforward to adapt these observations to the present, social conversational context. In a given case, the exact location of the jump is a ‘brute mechanical’ matter (Raffman 1994: 65). Presumably, it will depend on how tired or attentive the subjects are, what else is on their minds at the time, their emotional state, and countless other factors. To be sure, these factors have nothing to do with the amount and arrangement of hair on the heads of the men in the series, and so are irrelevant to the meaning and thus the proper application of ‘bald’. But they are most relevant to its extension in the given context. They are relevant to what counts as having little or no hair on the scalp, in the given context. Raffman (1994: 53) adds that what ‘will or will not trigger the [jump] is not something to which we, as judging subjects, have access; so far as the subject is concerned, the [jump] simply occurs’. Presumably, the members of the conversation can feel the shift coming as they march through the Sorites series. When they move through the borderline area, they will find themselves less and less comfortable with their judgements that the men are bald, and the group will find it harder and harder to maintain consensus on


9:23pm page 70

70 / Stewart Shapiro baldness. The jump is not a blind process, in the sense that they have no idea when it will occur. After all, they are in charge of the situation—masters, as Humpty Dumpty would put it. But the jump is blind in the sense that the subjects need not be aware of the factors that actually trigger the shift—i.e. when enough is enough. An adaptation of an example from Wright (1987) illustrates the situation. Consider a digital tachometer connected to a motor. This is a ‘brute mechanical’ device if anything is. Suppose the device registers in units of 10 rpm, and suppose that the motor is running smoothly 300 rpm. The tachometer dutifully reads ‘300’. Now we slowly increase the speed of the motor in increments of 0.1 rpm. Of course, the tachometer will jump to 310 somewhere. Say it happens when the motor hits 306.2 rpm. If we speed the motor up a bit more, and then start slowing it down, the tachometer will jump back to 300 somewhere. But there is no reason to think that this jump back will occur at 306.2. In a typical case, the tachometer will keep its holding at 310 for a bit, and not jump back to 300 until later, say 305.7 rpm. If we did the experiment on another occasion—the next season, say—we might get slightly different results. It might first jump to 310 at 306.4 rpm and it might jump back to 300 at 305.8. On each occasion, the exact location of the tachometer’s jump from 300 to 310, or back, depends on a number of factors, such as the ambient temperature, relative humidity, wear and tear on the parts of the tachometer, fluctuations in the power source, etc. Of course, these things have nothing to do with the speed of the motor, and so are irrelevant to the correctness of the reading. For the practical purposes at hand, this does not matter. So long as the seemingly random fluctuations affect the reading only in the ‘borderline’ area—say, roughly 302.5 to 307.5 rpm—they will not keep the tachometer from operating correctly. When the motor is running at or near a ‘clear’ case, say 309.5 rpm, then these fluctuations do not affect the reading. The analogy with our conversationalists on a forced march is straightforward. When they are in the borderline area, they can go either way without impugning their competence, and which way they go in that area depends on a number of factors irrelevant to the baldness state of the men in the series. When they are considering a man who is not in the borderline area, then these side factors do not affect them, and they judge correctly (if they are competent and observing properly). With the tachometer and the Sorites series for baldness (or redness), the exact location of the jumps does seem to be completely arbitrary, in that it


9:23pm page 71

Vagueness and Conversation / 71 really does not matter at all where the jumps occur (so long as they occur in the borderline area). With some Sorites series, however, the jump point is not arbitrary. Consider a Sorites that goes from a spatially separated sperm–egg pair to a resulting 2-year-old baby developed from that pair, with increments of 0.01 seconds. The location of the borderline of the predicate ‘person’ or ‘human being’ (or ‘being with human rights’) has obvious moral ramifications. People who put the border in one place rather than another are not acting arbitrarily. They may well have compelling reasons for what they do. The point here is that there are no linguistic reasons for putting the border in one place rather than another. Presumably, both sides of the abortion debate are speaking the same language. If I consistently put the border in the region of viability, and a mob comes and burns down my house as a result, they will not be accusing me of linguistic incompetence (whatever else they may accuse me of ).10 Returning to our paradigm cases, for both the conversation about baldness and the tachometer, the jump point is a ‘brute mechanical’ process, and there is no principle of tolerance for it. Nature does allow sharp jumps (or at least apparent discontinuities). Raffman (1994: 56) writes that ‘we have no intuition that if [#874] does not trigger . . . a [jump] then neither will [#875]’, just as we have no intuition that if raising the motor to 306.1 rpm does not cause the tachometer to jump to 310, then neither will 306.2 rpm. To be sure, if our conversationalists jump too close to the clear cases, their competence as speakers of English (or their powers of observation) is compromised. Similarly, if our tachometer jumps at the wrong place—say, it reads 310 when the motor is running at 300.2 rpm—its accuracy will be compromised, and possibly also its usefulness (depending on what it is to be used for). Although there is no principle of tolerance in the operation of a mechanical device, the usefulness of such a device is a context-dependent, and probably also a judgement-dependent matter. How accurate the tachometer need be to be useful is a vague matter, and a principle of tolerance does hold for that. So how close to the border is ‘too close’ for competent speakers to jump? How inaccurate can the tachometer be without being ‘too inaccurate’ for a given purpose? Since these are also vague matters, one might think that we have just postponed (or moved) the problem of this work. This raises a problem in the neighborhood of higher-order vagueness, which is a topic for another day. 10 I am indebted to Carl Posy here. Notice that in any case, there will still be some arbitrariness in the jump point. Viability and, to a lesser extent, conception are themselves vague matters.


9:23pm page 72

72 / Stewart Shapiro

REFERENCES D a v i d s o n , D. (1986), ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, in Richard Grandy and Richard Warner (eds.), Philosophical Grounds of Rationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press). D u m m e t t , M. (1975), ‘Wang’s Paradox’, Synthese, 30: 301–24; repr. in Keefe and Smith (1997: 99–118). F i n e , K. (1975), ‘Vagueness, Truth and Logic’, Synthese, 30: 265–300; repr. in Keefe and Smith (1979: 119–50). G r a f f , D. (2000), ‘Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness’, Philosophical Topics, 28: 45–81. H o r g a n , T. (1994), ‘Robust Vagueness and the Forced-March Sorites Paradox’, Philosophical Perspectives, 8: Logic and Language, 159–88. K e e f e , R., and P. Smith (1997), Vagueness: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). L e w i s , D. (1979), ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8: 339–59. M c G e e , Vann (1991), Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox (Indianapolis: Hackett). —— and B. McLaughlin (1994), ‘Distinctions without a Difference’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 33 (suppl.), 203–51. P r i e s t , G. (1987), In Contradiction: A Study of the Transconsistent (Dordrecht: Nijhoff). R a f f m a n , D. (1994), ‘Vagueness without Paradox’, Philosophical Review, 103: 41–74. —— (1996), ‘Vagueness and Context Relativity’, Philosophical Studies, 81: 175–92. S a i n s b u r y , R. M. (1990), ‘Concepts without Boundaries’, Inaugural Lecture, pub. King’s College London, Department of Philosophy; repr. in Keefe and Smith (1997: 251–64). U n g e r , P. (1975), Ignorance (Oxford: Oxford University Press). W i l l i a m s o n , T. (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge). W r i g h t , C. (1976), ‘Language Mastery and the Sorites Paradox’, in G. Evans and J. McDowell (eds.), Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics (Oxford: Oxford University Press) repr. in Keefe and Smith (1997: 151–73). —— (1987), ‘Further Reflections on the Sorites Paradox’, Philosophical Topics, 15: 227–90; repr. in Keefe and Smith (1997: 204–50). —— (1992), Truth and Objectivity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).


10:14am page 73

4 Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites: Comments on Shapiro Rosanna Keefe

1. Introduction Shapiro and Raffman have, together, told an interesting and plausible psychological and pragmatic story about many of our judgements involving vague predicates. Shapiro explains how, if we focus on changes in conversational context (prompted by changes of score, in Lewis’s sense), then the fact that, when taken through a Sorites series, subjects will at some point jump from applying the Sorites predicate to denying that it applies, does not mean that those subjects are violating a plausible principle governing judgement, a principle that he labels the tolerance principle. In this paper I am particularly concerned to take up a question Shapiro himself addresses: ‘What does this have to do with semantics and logic?’ Is there a (relatively simple) way to get from facts about our judgements to facts about truth-conditions of the sentences expressed? In particular, what can facts about how subjects respond to members of a Sorites series tell us about the true classifications along that series? First, I will briefly explore some features of, and possible problems with, the use of conversational score (in Section 2). Then I’ll take up the question of the bridge between the pragmatic and the semantic. And finally, in Section 4, I will ask what response to the Sorites paradox Shapiro’s view can offer us. I would like to thank Dominic Gregory and Stewart Shapiro for discussion of the issues and of this paper.


10:14am page 74

74 / Rosanna Keefe

2. The Pragmatic Story Shapiro, like Raffman, considers in detail the classifications of subjects who are faced with the members of a Sorites series for F in turn, and made to classify each of them as F or not-F. This kind of ‘forced march’ case is of particular interest, since the danger seems to be that the subject will end up classifying one member of the series as F and the very next one as not-F even though the two things seem to that subject to be exactly the same in the relevant respects. For, if they never do this, they will be led to an absurd misclassification of the late members of the series. But if they do, their behaviour will threaten various compelling principles about judgement. For example, Shapiro offers the following principle, which he calls a principle of tolerance: Suppose a predicate P is tolerant, and that two objects a, a’ in the field of P differ only marginally in the relevant respect (on which P is tolerant). Then if one competently judges a to have P, then she cannot judge a’ to not have P.

The challenge is thus to explain either how such a principle of tolerance, and other related principles, could fail to be true, or how the subject’s jump from F to not-F through their Sorites series does not really refute such principles after all. Shapiro’s strategy is basically the second of these. The principle of tolerance is not threatened (at least, not in the same way) if the context in which the subject judges that Fa is a different context from that in which she judges not-Fa’. Raffman’s response similarly takes this line. For Raffman, the context of those judgements changes because of a psychological change in the subject: things appear differently when the first judgement is made from how they appear when the second is made, and now it is no longer the case that the first judgement holds for that new context (e.g. what had seemed red now seems not-red). Shapiro concentrates instead on a shift in conversational context. The idea is to use Lewis’s account of how conversational context can change with a ‘change in score’ when different presuppositions are introduced into the conversation, or different standards for the application of predicates are imposed (e.g. suppose in this context this desk is considered to be flat—we could deny that it is flat, but that would be to change the score). We can then see that if, through a change in conversational score, the standards for F-ness change between the point at which the subjects judge a to be F and the point


10:14am page 75

Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites / 75 at which they judge a’ not to be F, then there is an important sense in which those two judgements are not made together—the former judgement is no longer operative by the time the latter is made—and so the tolerance principle is not applicable. If the score is changed once a’ is judged not-F, then relative to the new score, a could become not-F after all. In both Raffman’s and Shapiro’s scenarios we get a phenomenon of ‘backward spread’, where the new classification of one case (e.g. as not-F in a series of Fs) is accompanied by the reclassification in the same way (as not-F) of cases that had previously been judged the other way (as F). The point at which there is a jump in the classification doesn’t turn out to be a point that violates the appropriate version of principles such as Shapiro’s tolerance principle. Let’s look in a little more detail at the role of conversational score, especially in relation to the tolerance principle. ‘The conversational score is the device that enforces tolerance,’ Shapiro writes (Chapter 3, p. 52). But if we were to maintain the principle of tolerance in its general form by appeal to conversational score, there would need to be a change of conversational score whenever there was a jump in judgement. In other words, if there were cases where there is a jump in judgement without the required change in score, then tolerance would fail. And, I suggest, there will be such cases. To argue this, in detail, we would need to know more about what is required for a change in conversational score. One suggestion is that agreement (perhaps tacit agreement) among participants in a conversation is needed for change in conversational score. Perhaps Shapiro has this in mind, since in setting up the forced march case, he describes the scenario in such a way that consensus is reached at the point of the jump: everyone agrees to change from Fs to not-Fs (p. 51 above). But things would rarely go this smoothly if people were faced with the forced march. Conversational participants would typically jump at different points. They might reach consensus by way of a kind of stipulation if it were important to do so. But if they reach consensus in this kind of way (e.g. stipulating a boundary for legal purposes), the phenomenon of backward spread will not then take hold. For they will not see the classification of something as not-F as a reason to classify previous items as not-F as well. Moreover, there will be plenty of situations in which they won’t reach consensus at all, and in such scenarios appeal to conversational score looks to be no help in saving Shapiro’s tolerance principle.


10:14am page 76

76 / Rosanna Keefe Perhaps, then, we should drop the need for consensus and consider an individual speaker facing the forced march to bring about the change in score automatically (and without the need of other conversationalists’ consent) when they change from judging members of the series as Fs to judging them as not-Fs. One problem with this suggestion is that speakers seem to be able to change categories through a Sorites series without instituting a change in score. I suggest that typically, when faced with the forced march scenario, speakers will jump at some point without intending that point to have the significance that a change in conversational score would give it. They are forced to make judgements on the members of the series and will not typically be in the situation of dictating new ranges of applicability. If asked whether they now intend a different extension of ‘bald’, surely a common response will be to deny that they do. They have jumped at that point because they had to jump somewhere. Moreover, the subject will typically be alert to the fact that imposing backward spread will only lead to the same problem in the other direction, so they won’t be tempted to think that letting the classification spread backwards will help. But, it might be replied, perhaps someone, or some people, can change conversational score without actually intending to. Though in some Lewistype cases change of score is explicit and/or consciously affected, not all plausible cases are like this. There will, instead, be surrounding (behavioural) evidence that such a change was intended: in many of Lewis’s cases of changing score, it is easy to see, for example, how the speaker would be saying something absurd if no score-change had taken place. But in Shapiro’s case, there are no such grounds. At least, it is begging the question to consider it absurd for a subject to change from Fs to not-Fs through as series without instituting backward spread. There is (or at least need be) no evidence for change of score in our Sorites cases. Moreover, to say that someone can change the score without realizing it is one thing; it is another to say that they can do so even when they actually intend not to change the score. When speakers facing the forced march emphasize the arbitrariness of the point they chose to change at, they are likely to deny that anything like a change of score has occurred. To summarize. I suggest that change of score does not usually play the role in speakers’ judgements that Shapiro needs it to play. Though it may be legitimate to change score in the described way, if this is rarely what speakers


10:14am page 77

Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites / 77 do in response to vague predications, this fact will not be sufficient to preserve Shapiro’s tolerance principle.

3. From the Pragmatic and Psychological to the Semantics Shapiro starts from a pragmatic (perhaps also psychological) story about the dynamics of conversation when confronted with Sorites series or borderline cases. Raffman proposes a psychological story about the internal states of subjects in such contexts. Can we get from stories of these kinds to an account of the semantics of vague predicates? Shapiro hopes so. In essence, the most straightforward way to make such a transition will be to take what subjects judge—given their psychological states and the conversational context etc.—to determine what is actually true in those contexts. This is, indeed, the route Shapiro and Raffman take. It is reasonable, for example, to think that if you change the score on ‘flat’—thereby raising the standards for what counts as ‘flat’—and this meets with no objection from the other conversational participants, then in attributing flatness to something that fails to meet the new standards, I would say something false. So, in at least some cases of changing score, the thought that it establishes truths is not unreasonable. (When the score involves shared presuppositions, things cannot be this simple, however, for those presuppositions might just happen to be false.) Shapiro endorses Raffman’s principle: (B) [A]n item lies in a given category if and only if the relevant competent subject(s) would judge it to lie in that category.

This suggests that if a competent subject judges members of a Sorites series in such a way as to draw a sharp boundary between the Fs and the non-Fs, then some such boundary does indeed exist. Regarding the Sorites inductive premiss, (B) would also seem to bridge the gap between the observation that subjects don’t always judge a member of the series in the same way as the previous one and a claim that that premiss is false. Similarly, Shapiro’s thesis about open texture—that we are permitted to judge borderline cases either way—will, together with (B), yield semantic consequences about the classifications of those cases.


10:14am page 78

78 / Rosanna Keefe In short, principle (B) swiftly offers justification for looking at pragmatic– psychological phenomena concerning how speakers actually behave and judge, even if we are primarily interested in the logic and semantics of vague language. I shall shortly raise a number of problems for and questions about principle (B) itself. First, observe that the following fact is a threat to the attempt to use the principle to get from pragmatic–psychological data to semantics: the same linguistic behaviour could be appropriate to different semantic theories. For example, if there is no fact of the matter about whether Fb, then it may be appropriate to judge either way, or to abstain from judging, but that behaviour is equally appropriate if we simply cannot know either way, or, perhaps, if Fb has some intermediate truth value. So, it looks unlikely that we will be able to draw significant conclusions about the semantics from the pragmatic– psychological facts alone. Nonetheless, those facts may still play a more modest role. But is (B) a promising principle to use to draw out their relevance? Here is one question. Does principle (B) allow for the possibility of subjects disagreeing over the classification of borderline cases? Suppose X and Y are both competent subjects in conversation with one another (so, presumably, in the same conversational context) and X claims that Fb while Y claims that not-Fb. It then seems that b lies both in the category and outside it. Shapiro could respond by maintaining that the subjects must, after all, be speaking within different contexts (and that b is F relative to one of those contexts and not relative to the other). But they may be discussing the matter with one another and openly disagreeing, in which case it seems that the conversational context must be the same. Moreover, such a response threatens to be ad hoc. It is not reasonable to postulate new contexts at will, just to preserve consistency with one’s theoretical principles. Also ad hoc would be a response that declares that at least one of the subjects must fail to be competent in this scenario. Aside from problems concerning disagreements, we should be suspicious of a principle like (B) when, for example, we observe how quickly it would dispose of a theory like Williamson’s epistemicism. On that view, items fall into categories without our knowing it and without our being at all inclined to judge that they do. The point at which subjects happen to jump from classifying things as F to classifying them as not-F is extremely unlikely to correspond to the point at which the epistemicist’s boundary between Fs and not-Fs falls.


10:14am page 79

Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites / 79 Shapiro describes (B) as ‘in the neighborhood of a truism’ (p. 65 above); e.g. if someone judges Fa when a is not F, they are not competent in the relevant way. But this surely imposes too strict a demand on competence. Even less plausible is the ‘only if ’ direction of the biconditional (B), which implies that the subject is not competent unless they would always make the (relevant) correct judgements about F. Competence is compatible with some errors and ignorance. Even if we don’t agree with Williamson, we might think that there are some Fs that aren’t known to be F, and so that wouldn’t be judged as F. And note that to give up on (B) is not to give up on what we might find compelling in the Humpty Dumpty thesis that we are masters of our words. Williamson, for example, endorses the view that it is use that determines meaning—it is just that the relationship between speakers’ use (and judgements) and the extensions of predicates is much more complex than that given by (B). Let us, next, look more carefully at the policy of using (B) to get from the pragmatic story about forced march Sorites paradoxes to semantics of the vague predicates involved in the paradoxes. Is it reasonable to draw any significant conclusions from the response subjects are driven to make when they are marched through a Sorites series and forced to judge each case either one way or the other? A subject will typically consider the point of the jump to be an arbitrary one—this seems to be to deny that it has any semantic significance. Are we to consider the subject to be mistaken about their control over language? This seems an unreasonable conclusion. I suggest a couple of analogies. First, suppose you make subjects respond with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to questions involving unfulfilled presuppositions; e.g. you ask them ‘Have you stopped f-ing?’ when they’ve never f-ed. They may be reluctant to answer yes or no—both answers are misleading—but they may nonetheless choose one of those answers when forced. Surely their choice in that situation should not be taken as deeply significant, nor as helping to illuminate the semantics of sentences involving unfulfilled presuppositions. (Even if subjects typically made the same choice, this would not make their arbitrary choice any more significant.) Second analogy: reading too much into the response to forced march paradoxes seems rather like forcing someone to guess the weight of something and then taking that guess to reveal that the subject believes that the weight is exactly that. Shapiro briefly considers alternative responses to the forced march scenario in order to argue that appeal to a shift in context is the best approach to take. In particular, he considers the theorist who claims that ‘the subject(s)


10:14am page 80

80 / Rosanna Keefe are incompetent, or have made some sort of mistake with their answers’. In reply, he writes, ‘But what sort of mistake? The subjects are told to call them as they see them. What did they do wrong?’ (p. 57) Now, I agree that the charge of incompetence is unreasonable if subjects have been made to judge one way or another and have done exactly that. On the other hand, they can, surely, have been mistaken in their judgements (without being incompetent). What they did wrong was perhaps unavoidable given what they were asked to do (namely, make a judgement on every case), but nonetheless, this is no reason to expect their judgements to be right. In short, it isn’t clear that we can use predictions about the forced march Sorites to illuminate the semantics of the predicates involved, especially given a typical subject’s insistence on the arbitrariness of many of their judgements through the series. Moreover, we need to consider the fact that the behaviour inevitably exhibited by a subject facing the forced march series is not typical of subjects’ responses to Sorites in general. What about when judgements aren’t made through the series? Consider, for example, the kinds of conversational contexts where the Sorites premise is considered in the abstract and found compelling. It isn’t clear how facts about conversational score can shed any light on this. Or suppose you present someone a whole Sorites continuum and ask them to show the point of the left-most non-red patch, where they are obliged to respond by picking a patch arbitrarily. We can’t then excuse the subject because they changed score or context between pairs while maintaining the rule of judging pairs the same: that way out is not available with such a scenario. Now, Shapiro, unlike Raffman, does not make reflections on forced march Sorites do all the work; there is also his open-texture thesis, stating that subjects are allowed to go either way in the classification of borderline cases. A number of the same problems (and possibly some new ones) face this thesis, however. The suggestion that borderline cases can be decided either way—a close relative of the thought that we can stipulate boundaries to vague predicates— seems reasonable when we consider certain contexts. For example, for legal purposes a stipulated boundary to ‘child’ is not only accepted, but desirable, and faced with a practical task of sorting and storing paints of a range of colours, a stipulated boundary to ‘red’ will help. But, I suggest, such situ-


10:14am page 81

Context, Vagueness, and the Sorites / 81 ations are in the minority. Much of the time it would be misleading, at best, to stipulate boundaries or call things red that are in fact borderline, and in many circumstances it would certainly not be legitimate. If I choose to describe as orange something that is in fact borderline red–orange, you will reasonably believe that it is orange and not borderline and you could easily be led astray. Yet, Shapiro needs a general thesis according to which it is always acceptable to decide borderline cases one way or the other, if there are to be any logical and semantical consequences (even assuming (B) ) and that thesis looks highly questionable. Moreover, it is not even clear that we can’t do something similar in classifying definite cases to what Shapiro has identified as legitimate with borderline cases. A boundary to ‘red’ among the definitely red things might in some cases be reasonable (‘red’ becomes ‘bright red’ in the context, e.g., perhaps, in sorting paints again). There, we might say that it can be pragmatically appropriate to call something not red in that context, though what is said then is strictly false. Perhaps similarly, then, when we do decide borderline cases one way or the other, those predications remain neither true nor false (even in that context). So it is not clear that a feature which specifically applies to borderline cases has been identified here. In short, the phenomenon identified as open-texture is rarer than Shapiro needs it to be, may not even be distinctive of vague predicates, and may have no semantic significance. In this section I have explored the move from a story about pragmatics– psychology to a theory of semantics. I have argued that a principle like (B), which would validate the move, is not defensible. It is, anyway, not clear exactly how a principle of this kind would yield a theory of vagueness or a solution to the Sorites paradox, especially since, at best, it would need to focus exclusively on the very unnatural cases of forced march Sorites.

4. The Sorites Paradox In this section I consider whether we can use the distinctive resources of Shapiro’s approach to solve the Sorites paradox. Now, it is not altogether clear from his paper what Shapiro’s solution to the paradox is intended to be. He appears to be declaring the inductive premiss false because it has a false instance, namely the instance of the


10:14am page 82

82 / Rosanna Keefe jump. For, he observes that it ‘is outright false that for each i in which the antecedent of Bpos applies only to individuals in region 1 and the antecedent of Bneg applies only to individuals in region 5. The rules of the language governing bald do not include any pair in which either the antecedent of Bpos applies to individuals outside regions 1 and 2, or the antecedent of Bneg applies to individuals outside of regions 4 and 5 (though speakers may choose to adopt these rules in particular contexts). Any pair < Bpos , Bneg > in which either (i) the antecedent of Bpos applies to individuals in region 2 (but none in regions


10:15am page 140

140 / Scott Soames 3–5), while the antecedent of Bneg applies only to individuals in regions 4 or 5, or (ii) the antecedent of Bneg applies individuals in region 4 (but none in regions 1–3), while the antecedent of Bpos applies only to individuals in regions 1 or 2, is such that we can draw no conclusion regarding whether or not it is a rule of the language governing bald. Speakers can decide to be guided by these rules in particular conversations, but, if they do, there will be individuals o2 in region 2, or o4 in region 4, such that we can establish no correct answer to the question Are speakers’ classifications of o2 as bald, or o4 as not bald, correct because they are consequences of the facts about these individuals plus the rules of the language governing ‘bald’, or are they correct because in making these classifications speakers have exercised their option of adopting extensions of the rules of the language? If this is right, then there is reason to resist the claim that is determinately bald is a totally defined predicate. The basis for the resistance is that for some rules there is simply no saying whether or not they are rules of the language governing bald. Let R be the class of such rules. For certain objects o—namely those in region 2 of G1—the question of whether the claim that bald applies to o is, or is not, a necessary consequence of the rules of the language governing the predicate can be answered only by assuming that certain members of R are rules of the language, or by assuming that they aren’t. Since neither of these assumptions can be established, there is no possible justification for accepting them; thus, we should reject both the claim that these objects are determinately bald and the claim that these objects are not determinately bald, just as we rejected both the claim that they are bald and the claim that they are not bald. So, we reject the claim that determinately bald is totally defined. The reason for this is that the rules governing the predicate 9determinately P; make use of the predicate 9is a rule of the language governing ‘P’; which cannot be seen as total, when P is an ordinary vague predicate like bald. In saying this, I recognize that the picture I have sketched is incomplete, and that there are unfinished tasks that need to be pursued. Certainly, one would like more informative descriptions of different regions in the graph, including (non-circular?) explanations of crucial concepts—like that of being a competent speaker—employed in giving those descriptions. There is also the issue of locating vagueness in the descriptions of these regions, and exploring the sources and consequences of such vagueness. Despite these unresolved matters, I am not convinced that there is any irresolvable mystery here. As far as I can tell, the predicates bald, determinately bald, and is a rule of the language


10:15am page 141

Higher-Order Vagueness / 141 governing ‘bald’ do fit the broad-brush picture I have sketched. Let us try to fill out that picture a little further.

4.2 Iterating ‘Determinately’ The points we have made so far are visually represented by the graphs G1 for bald, G2 for determinately bald, and G3 for determinately not bald. (The question marks indicate that it is so far an open question how individuals in the region should be characterized.) (G1)

(G2)

(G3)

bald

?

undefined ? not bald bald xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Region 4

Region 5

det. bald

?/ undefined not det. bald det. bald xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Region 1 Region 2 Regions 3, 4, and 5

not det. not bald

det. not bald ?/undefined det. not bald xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Region 5 Region 4 Regions 1, 2, and 3

We have rejected the claim that determinately bald is totally defined. Should we accept the claim that it is partial (and presumably vague as well)? If so, do partiality and vagueness go even higher? Consider again the graphs and the question marks they contain. We know that the question marks in regions 2 and 4 of G1 do not indicate that bald is undefined for individuals in the regions. But, for all we have said up to now, the question marks in region 2 of G2 and region 4 of G3 might represent individuals for which the predicates is determinately bald and is determinately not bald are, respectively, undefined. Suppose this is so. We can then use (i) and (ii) to establish that the predicate is determinately determinately bald is totally defined. (i) Just as the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are determinately bald are the same as the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are bald, so the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are determinately determinately bald


10:15am page 142

142 / Scott Soames are the same as the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are determinately bald. Thus, the initial section of the graph for determinately determinately bald is the same as the initial section of the graph for determinately bald. (ii) Just as the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are not determinately bald include all and only those of whom it can properly be said either that they are not bald or that it is undefined whether or not they are bald, so the individuals of whom it can properly be said that they are not determinately determinately bald include all and only those of whom it can properly be said either that they are not determinately bald or that it is undefined whether or not they are determinately bald. So, if we accept the claim that the predicate determinately bald is undefined for every individual in region 2 of G2, and hence that every individual in that region is one of which it can properly be said that it is undefined whether or not that individual is determinately bald, then we get the graph G4 for determinately determinately bald, which is the graph of a totally defined predicate. (G4)

det. det. bald

not det. det. bald

xxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Region 1 Regions 2, 3, 4, and 5

That is a surprising result. How is that when we start with bald and add determinately we get a predicate which cannot correctly be characterized as total, whereas when we start with that predicate and iterate determinately, we do get a totally defined predicate? The answer is that we have made a mistake. The crucial assumption, used in (ii), is that every individual o is either determinately bald, not determinately bald, or such that the predicate determinately bald is undefined for o. How do we know that? If at an earlier stage—in moving from bald to determinately bald—we had started with the assumption that every individual o is either bald, not bald, or such that bald is undefined for o, we would have reached the conclusion that determinately bald was totally defined—which we certainly did not. But if we didn’t make that assumption in the previous case, in moving from G1 to G2, why should we make the corresponding assumption in this case, in moving from G2 to G4? The issue concerns the regions in the graphs labeled with question marks. All we know so far is that when, in G1, o is an individual in one of these regions, we reject


10:15am page 143

Higher-Order Vagueness / 143 the claim that o is bald, we reject the claim that o is not bald, and we reject the claim that the predicate bald is undefined for o—all for the same reason, we see that it is impossible in principle to justify these claims. This being so, we need to clarify the status of the regions in the other graphs presently marked ‘?/undefined’. The individuals in region 2 are undefined for determinately bald just in case those individuals are not determinately determinately bald, which will be so just in case determinately determinately bald is a totally defined predicate. How do we evaluate the claim that it is such a predicate? The first thing to notice is that the rules governing determinately determinately bald are the same as the rules governing determinately bald; they are the rules governing bald plus the rules Dpos and Dneg governing determinately, given earlier. In the present case, we apply the rules twice, once letting P be the predicate bald, and once letting P be the predicate determinately bald. The reasoning is given in (i) and (ii), and the results are summarized in (iii). (i) Suppose we are given that the claim that bald applies to o is a necessary consequence of the rules governing bald plus the underlying nonlinguistic facts about o. Then, using Dpos we derive that determinately bald applies to o (and hence that o is determinately bald). Since the rules governing determinately bald—namely, the rules < Dpos , Dneg > governing determinately plus the rules governing bald—include the rules used in the foregoing derivation, this means that the claim that determinately bald applies to o is a necessary consequence of the rules governing determinately bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o. But then, using Dpos again, we get the result that determinately determinately bald applies to o, and hence that o is determinately determinately bald. (ii) Suppose we are given that the claim that bald applies to o is not a necessary consequence of the rules governing bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o. Then, using Dneg we derive that determinately bald does not apply to o (and hence that o is not determinately bald). Since the rules governing determinately bald include those used in the foregoing derivation, this means that the claim that determinately bald does not apply to o is a necessary consequence of the rules governing determinately bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o. But then, given the consistency of these rules (with the underlying non-linguistic facts), we conclude that the negation of


10:15am page 144

144 / Scott Soames that claim—namely, the claim that determinately bald applies to o is not a consequence of the rules governing determinately bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o. Finally using Dneg again, we get the result that determinately determinately bald does not apply to o, and hence that o is not determinately determinately bald. (iii) When we are not given either (i) that the claim that bald applies to o is a necessary consequence of the rules governing bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o, or (ii) that the claim that bald applies to o is not a necessary consequence of the rules governing bald plus the underlying non-linguistic facts about o, we cannot use the rules < Dpos , Dneg > governing determinately to get any result. We conclude that the rules of the language together with the underlying non-linguistic facts give us the same results for determinately bald and determinately determinately bald. Since it is impossible to justify the claim that either predicate is totally defined, we reject this claim, and for any individual o, we accept the claim that o is (is not) determinately bald just in case we accept the claim that o is (is not) determinately determinately bald. The iteration of determinately does nothing.

4.3 What Not to Say We have rejected the claim that determinately bald and determinately determinately bald are totally defined predicates. Are they partially defined? There is reason not to say this. I have said that partially defined predicates are those that are undefined for some objects, and that totally defined predicates are those that are not undefined for any object, where by undefined I have meant the following: Undefinedness. P is undefined for o just in case the rules of the language governing P together with the underlying non-linguistic facts about o do not determine either that P applies to o or that P does not apply to o— which in turn holds just in case neither the claim that P applies to o nor the claim that P does not apply to o is a necessary consequence of the rules governing P together with the non-linguistic facts about o (i.e. just in case neither 9 x is determinately P; nor 9 x is determinately not P; expresses a truth relative to an assignment of o to ‘x’). Given this, one cannot correctly say that determinately bald is undefined for o. For if one does say this, one must then admit that o is not determinately


10:15am page 145

Higher-Order Vagueness / 145 determinately bald. But that conflicts with what we have just found— namely, that just as we must reject, as unjustifiable, the claim that o is determinately bald, without accepting its negation, so we must reject the claim that o is determinately determinately bald, without accepting its negation. So is determinately bald undefined for o or not? Since neither claim can be justified, we have no option but to reject both. A similar result holds for (i) the claim that determinately bald and determinately determinately bald are partially defined predicates, and (ii) the claim they are not. Since our characterization of what it is to be a partially defined predicate requires the predicate to be undefined for some objects, we must reject the claim that these are partially defined, while continuing to reject the claim that they are totally defined. What can we positively assert about these predicates, and about the regions on the graphs for them that are labeled with question marks? As for the predicates, though they cannot correctly be characterized as partial in the original sense, they can be characterized as partial in a weaker and extended sense.

4.4 What we Can Say: Weak Partiality A predicate P is weakly partial just in case there are some objects o such that, no matter how much information one is given about the rules of the language and the underlying non-linguistic facts, one cannot correctly accept either the claim that P applies to o or the claim that P does not apply to o (or the claim that either P applies to o or it doesn’t). Ordinary, partially defined predicates like bald are weakly partial, as are the corresponding higherorder predicates formed by attaching one or more occurrences of determinately to them. The difference between partiality and weak partiality can be illuminated by considering the contrast between regions 2 and 3 on the graph G1 for bald. We consider a pair of claims—the claim that bald applies to o2 , and the claim that bald applies to o3 —where o2 and o3 are individuals in regions 2 and 3, respectively. Neither claim can be accepted because neither can be justified. But the reasons for the lack of justification are different in the two cases. In both cases, in order to justify the claim that the predicate applies to the object one has to establish the premise that there is a rule of the language governing bald which characterizes the predicate as applying to the object. In the case of o3 we can refute this needed premise. In the case of o2 we can neither refute it nor establish it. What the cases have in common is that since the needed premise can’t be established, one in possession of all the facts cannot be


10:15am page 146

146 / Scott Soames justified in accepting the claim that the predicate applies to the object, even though in neither case can one be justified in accepting the negation of that claim either. Genuinely partial predicates always include cases like o3 ; predicates which are only weakly partial include cases like o2 , but none like o3 . As for the regions on the graphs labeled with question marks, let us take region 2 of the graph G1 for bald as a representative example. Let o be an individual in this region. We can’t correctly say that bald is undefined for o because there are pairs < Bpos , Bneg > which are candidates for being rules of the language governing bald according to which bald does apply to o—where candidates are rules which we cannot show not to govern the predicate in the language. Since we can’t show this, we cannot correctly say that bald is undefined for o. Of course, we also cannot correctly say that bald applies to o, because there is no pair of rules < Bpos , Bneg > which characterize bald as applying to o that we can show to be rules of the language that do govern the predicate. It is helpful in summarizing this situation to introduce the notion of a predicate P being undefined for an object o relative to a rule R. Relative Undefinedness. P is undefined for o relative to a rule R: iff neither the claim that P applies to o nor the claim that P doesn’t apply to o is a necessary consequence of R plus the set of underlying nonlinguistic facts about o. P is defined for o relative to R just in case P is not undefined for o relative to R. Absolute undefinedness is defined in terms of relative undefinedness. Absolute Undefinedness. P is undefined for o iff (i) for all rules R which are such that we can, in principle, establish that R is a rule of the language governing P, P is undefined for o relative to R, and (ii) there is no rule R which is a candidate for being a rule of the language governing P, relative to which P is defined for o. (A candidate is a rule which we cannot, in principle, show not to be a rule of the language governing the predicate.) In the presence of natural background assumptions—e.g. the assumption that if two rules are such that they should both be accepted as rules of the language, then they don’t give conflicting characterizations of whether a predicate applies to any object—this definition gives the same results as the characterization of undefinedness given earlier. With this in mind, we can characterize each individual o in region 2 of the graphs as follows:


10:15am page 147

Higher-Order Vagueness / 147 Individuals o in Region 2 (i) Every rule R which is such that we can establish that R is a rule of the language that governs the predicate bald is such that bald is undefined for o relative to R. (ii) Nevertheless, there remain candidates for being a rule governing bald which characterize bald as applying to o. (iii) For these reasons, we cannot establish, or correctly accept, any of the following claims: that bald applies to o, that bald is undefined for o, that determinately bald applies to o, that determinately bald does not apply to o, that determinately bald is undefined for o (ditto for determinately determinately bald). (iv) It is the case, however, that o is not determinately not bald. (See G3.) We have now distinguished predicates which are merely weakly partial from predicates which are (also) partial in the original sense. Ordinary vague predicates like red and bald are partial without qualification. Higherorder predicates built from them using the determinately operator are weakly partial (and correspondingly weakly vague). Is this the end of the story? Is there anything more to say about higher-order vagueness for partially defined predicates? I suspect there is.

4.5 Superundefinedness, Superdeterminateness, and Sharp Lines Call the individuals in regions 2 and 4 of G1 superundefined, meaning by this that they are individuals of whom we cannot, in principle, establish that bald applies to them, that bald doesn’t apply to them, or that bald is undefined for them, no matter how much information we are given. Since we cannot establish any of these claims, we cannot justifiably accept them. More precisely, we cannot accept them while maintaining that in so doing we are not exercising our discretion by contextually changing the conversational standards governing the predicate bald. Call objects that have this status objects for which the predicate ‘bald’ is superundefined. More generally, when an object o has this status for an arbitrary predicate P, we say that P is superundefined for o. With this definition in place, it seems plausible to suppose that for any predicate P and object o, either (i) P applies to o, (ii) P does not apply to o, (iii) P is undefined for o, or (iv) P is superundefined for o. These categories really do seem to be jointly exhaustive. Supposing that they are, we


10:15am page 148

148 / Scott Soames may introduce an operator which attaches to a predicate P to form a totally defined predicate 9 superdeterminately P;. Superdeterminately Predicates. The predicate 9superdeterminately P; applies to an object o just in case it is not the case either that (i) P does not apply to o, or that (ii) P is undefined for o, or that (iii) P is superundefined for o. Would it be a bad result if there really turned out to be such predicates? I don’t see that it would. The point of our discussion of higher-order vagueness for partially defined predicates has not been to avoid drawing sharp lines between all categories of objects to which one might think of applying a vague predicate. The point has been to accommodate what appears to be the genuine sense in which the higher-order predicate 9determinately P; is vague (more precisely, weakly vague) when P is an ordinary vague predicate like bald, or red. We have done that. As for sharp lines, the important questions are If they exist, what do they separate? and How do they arise? The lines I have been concerned with arise from the nature of contextual theories—theories that hold that there is a range of discretion within which speakers may acceptably adjust the contextual standards of what counts as red, bald, and the like. Since there are limits to the range of discretion that speakers have, there must be some items for which the rules of the language allow no discretion. For example, there must be some items for which any characterization conflicting with the characterization that the predicate applies to them is incorrect, no matter what the context. Let us focus on this class of items, and the line separating them from the next class of items. This is the line between regions 1 and 2 in the graph G1 for bald. Individuals in region 1 are such that it is determinate that bald applies to them; hence, speakers have no option to characterize them in any other way. Since we know that individuals in region 2 are not determinately not bald, we know that one can correctly characterize the predicate as applying to them. However, if one does characterize bald as applying to these individuals, we can’t say whether the rules of the language governing the predicate leave one any discretion to do otherwise. We may put this by saying that the individuals in region 2 are such that it is always correct to characterize bald as applying to them, but we cannot say whether the reason this is correct is because the rules of the language determine this characterization, or because in characterizing the predicate as applying to these individuals one is adopting a contextual standard that makes it correct. The line between these individuals


10:15am page 149

Higher-Order Vagueness / 149 in region 2 (which may always correctly be said to be bald) and the individuals in region 1 (which may also always be correctly said to be bald) may very well be sharp. However, it is a line which, by its very nature, one would not expect speakers to notice. Hence, it is no embarrassment to the theory that they don’t.

4.6 Implications for the Sorites If I am right, then semantic models of vague predicates as both partial and context-sensitive do not allow one to avoid the conclusion that the meanings of these predicates impose classifications of individuals in their domains of potential application into sharply defined categories. Because of this, strengthened versions of the Sorites paradox can be constructed exploiting this fact. A Strengthened Sorites Argument A man with no hair is superdeterminately bald. For all x, if x is superdeterminately bald, then a man with one more hair is too. So everyone is superdeterminately bald. Because of this one might wonder whether in using the semantic model I have defended we have made any progress in defusing the paradox. In my opinion we have, though we certainly have not fully resolved it. The puzzle that remains is how the linguistic behavior on which the semantics of our language supervenes results in such fine-grained classifications of the objects in the domains of our predicates. This is a problem for all theories of vague terms, and nothing I have said constitutes an answer to it. However, if I am right about the semantics of these terms, then, it seems to me, these fine-grained classifications turn out to be less paradoxical and problematic than they were before. In particular, they do not pose the threat to our notion of linguistic competence that would be posed by a sharp, finegrained bifurcation of the domain into objects to which a predicate definitely applies and those to which it definitely does not apply. The distinction between truth and falsity, or truth and untruth, is very important to speakers; and the norms of language use presuppose that we are able to closely track the truth. One lesson that has sometimes been drawn from traditional versions of the Sorites is that in order to avoid absurdity, we must embrace a semantic theory that distinguishes between those objects of which


10:15am page 150

150 / Scott Soames a predicate is true and those of which it is not true in such a precise and finegrained way that we can no longer view ordinary speakers who understand the predicate as competent to make the distinction, or as able to track the truth of statements made using it. That is paradoxical. How can a distinction based on meaning that is so important to language use be opaque to fully competent speakers who understand the meanings of their words? If the meaning of an ordinary predicate imposed a precise, fine-grained classification between objects to which it applied and those to which it did not, wouldn’t fully competent speakers know this, and be able to locate the boundary with a high degree of accuracy? The virtue of the semantic account I have sketched is that it does not provoke these questions.10 The distinction between truth and falsity is important enough to speakers that we expect an account of meaning (which is grasped by competent speakers) to classify statements into those categories in ways that fully competent speakers in possession of all relevant non-linguistic facts are able to approximate. By contrast, the sharp distinction between (i) statements the truth of which are determined by the rules of one’s language together with non-linguistic facts and (ii) statements for which there is no saying whether their truth is so determined or whether their truth results from the exercise of speaker discretion in adjusting the boundaries of context-sensitive predicates is a highly theoretical one, of which speakers need have no clear and precise pretheoretical grasp. Since their shaky grasp of this distinction in no way impugns their competence, it is not paradoxical. Although all sharp, finegrained distinctions imposed by the semantics of vague predicates are theoretically puzzling, they need not be paradoxical. 10 More precisely, it doesn’t provoke these questions for ordinary predicates like red and bald. Although related questions may arise for technical predicates, like superdeterminately bald, the sharp distinctions between things to which these predicates apply and those to which they don’t are defined in terms of the theoretically less troubling distinctions corresponding to the ordinary vague predicates they arise from.


12:01pm

page 151

8 Against Truth-Value Gaps Michael Glanzberg

Many things are neither true nor false: shoes and ships and sealing wax, to name a few. But these things are neither true nor false because they are not the kinds of things that can be either. There are also some things that are apt for being true or false. Preferences vary on exactly what these things are. Common candidates include utterances, interpreted sentences paired with contexts, and propositions. Can there be something that is apt to be true or false, but fails to be either? This is the question of whether there are substantial truth-value gaps. It has been a persistent idea in the philosophy of language that there are substantial truth-value gaps. This view was held, at some moments, by Strawson1 and by Frege.2 More recently, Scott Soames3 has presented an Thanks to JC Beall, Alex Byrne, Jason Decker, Tyler Doggett, Paul Elbourne, Adam Elga, Warren Goldfarb, Delia Graff, Richard Heck, Charles Parsons, Mark Richard, Susanna Siegel, Jason Stanley, Judith Thomson, Carol Voeller, Brian Weatherson, Ralph Wedgwood, Steve Yablo, Cheryl Zoll, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and discussions. Versions of this material were presented in my seminar at MIT in the fall of 2000, and at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Parts of this paper also derive from my comments on a paper of Scott Soames at the ‘Liars and Heaps’ conference at the University of Connecticut in the fall of 2002. I am grateful for the help of these audiences, and especially to Professor Soames. 1 The case of Strawson is somewhat complicated. I believe there is good reason to see the view of Strawson (1952) as advocating substantial truth-value gaps. However, there is also good reason to see the view of Strawson (1950) as advocating a different position, not requiring substantial gaps. Strawson (1954) at least appears to refer to both, without mentioning the differences. 2 Under the obvious reading, Frege (1892) endorses substantial truth-value gaps. Some interpreters of Frege, notably Evans (1982), have raised questions about whether this position is consonant with the rest of Frege’s views. As Evans reminds us, Frege did not always hold it, as is shown by the unpublished and contentiously dated ‘17 Key Sentences on Logic’ (Frege, n.d.). 3 Soames (1989), developed further in Soames (1999).


12:01pm

page 152

152 / Michael Glanzberg argument in favor of the view, and has applied it to some issues related to semantic paradoxes and to vagueness. In its own right, the question is deeply involved with some of the very basic issues in the philosophy of language: content, assertion, and truth. In this essay I shall argue that there are no substantial truth-value gaps. There are some phenomena that appear like gaps, but they are importantly different. There are faux gaps, as I shall call them, but no substantial gaps. In particular, attention to the role of context dependence, and the ways in which utterances of meaningful sentences can fail to express propositions in some contexts, provides a rich theoretical basis for explaining away apparently substantial truth-value gaps as merely faux gaps. My strategy will be as follows. I shall first argue that an attractive picture of the relation of truth bearer to truth value leads to a standard that needs to be met by any account of truth values. The standard is easily met by views that do not admit truth-value gaps, but I shall argue we have no idea how a view that admits truth-value gaps could meet it. This shows, from quite general principles, that truth-value gaps are unmotivated, and indeed appear to be in conflict with some wellmotivated principles. I shall then argue that over and above these general considerations, we will not find any specific phenomena that require truthvalue gaps. Any phenomenon whose explanation might appear to require substantial truth-value gaps can be adequately explained in other ways, by appeal to the right kind of faux gap. I shall pay particular attention to the ways in which context dependence can introduce faux gaps. My case against gaps is thus that they are poorly motivated, it is mysterious how they can be compatible with some attractive general principles, and they are useless anyway. In the end, a full exposition of the last part of the argument would require survey of a huge range of linguistic phenomena, and I do not have the space to do more than a small sample of this. However, I shall suggest that the reasons that truth-value gaps appear unnecessary in the cases I shall consider point to some widely applicable strategies for avoiding them. Strictly speaking, this amounts only to partial evidence, but I believe the combination of lack of motivation and some general ways to avoid gaps makes it compelling all the same.

1. A Framework In this section I shall describe some background machinery that will constitute a framework for the rest of the discussion. I shall use this framework to


12:01pm

page 153

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 153 sharpen the question of whether there are substantial truth-value gaps, and to survey some of the motivations for thinking that there are. My arguments that there are not will begin in the following section. Much of our focus will be on assertion. Assertions are speech acts: actions taken by speakers which express contents. For our purposes, we may think of the contents of assertions as given by truth conditions. This is a significant idealization, and simply evades some delicate issues about the nature of content. For our concerns with truth values, however, it is harmless.4 I shall call the truth-conditional contents of assertions propositions, which I shall take to be the primary bearers of truth. I should note, however, that in characterizing propositions by way of assertions, my stance towards the ontology of propositions is quite neutral. I find introducing them convenient, but I invite those who prefer to talk about speech acts themselves, or sentences and contexts, to carry out the needed transformation of my terminology into theirs. We may think of propositions as sets or collections of individual conditions for truth. I shall sometimes resort to common terminology and call these possible worlds. However, this must be understood as mere terminology. Much of what is to follow is, indirectly, an investigation of the nature of truth conditions, so it would not do to build into our framework any strong commitments about their relation to modality. Assertions are actions, but they involve the deploying of interpreted sentences in contexts.5 It will thus be convenient sometimes to make reference to a two-stage semantic theory of the sort articulated by Kaplan (1989). Such a theory assigns to sentences and other linguistic items characters: functions from contexts to intensions. Intensions, in turn, are functions from worlds to extensions. Very roughly (very!), we may think of characters as modeling whatever meanings are assigned by linguistic rules. 4 As an anonymous referee pointed out, this idealization does suppress a great deal about how and when propositions are expressed by utterances, as well as more standard issues of whether belief contents are more fine-grained than truth conditions. For instance, it suppresses questions about how certain aspects of sentence structure, sometimes called ‘information structure’ may affect whether a proposition has been expressed. (I have examined some of these issues in Glanzberg 2002. For additional discussion see von Fintel forthcoming.) It also suppresses questions of the role of certain presuppositions or conventional implicatures. (I have discussed this in Glanzberg forthcoming a. For additional discussion, see Barker 2003.) 5 I will sometimes talk about asserting a sentence 9 s;, and sometimes about asserting a proposition p, letting context and notation for sentences and propositions disambiguate. These may be taken as shorthand for ‘making an assertion using sentence 9s;’ and ‘making an assertion with content p’.


12:01pm

page 154

154 / Michael Glanzberg Questions about substantial truth-value gaps are questions about the truth values of propositions. There have been quite a few different ideas about just what constitutes a truth-value gap. Some have suggested that it is a third truth value that could be assigned to propositions, over and above the values true and false. Others have proposed that it is rather for a proposition not to have a truth value. Others still have suggested it is a status in which any claim about truth value is inappropriate.6 For our purposes, it will be useful to abstract away from these differences. The pro-gaps view, in any of its forms, proposes that a proposition amounts to a division of the set of all worlds into three classes: those in which the proposition is true, those in which it is false, and the rest. We may think of such a proposition as given by two sets of worlds: one of worlds in which it is true, and one of worlds in which it is false, where these sets need not exhaust the set of all worlds. By shifting from describing the pro-gaps position in terms of three values to describing it in terms of two sets, we simply avoid the dispute over how to characterize the third value. It is irrelevant for our concerns whether the two sets are generated by a threevalued function, or a partial function, or in some other way. According to the no-gaps view, a proposition amounts to a division of the set of all possible worlds into two classes: those in which the proposition is true, and those in which it is false ( ¼ not true). We may think of this as a two-valued total function on worlds, or simply as the single set of worlds in which the proposition is true. I shall thus describe the no-gaps view as the oneset view (two values but one set). In contrast, the pro-gaps view is the two-set view (three values, or two values and in some cases no value, etc.; but two sets). The fundamental point of contention between no-gaps and pro-gaps views is whether or not the one-set view is always adequate for modeling the contents of assertions. If it is, then there are no substantial truth-value gaps. If it is not, then the two-set view is generally right. If the two-set view is indeed generally right, then there must be cases where the two sets of a proposition do not exhaust the domain of all worlds. These cases would be substantial truth-value gaps. 6 The last position seems to be that of Soames (1999), though I am not sure if it is really different from the second option. Much of the literature does not discriminate between the first two options (cf. the discussion of the Kleene tables in Kripke 1975). Against certain background assumptions, it is possible to distinguish them. (If, for instance, we think of truth values as assigned by some computational process, then there is a difference between the process converging to a third value, and the process diverging.) However, in many settings the formal differences between the two are trivial (cf. the survey articles by Blamey 1986 and Urquhart 1986).


12:01pm

page 155

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 155 Before launching into my arguments in favor of the one-set view over the two-set view, let me pause to consider some reasons one might favor the twoset view. The traditional justification for gaps proceeds by way of some examples where we are inclined to think a content has been expressed, but are disinclined to call it either true or false. As such examples appear to present us with propositions, but no truth values, they appear to demonstrate the existence of substantial truth-value gaps. I doubt there are any entirely uncontroversial examples. Historically, Strawson offered as examples cases of the failure of the presuppositions of definite descriptions. Suppose there is no lodger living next door to you, and a salesman says to you: (1) The lodger next door has offered me twice that sum.7 In a similar vein, Frege (1892) offered examples of fictional names, as in: (2) Odysseus was set ashore in Ithaca while sound asleep. In both cases, the theoretical issues are quite involved, and final judgments on the examples may well depend on how they are resolved. Russellians will find (1) implausible, and many views of fictional names give truth values to examples like (2). These days many find examples of borderline cases of vagueness more convincing. Let John be borderline bald and consider: (3) John is bald. It is a tempting idea that an utterance of this sentence is in no way defective, and so expresses a proposition; yet because John is a borderline case, the proposition can have no truth value. However, the claim that vagueness leads to truth-value gaps is controversial. Such theorists as Williamson (1994) and Graff (2000) deny that it does. More importantly, vagueness is a difficult and puzzling phenomenon. The Sorites paradox makes it count as a genuinely hard case. Drawing the conclusion that there are truth-value gaps because there is vagueness is thus a theoretically contentious claim, as drawing general conclusions from hard cases always is. It would be far preferable to find independent justification for truth-value gaps, and then apply them to hard cases like vagueness, or the Liar paradox. This might offer some explanation of the hard cases. 7 This example is from Strawson (1954). In that discussion, Strawson also raises the question of whether this example might be treated along the lines I suggest in Section 4.1. The paper appeals to Strawson (1952) for the characterization of truth-value gaps, but it also appeals to Strawson (1950) for examples, presumably meaning the infamous King of France.


12:01pm

page 156

156 / Michael Glanzberg For this reason, some authors have sought to abstract away from some of the difficulties of vagueness cases, with the idea of identifying what it is for a predicate (vague or not) to induce truth-value gaps. A good example is the discussion of partial predicates of Soames (1989, 1999). Partial predicates are predicates which wind up being assigned by semantic rules partial extensions (relative to context and world). A partial extension for a predicate 9P; is a pair of sets of individuals: an extension Pþ of individuals of which the predicate holds, and an anti-extension P of individuals of which the predicate does not hold. These two sets need not exhaust the domain of all individuals, so we have the analog for predicates of the two-set view of propositions. More fully, 9P; will be assigned, for each context, a function from worlds w to extensions Pwþ and anti-extensions Pw in those worlds. The result for an atomic sentence of the form 9Pt; is a two-set proposition, consisting of h{w j t 2 Pwþ }, {w j t 2 Pw }i. So long as there are some worlds where t is not in either Pwþ or Pw , we have a genuine two-set, partial proposition. Soames (1989, 1999) gives us a scenario where we might see such a predicate as being introduced into the language. We are confronted with a roomful of people who fall into two groups: group (A) consists of people who are quite short, let us say four feet tall and under; while group (B) consists of people who are on the short end of average height, let us say five feet tall and over. We then lay down two stipulations governing a new word ‘smidget’: (4a) Anyone at least as short as someone in group (A) is a smidget. (Anyone of height four feet or less.) (4b) Anyone at least as tall as someone in group (B) is not a smidget. (Anyone of height five feet or more.) According to Soames, these rules introduce a partial predicate, with extension fixed by rule (4a) and anti-extension fixed by rule (4b).8 Now consider Mr Smallman, who is exactly four feet six inches tall. He falls into neither 8 It is unclear if there are any naturally occurring examples of predicates like ‘smidget’, aside from the controversial vagueness ones. Soames’s own position is that the truth predicate is one, but that conclusion is only correct if there are already other partial predicates which may appear in the scope of a truth predicate. As is suggested by Tappenden (1993), some legal concepts might provide examples. I shall discuss these more thoroughly in Section 5. There are some related phenomena. There are many pairs of contrary predicates, often arising from some kind of negative affix, such as ‘happy’–‘unhappy’ and ‘honest’–‘dishonest’ (cf. Horn 1989). Many gradable adjectives come in contrary pairs, such as ‘tall’–‘short’ and ‘happy’–‘sad’ (cf. Bierwisch 1989). But these do not provide single predicates with partial interpretations. There are also well-known examples of sortal predicates. When applied outside of their sorts, these tend to generate what philosophers call category mistakes, and linguists sometimes call selectional


12:01pm

page 157

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 157 group (A) or (B). He hence falls into neither the extension nor the antiextension of ‘smidget’ in the world just described. According to Soames, the sentence ‘Mr Smallman is a smidget’ thus expresses a proposition which is neither true nor false in this world.9 Soames (1999 and Chapter 7 in this volume) goes on to apply the notion of truth-value gap so explained to vagueness cases. I agree with Soames that it does distill the essence of how a predicate could generate truthvalue gaps. In arguing against this model of gaps, I shall thus be offering indirect support for any view of vagueness that does not require gaps, and raising a question for any view that does. Though I have stressed that all the common examples of truth-value gaps are controversial, they do indicate a case in favor of gaps. The examples point to a pattern of usage. They provide a range of cases where we find it decidedly odd to call a claim true or to call it false, while it equally sounds odd to hold that nothing was said by the utterance. Thus, the examples may be taken to suggest that our ordinary usage indicates the presence of gaps. Moreover, it might be argued, this usage is easily explained. Many-valued or partial logic provides a ready theory for gappy propositions. The ‘smidget’ model given by Soames additionally provides an explanation of how (at least some) gaps arise. I do agree that there is something right about the intuitions associated with examples (1–4); something that in the end must be explained. But I do not think they can provide us with instances of substantial truth-value gaps. The version of the no-gaps view I shall defend may be put as follows: The one-set view is always adequate for modeling the contents of assertions. In the next section I shall begin to explain why I hold this position in spite of the violations. But as has been observed since Chomsky (1965), these often appear to exhibit some kind of ungrammaticality. Many current versions of thematic role theory bear this idea out. Grammaticality aside, the claim that these are examples of substantial truth-value gaps does not seem very plausible. 9 Strictly speaking, Soames insists that it is not correct to say that (the proposition expressed by) ‘Mr Smallman is a smidget’ is not true. Indeed, it seems that the only assessment pertaining to truth we can make for an assertion of this sentence by Soames’s lights is the silent stare. I do find it a bit puzzling that we should have an assertion which is manifestly incorrect, but we are not allowed to say so. But more importantly, as I mentioned above, the two-set model is insensitive to this rather delicate point. When we catalog the worlds in which the claim is true and those in which it is false, we get two sets which do not exhaust the domain of all worlds, regardless of exactly what the correct way to describe the worlds in neither set might be. With this in mind, we may continue to speak of worlds in which a proposition is neither true nor false as shorthand for ‘worlds which fail to fall into either set of the two-set model’, without taking issue with the substance of Soames’s position.


12:01pm

page 158

158 / Michael Glanzberg examples and intuitions to the contrary. For now, let me clarify what my position entails. As a piece of mathematics, there is nothing incoherent about the idea of two sets of worlds. Those happy with the existence of worlds and sets should grant this. There is thus a sense in which we may grant that there are such things as gappy propositions. My claim is simply that this is mere mathematics; these things cannot be the contents of assertions. More importantly, I shall grant that there may be some uses for two-set apparatus in describing language. I shall not challenge the idea that there may be reason to describe certain terms and sentences by way of characters that yield two-set-based values. What my thesis requires is that there be no use for the extra set in describing the content of an assertion. In the case of a sentence which might have a two-set-based character, in a given context, either the gap between the two sets must somehow be closed in the process of an assertion expressing a proposition, or the attempt at assertion fails and no proposition is expressed. Genuine assertion is assertion of a one-set proposition.

2. The Dummettian Challenge A moment ago I admitted that there is something right about the pro-gaps intuition associated with examples like (1–4). At the very least the pattern of usage identified is a fact. There are some cases where we are in fact disinclined to apply the predicates ‘true’ or ‘false’. Yet I insist that there are no gaps. Why? I shall argue below that once we take seriously the idea that a proposition is the content of an assertion a speaker might make, the pro-gaps intuition loses its force. Indeed, once we think about matters in these terms, there is a strong countervailing intuition against truth-value gaps. There seems to be no more sense to be made of a proposition that is neither true nor false than there is sense to be made of an assertion that neither succeeds nor does not succeed in saying something correct. There is none. Let us call this the no-gaps intuition. The no-gaps intuition is not by itself enough to constitute an argument against truth-value gaps. But, I suggest, it does provide a challenge to any progaps theory. Spelling out the intuition will uncover a standard which must be met by any account of truth values. It also points to reasons why the no-gaps view can easily meet the standard, while it remains mysterious how a progaps view could. This presents a challenge to any defender of gaps, to explain


12:01pm

page 159

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 159 how they can meet the standard. In this section I shall develop the challenge. In the following ones I shall argue that the challenge cannot be answered, and so there are no truth-value gaps. In extracting a standard from the no-gaps intuition, I am essentially following an observation made long ago by Michael Dummett. He remarked: We cannot in general suppose that we give a proper account of a concept [truth or falsehood] by describing those circumstances in which we do, and those in which we do not, make use of the relevant word, by describing the usage of that word; we must also give an account of the point of the concept, explain what we use the word for. (Dummett 1959: 3.)

Taking this cue from Dummett, I shall spell out the no-gaps intuition in the following argument: (i) Speech acts, including assertions, are moves within a practice of using language which is (partially) rule-governed and is something in which agents can engage intentionally. As such, speech acts have intrinsic purposes (or points, as Dummett puts it). (ii) The intrinsic purpose of assertion is to convey the information that something is the case, i.e. to assert 9 s; is to convey the information that s. (iii) Combining (ii) with the idea that propositional contents encapsulate truth conditions implies a form of the ‘truth-assertion platitude’ for the intrinsic purpose of assertion: the intrinsic purpose of assertion is to assert that truth conditions obtain. (iv) The truth of a claim is thus fundamentally a matter of a purposive act achieving its intrinsic purpose. Conclusion (iv) substantiates the Dummettian idea of looking for the point of the concept of truth. Assessing for truth is a matter of assessing a purposive act for success. We may thus think of truth as itself having a point or purpose, in so far as it is correctly applied exactly when a purposive act achieves its purpose. The same may be said for truth values. Classification for truth is assignment of truth value. Hence, truth values likewise inherit points from the practice of assertion. Any assignment of truth value amounts to an assessment of whether a purposive act has achieved its purpose. This leads to the Dummettian challenge: Any notion of truth value must explain the point of classifying a proposition as having that value in terms of the intrinsic purpose of the speech act of assertion. In particular, any


12:01pm

page 160

160 / Michael Glanzberg account of truth-value gaps must explain, in terms of the intrinsic purpose of assertion, the classification of neither true nor false (or lacking a truth value, etc.). Just such an account is missing from the traditional examples, and I shall argue in Section 3, missing from Soames’s partiality example as well. In the remainder of this section I shall spell out and defend the steps in the argument for the Dummettian challenge.10 In doing so, we will be looking closely at the practice of assertion, and its relation to notions like truth. I hope the reason for doing so is by now clear. I am arguing that though the pro-gaps examples like (1–4) have some intuitive appeal, they do not go deeply enough to explain what a truth-value gap really is. In looking at assertion and truth, I propose to look deeper than they do. When we do, I shall argue, we find that we cannot make sense of substantial truth-value gaps. After this argument has been given, I shall return to the issue of how to make sense of the appeal of the examples.

2.1 Speech Acts and Practices Language use in general, and assertion as a crucial kind of language use, is purposive behavior. In making an assertion, or any other speech act, one is trying to accomplish something. But, furthermore, speech acts have intrinsic purposes, independent of the purposes speakers may have in engaging in them.11 The purpose of assertion is to describe something, or convey information; the purpose of a command is to give an order; the purpose of a verdict is to convict or acquit, etc. In the language of speech act theory, speech acts are eo ipso illocutionary acts.12 They all have in common that their purpose is to say something, which in various ways constitutes doing something. The purposes of a speaker may be at odds with the purpose of the speech act they perform. Typical examples of this come from the manipulation of 10 My discussion draws heavily on that found in Dummett (1959), as well as other Dummettian ideas, especially about the relation of language use to practices like games (cf. Dummett 1976, 1978). 11 I do not want to put too much metaphysical significance on the notion of intrinsicness. I need the distinction between purposes an act may acquire in virtue of an agent bringing that purpose to the act, and the purpose the act has in virtue of being the kind of act it is. I call the latter intrinsic. 12 Echoing Austin (1975: 98). Unlike some readers of Austin, I am not supposing that to call an act illocutionary is to liken it to the highly conventionalized speech acts it is natural to call ‘performative’. The more clearly linguistic acts—assertions, commands, and questions—are illocutionary acts.


12:01pm

page 161

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 161 the purposes of speech acts themselves. A spy may have as his purpose not to convey information, and even to convey disinformation, but may surmise in a particular case that making an assertion, even a true one, could have this effect. The spy, for instance, says ‘The microfilm is hidden in the lacquer box’ with the purpose of causing us to doubt his sincerity, and so take him not to have given reliable information. He does so precisely by performing the action of presenting the information that the microfilm is in the lacquer box, but in a circumstance where he expects us to respond to his doing so in such a way as to cause us to doubt his sincerity. Having an intrinsic purpose is a feature of a wide range of actions, but not all. Natural actions, such as moving one’s hand, seem not to have intrinsic purposes. To have purposes, they need to acquire them from the agents who perform them. But types of actions which are created by practices (in the sense of Rawls 1955) typically do have intrinsic purposes. Clear examples are to be found in games, as both Rawls and Dummett have stressed. Hitting a ball may have no intrinsic purpose, but batting does. Its purpose is to hit the ball in whatever way produces home runs. Shoeless Joe Jackson may have an ulterior purpose of his own when he is at bat, but it is still the case that the purpose of batting is to produce home runs. In the case of games, the purpose of a move in a game is fixed by the game’s more general purpose: to win. Other practices may have more complex purposive structures. Moves in practices, be they moves in games or speech acts, have intrinsic purposes because of two interconnecting features of practices. Practices are (in part) constituted by their rules, and they are things in which agents can engage intentionally. A practice creates certain sorts of moves within it, in part by laying down some rules. Hitting a ball with a stick is not batting but for the rules of baseball. Moving a crowned piece of wood and a crenellated piece of wood is not castling but for the rules of chess. As they are created by practices, these moves may be endowed with intrinsic purposes by the practices that create them. At the same time, if the moves in a practice had no such intrinsic purposes, it would be impossible for an agent to engage in the practice intentionally. Consider a person who understands all the rules of chess, but does not understand that one plays a game generally to win, and that one makes moves to further this end. Such a person would be unable to play chess—to make moves in a chess game—intentionally. They could no doubt move pieces around the board, and they could tell you if those moves were or were not in accord with the rules. But they would have no idea what they were


12:01pm

page 162

162 / Michael Glanzberg doing when they did so. They would have no idea what it is to make a move in chess. No more would they have any idea what could be the result of such a move, nor what could be a reason for making one. They could thus not make chess moves intentionally.13 They might have some private purpose that would give them some reason to want to move pieces around the board, perhaps in accord with some rules, but this would not be to play chess. The intrinsic purposes of moves in practices are features of the moves themselves, provided by the practices that create them. As I mentioned, they must be distinguished from the purposes an agent may have in engaging in the practice. They must also be distinguished from the attendant aim the agent will have of making a move at all. A batter is, of course, trying to bat. He may fail to do so. But if he manages to bat, he does something which itself has a purpose: leading to home runs. If he does not understand that this is what batting is for, he can hardly be described as intentionally batting, or even intentionally playing baseball. In some limited but important respects, we may say that language use is like a game.14 It is a practice in being a (partially) rule-constituted activity in which people can engage intentionally. As with other such practices, an agent could know all the rules of language—syntactic, semantic, and phonological—but, in ignorance of the intrinsic purposes of the moves so constituted, be unable to engage in the practice intentionally. For instance, someone who did not understand that the point of asserting is to convey information about how the world is would be unable to form an intention to assert something, as opposed to its negation, in a given situation. The best 13 It should be clear that I mean ‘intentionally’ and not ‘intentionality’. It might have been natural to talk about agents engaging in a practice rationally, but that is slightly too strong. It is possible for agents to act intentionally but violate the constraints of rationality. 14 Some aspects of the comparison of language to practices like games are highly controversial, so I should stress that my claim is limited in scope. I am only claiming that there is a practice of language use. This does not require that the rules of language be exactly like the rules of a game, or that linguistic competence be like knowing the rules of a game. It is entirely compatible with the conclusions I draw here that up to the level of engaging in the practice of using language, linguistic competence is a matter of the state of a specialized language faculty governed by the principles of universal grammar, as Chomsky has it (e.g. Chomsky 1986). This is not to say that my claim is entirely trivial, however. It is a non-trivial requirement that whatever the rules of a language are like, and whatever it is for a person to have linguistic competence, they must be such as to be able to contribute to an intentional practice at the level of language use. I am suggesting that this is compatible with at least a great deal of the Chomskian picture of language. (For additional discussion, sympathetic to a substantial role for the practice of language use but sensitive to Chomskian concerns, see Higginbotham 1989.)


12:01pm

page 163

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 163 they could do would be to mouth some rule-governed noises. This would be the case even if they understood how the rules associate sentences with propositions in contexts, and how negation changes a proposition to its contradictory. They would still not understand what they would be doing in asserting either, and so could not form the intention to do one rather than the other. They would not know whether the point is to say what holds or what does not, and thus they would not have an adequate understanding of assertion to form the needed intentions.

2.2 Truth and the Intrinsic Purpose of Assertion So far we have established that as moves within a practice, uses of language like assertion have their own intrinsic purposes. We have established step (i) of the argument at the beginning of Section 2. To see how this relates to truth values, we need to move on to the next steps, and look more closely at what the intrinsic purpose of assertion is. This will establish a relation between the act of assertion and its propositional content, which will in turn provide a constraint on what truth values may be like. In step (ii) we observed, seemingly almost trivially, that the intrinsic purpose of assertion is to convey the information that something is the case. Though I shall not attempt anything like a full analysis of assertion, we need to fill this idea in somewhat. Our observation was that the purpose of asserting ‘The cat is on the mat’ is to convey the information that the cat is on the mat. This is not really a triviality at all. Let me stress, we are not talking about an agent’s attendant aim of making an assertion at all—of making a move in the practice. We are talking about the intrinsic purpose of assertion itself— the intrinsic purpose of the very move in the practice. It is easy to imagine a practice of using a language governed by nearly the same rules as ours where assertion has a different intrinsic purpose. A child’s game could easily have the purpose of asserting ‘The cat is on the mat’ by saying that the cat is not on the mat, for instance. The that-clause in our characterization of the purpose of asserting reports a proposition. Thus, we may conclude that the intrinsic purpose of assertion is somehow given in terms of the proposition—the content—expressed by an assertion. How? We have already observed that the purpose is not adequately described as simply determining a collection of truth conditions. This does not tell us what the speaker is to attempt to do with these conditions. Spelling out the idea of conveying information a little further, we must add that the


12:01pm

page 164

164 / Michael Glanzberg purpose is to say that the truth conditions given by the proposition expressed obtain. In conveying the information that the truth conditions of ‘The cat is on the mat’ obtain, the assertion of this sentence describes the world as being some way—namely, one in which the cat is on the mat. The obtaining of truth conditions thus provides the intrinsic purpose of assertion. We have thus established step (iii) of the argument. This is an analysis neither of the notion of assertion nor of truth conditions. But it does point out a fundamental connection between truth and assertion. The intrinsic purpose of assertion is to say that the truth conditions expressed obtain. This purpose is achieved just when the proposition expressed is true. Thus, as it is often put, truth is the point of assertion. I have defended a particularly strong version of this claim. It is not merely that one who asserts should aim to assert what is true. It is, rather, that the intrinsic purpose of assertion is given by the concept of truth conditions obtaining, i.e. of truth. As I mentioned, intrinsic purposes are purposes of moves in practices themselves. Hence, truth is the intrinsic purpose of genuine assertion: a genuine move in the practice of language use. With an eye towards the issues that will occupy us in Sections 4–6, this must always be distinguished from the attendant aim the agent will have, of making an assertion at all, as well as from any further purposes the agent may have in engaging in the practice. Failure to make a genuine assertion is not the failure of a move to achieve its intrinsic purpose; it is the failure for there to have been a move made at all.15 Once we see that truth is the intrinsic purpose of assertion, we may extract the consequence for the nature of truth values given in the conclusion (iv) of the argument above. Assessing a proposition for truth is assessing whether the 15 The observation that there is some such relation between truth and assertion has become quite common. Other examples, over and above the seminal work of Dummett, include Wiggins (1980), Davidson (1990), and Wright (1992). Similar ideas appear in much of the literature on truth and non-cognitivism in ethics, such as Wedgwood (1997). In an interesting paper Williamson (1996) argues that the unique constitutive rule of assertion is that one must assert that s only if one knows that s. He rejects a similar rule requiring only truth on grounds that it does not explain ‘‘the evidential norms for assertion’’ (Williamson 1996: 501). From my perspective, Williamson’s arguments seem to bear on a different issue from the one under investigation here. They appear to address the question of what rules control an agent’s engagement in a practice, rather than the nature of the acts created by the practice itself. Nonetheless, Williamson’s claim that the knowledge rule is the sole constitutive rule of assertion seems to put him at odds with my view. A more thorough discussion of this will have to wait for another occasion. (I do agree with the observation from Evans 1982 about the relation between assertion and the transmission of knowledge, which Williamson extends.)


12:01pm

page 165

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 165 intrinsic purpose of assertion has been achieved. Though we can certainly make sense of truth outside of actual acts of assertion (as with all the better things we might have said), the truth of a proposition still comes down to the matter of whether an assertion of it—a genuine move in the practice— would have been successful in achieving its intrinsic purpose. Assessing for truth in a given world comes down to assessing whether an assertion would have been successful had things been some given way. Assessing for truth is assigning a truth value. Hence, what truth values there are and how they are assigned is fixed by the intrinsic purpose of assertion, and what ways there are of achieving or failing to achieve it. This gives us a standard that any account of truth values must meet: it must show how the truth values can be understood as evaluations of assertions for success or failure in achieving their intrinsic purpose. (This bears out Dummett’s suggestion that we need to ask after the point of the concept of truth.) This standard issues in the Dummettian challenge: to show how any account of truth values meets the standard. The challenge stands for any theory; but in particular, it is a challenge to any theory involving truth value gaps, to show how the classification ‘gap’ amounts to a distinct assessment of an assertion for achieving or failing to achieve its intrinsic purpose.

3. The Prima Facie Case and Partial Predicates In Dummett’s hands, this challenge was already enough to turn aside the kind of argument based on mere appeal to intuitions about examples like (1–3). We may grant that it appears odd to call certain assertions true or false; but this is not enough to meet the challenge, for it fails to tell us anything about what the point of the classification neither true nor false is. It fails to tell us how to understand this classification as an assessment of whether the assertions have achieved their intrinsic purpose. Furthermore, we may combine the Dummettian challenge with the nogaps intuition I mentioned at the beginning of Section 2, to begin to build a case against truth-value gaps. The intuition amounts to the observation that the no-gaps view has no difficulty in meeting the Dummettian challenge. We simply observe that the value true corresponds to the intrinsic purpose of an assertion being achieved, and false corresponds to it failing to have been achieved. It appears evident that these are the only ways an assertion can be assessed for whether it has achieved its intrinsic purpose. It either has or has


12:01pm

page 166

166 / Michael Glanzberg not done so. Hence, true and false exhaust the truth values, as the one-set view has it. (There is, of course, the additional possibility that a speaker could fail to express a proposition—fail to make a genuine move in the practice that has an intrinsic purpose at all. But this cannot introduce substantial truth-value gap, as I shall discuss in Section 4.) More cautiously, we may note that it is at the very least mysterious what other alternatives for assessment there could be, and thus mysterious how things could be the way the two-set view requires. This is what I shall call the prima facie case against truth-value gaps: a one-set, gap-free theory has no trouble meeting the Dummettian challenge, while it is at best mysterious how any two-set, pro-gaps theory could meet the challenge. The prima facie case is just that: prima facie. We need an argument that no two-set theory could meet the Dummettian challenge. Ultimately, as I said, this will come down to investigating a range of examples. In this section I shall consider some general reasons why attempts by two-set theories to answer the Dummettian challenge fail, including Soames’s model of partial predicates. In the next section I shall turn to some more specific strategies for turning aside potential examples.

3.1 Conditional Bets The prima facie case relies on the idea that assessment for whether a purpose has been achieved is a binary matter: it either has or it has not. This is in a way too quick, for there are practices in which assessment for achieving intrinsic purposes is more complex. Dummett (1959, 1978) considered a model for practices in which assessment can have a ternary structure, just as a two-set view would have it. In arguing that assertion cannot be understood along the lines of this model, he thereby bolstered the prima facie case. Dummett’s model is a practice of making conditional bets. Most bets are conditional in the following way. We bet on a match between teams X and Y. You bet $10 that team X will win, while I bet $10 that team Y will win. If I am correct, I get $20—my $10 and yours as well. Conversely, if you are correct, you get $20. But there is a genuinely distinct third possibility. If the match is rained out, or there is a tie, then the bet is null. In this case, neither of us wins, and we each get back our original $10. This is a demonstrably different outcome, as it results in a different pay-out. We may describe this bet as conditional, as it is conditional on the match being played to a victory that one or the other of us wins. But no winner does not mean no bet was made.


12:01pm

page 167

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 167 A genuine move in the practice of betting was made, just one that has a distinct outcome from either of us winning. This sort of move in the practice of betting has an intrinsic purpose with a ternary evaluation structure. Success in achieving the purpose is still just success, but the practice itself makes it the case that there are two different ways to fail to achieve the purpose. A better can fail by losing to someone else, or by the condition for there being a winner not being satisfied. The practice ensures that these are different, and marks it by assigning them different consequences. The condition for winning not being satisfied precludes either party in the bet from winning, so neither achieves their purpose. This outcome might thus be usefully compared with a status of being neither true nor false. The two-set view might take heart from the model of conditional bets. It is a practice which provides a ternary evaluation structure that works much like the two-set view needs for assertion. But as Dummett observed, we have no way to apply this model against the prima facie case. To do so we would have to make sense of a notion of assertion along the lines of the conditional bet model. This would have to be a speech act that is fundamentally like an assertion, is assessed as an ordinary assertion of its consequent if its antecedent condition holds, but is assessed as if no assertion were made if the antecedent fails. It would not be sufficient to apply the model to appeal to cases where a speaker might assert that some appropriate sort of dependence holds between antecedent and consequent, or to the act of forming an intention to assert only upon some antecedent being satisfied. Nor would it be sufficient to appeal to cases where a speaker attempts to assert but fails— fails to make a genuine move in the practice—because some condition does not hold. Rather, what is needed to apply the model is a genuine speech act which is like an assertion upon some condition holding, but otherwise as if no genuine move had been made. I doubt we can really make sense of such a speech act as it is described. The joint requirement that it both be a genuine speech act, but in some cases as if no speech act were made, is nearly incoherent. As Dummett observed, the best we can do is to understand it as an act which would be assessed as incorrect—failing to achieve its intrinsic purpose—just in case the antecedent condition were true but the consequent false. But this is indistinguishable from the ordinary assertion of the material conditional. The practice of language use, unlike that of betting, does not give us the resources to describe the needed kind of conditional assertion: one which would explain the status


12:01pm

page 168

168 / Michael Glanzberg of neither true nor false as an assessment for whether or not an assertion has achieved its intrinsic purpose. Thus, the model of the conditional bet does not really provide any help against the prima facie case. The Dummettian challenge still goes unanswered.16

3.2 Partial Predicates In looking at conditional bets, we have now seen that some general considerations of what a model for truth-value gaps might be like fail to provide a response to the prima facie case. But it remains to be seen why partial predicates, like the one in example (4), cannot provide a model. Unlike a mere appeal to intuition about examples like (1–3), (4) attempts to offer an explanation of why there is a truth-value gap. Even so, I shall argue in this subsection that partial predicates offer no help in meeting the Dummettian challenge.17 A partial predicate theory proposes to explain the source of a two-set model as follows. Take an atomic sentence 9 Pt; where 9P; is a partial predicate. According to the theory, 9Pt; expresses a proposition that is true in a world w if t 2 Pwþ , and 9Pt; expresses a proposition that is false in w if t 2 Pw . If for some w, t 62 Pwþ and t 62 Pw , then the proposition expressed by 16 I hasten to note that I am only endorsing Dummett’s argument in so far as it shows that we cannot appeal to a notion of conditional assertion to answer the Dummettian challenge. I do not mean to say anything substantial about conditionals per se. I am not endorsing the material conditional analysis of natural-language conditionals, nor am I maintaining that speech acts involving conditionals must be ordinary assertions (and so have truth conditions). I do not insist that there are no speech acts which could reasonably be called conditional assertions, nor that these could not be usefully applied to the analysis of conditionals. I only claim that this will not give us a way to answer the Dummettian challenge. I am inclined to think that objections to Dummett’s argument, such as those in Edgington (1995), take him to be saying something much more substantial about conditionals, but matters of interpretation aside, I do not believe they bear on my highly limited claim. I am aware of one attempt, by Belnap (1970), to provide a somewhat more formal model of a related notion of conditional assertion. Perhaps due to his insistence on ‘‘depragmatizing’’ the notion, however, he does not really seem to address the matter that is at issue here. The comments by Dunn (1970) and Quine (1970) bear this out. 17 Dummett’s original argument was targeted at the notion of logical presupposition advocated by Strawson (1952) (and probably by Frege as well), as opposed to the notion of what Soames (1989) calls expressive presupposition, advocated by Strawson (1950). Soames rightly points out that the model of partial predicates does not rely on the idea of logical presupposition. Nonetheless, I shall argue that the Dummettian argument applies to it just the same.


12:01pm

page 169

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 169 9 Pt; is neither true nor false in w.18 Soames’s own example attempts to show further how we can get a predicate like 9P; by laying down certain sorts of rules. None of this really helps to answer the Dummettian challenge at all. It is true that the semantics of 9 P; can generate distinct values corresponding to t 2 Pwþ , t 2 Pw , and neither. But to answer the challenge, we would have to explain how these outcomes correspond to success or lack of success in an assertion achieving its intrinsic purpose. Simply introducing partial rules, and describing three outcomes in terms of them, does nothing to address this. At best, the appeal to partial predicates causes the challenge to reemerge with more details about subsentential structure. Asking about the intrinsic purpose of asserting a sentence like 9Pt; may be put as a question about the intrinsic purpose of predicating P of t. An answer to the challenge, in this special case, would be an explanation of how the intrinsic purpose of predicating P of t generates a ternary evaluation scheme. Simply giving a partial semantics for 9 P; does not even attempt this. Furthermore, we can repeat the prima facie case with similar attention to subsentential structure. The purpose of asserting 9Pt; is to describe t as having property P. This purpose has been achieved if t does bear P, otherwise it has not. This indicates a binary evaluation scheme. We can no more make sense of a third classification, corresponding to t neither bearing nor not bearing P, than we could make sense of an act neither succeeding nor not succeeding in achieving its purpose, just as we observed for truth and assertion. This leaves the point of the assessment t 62 Pwþ and t 62 Pw just as mysterious as the point of the assessment neither true nor false was according to the prima facie case. The appeal to partial predicates does not advance the cause of truth-value gaps on this front at all. I believe that the mistake Soames makes is to emphasize the rule-governed aspects of language but forget the purposive aspects of language use. As we observed in Section 2.1, just stipulating some rules is not automatically enough to provide an intrinsic purpose for a move in a practice. Asserting a sentence like 9Pt; is to classify t as having P. Thus, if asserting such a sentence is to have an intrinsic purpose, there must likewise be an intrinsic purpose to classifying by P. A genuine predicate must provide an intrinsic purpose for classifying according to it. The ‘smidget’ rules do not by themselves provide such a purpose. 18 As I mentioned in note 9, Soames’s preferred description of the case is that we may not say anything about the truth status of the proposition. As I mentioned there, this difference is not important for the issue at hand, as it still leads to a two-set view.


12:01pm

page 170

170 / Michael Glanzberg Compare the ‘smidget’ case with another. Children on the playground often play games that involve calling each other made-up names. It is familiar dialog: ‘You’re blynj . . . No, I’m not, you are’. Terms like ‘blynj’ can have rules much like the ‘smidget’ rules. As used by one group of children, it can be governed by the rules that you call Alice and Bill blynj, you say that Charlie is not blynj, and the rules are that you don’t say anything about Debbie at all. (We don’t play with her!) Thus, the rules of the playground assign to ‘blynj’ an extension and an anti-extension. Nonetheless, ‘blynj’ remains a nonsense word. In spite of the rules, calling something ‘blynj’ does not amount to trying in any way to describe something. No proposition is expressed in saying ‘Bill is blynj’. Nothing truthevaluable is presented in the act. Indeed, such acts have no illocutionary force at all. That is just not the kind of point the game has. For whatever reason, the children find it fun to say these things. That is the point. This may reflect in some way their opinions about the other children, but they are not reporting these opinions in propositions expressed. They are not trying to describe the other children. They are trying to have fun, and that is not something which is assessed in terms of truth value. We can say that the children ought not to say that Bill is blynj, perhaps because it upsets Bill. But this is not to offer the kind of practice-internal assessment we would need. It is just to say that the children should not play the game they are playing. We might introduce the genuine predicate ‘is called ‘blynj’ in this game’, but that is not in any way a move in the game, and furthermore, is not a partial predicate at all. Like the ‘blynj’ rules, for the ‘smidget’ rules to introduce a genuine predicate, they would need to provide a point, an intrinsic purpose, for classifying according to them. We do not usually need to specify such a purpose explicitly. We do not usually need to specify the intrinsic purpose of playing a game, as it is obvious to anyone who understands games in general once they are told the winning state of the game. Likewise, we do not usually need to specify the purpose of using a predicate, as it is transparently to describe an object as having the property expressed. But if we were to insist on allowing for truly partial predicates, this would not be enough. If confronted with Mr Smallman, we would be left asking what the point of applying the predicate ‘smidget’ to him might be. Following out the prima facie case, it seems that any way of answering this question would classify him as a smidget or not one. If the purpose was to classify people for being particularly short, we would simply check the (4a) rules and conclude Mr Smallman is not a


12:01pm

page 171

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 171 smidget. If the purpose was to classify people for not being particularly tall, we would conversely check the (4b) rules and conclude Mr Smallman is a smidget. If we cannot give either answer, it is mysterious what the purpose of applying the predicate is. I thus conclude that the machinery of partial predicates by itself does not provide a way to overcome the prima facie case against truth-value gaps. To anticipate some of what is to come next, let me stress that this is not to conclude that a predicate like ‘smidget’ is incoherent. It only shows that if it is to be used to make a genuine assertion, that assertion must express a one-set proposition. How this could be done with partial semantic values like that of ‘smidget’ will be examined in Section 4.2. We have seen that neither the conditional bet model nor the partial predicate model provides a way to meet the Dummettian challenge. How a two-set view could meet the challenge remains mysterious. Moreover, our investigation has shown that two of the more likely models for meeting the challenge fail to make any progress at all. This gives us good reason to doubt there is any way the two-set view could meet the challenge. As the one-set view can easily meet the challenge, we have good reason to hold the one-set view over the two-set view.

4. Closing Gaps We now have some solid reasons for rejecting truth-value gaps. We have seen that any two-set theory must meet the Dummettian challenge, and we have seen that upon further investigation, it is mysterious how they could. We have reason to doubt that anything will outweigh the prima facie case. This is not yet conclusive, however. First of all, we have not yet faced directly the intuitions that originally seemed to favor gaps. Instead, we have worked at a very high level of abstraction, and at that level rejected some general models of gaps. This shows that it is advisable for the pro-gaps view to shift its approach. Rather than look for a way to answer the challenge at such a high level of generality, it will be better for the pro-gaps view to return to specific examples of phenomena which can allegedly only be explained by appeal to gaps. The pro-gaps view could then argue that because such phenomena are present, the practice must make room for gaps. The view could also insist that whatever explanation of the point of gaps may be needed will follow from an explanation of the phenomena. The prima facie case is


12:01pm

page 172

172 / Michael Glanzberg wrong, the pro-gaps view would thus argue, because it failed to look at the details. I shall now attempt to argue that this approach will not succeed either. Ultimately, this is a tall order, for I believe that a full elaboration of the argument would require detailed investigation of a huge range of naturallanguage phenomena. The details do matter here, and I shall not be able to look at very many of them. Instead, I shall offer two strategies for showing that phenomena purported to require truth-value gaps do not really require them. I shall apply these to the examples we have considered, especially that of partial predicates. This will, I hope, lend credence to the tentative conclusion that any phenomenon apparently requiring gaps can be explained some other way. It then follows that the prima facie case is correct, and there are no truth-value gaps.

4.1 The Gap-Closing Strategy Some potential examples of truth-value gaps might appear to call for a systematic gap-closing strategy. Fregean examples of reference failure, such as (2) on its Fregean interpretation, may be addressed by such a strategy. These examples are supposed to provide non-referring names, and assertions of sentences containing them which express propositions. (I am not agreeing that we can have such a case, but only considering what might follow if we do.) The Dummettian challenge already turns aside the intuitive judgment that these propositions are neither true nor false. It suggests that in so far as a proposition is expressed in an example like (2), it must be false. However, the pro-gaps view might seek to provide an argument that this is not an acceptable answer. Such an argument might be based on interactions with negation. Suppose we have a non-referring term 9 n;, and an assertion of a sentence 9Fn; which expresses a proposition. It is evident that the proposition expressed cannot be true. But it might be held that the proposition expressed by 9:Fn; cannot be true either. If reference failure leads to nontruth, it might be said to do so in either case. But if our only other option is false, then we have the propositions expressed by 9Fn; and 9:Fn; in the same context both false. This is unacceptable, as it conflicts with the fundamental principle that negation must map false to true. It might be argued that truth-value gaps are precisely what we need to avoid this problem. With truth-value gaps, the problem can be solved by appeal to the three-valued table for so-called internal negation:


12:01pm

page 173

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 173 p

:p

T F *

F T *

(We may think of * as a third value, or no value, or in any other way compatible with the two-set view.) If the proposition expressed by 9 Fn; is assigned *, this table shows that the proposition expressed by 9:Fn; should also be assigned *, without contradicting any principles of negation. Thus, having gaps appears to solve the problem. Dummett (1959) observed that we do not need substantial truth-value gaps to make use of this solution. Hence, even if it is the only solution available (which may already be doubted), it still does not give us a reason to require truth-value gaps. Generally, Dummett provides us a way of making use of many-valued logic without admitting substantial truth-value gaps. We simply think of the additional values as distinguishing different ways of being false (or true, if we like). We keep track, for instance, of false-as-the-result-ofreference-failure as opposed to false-as-the-result-of-not-bearing-a-property by distinguishing F and *. We may use this distinction to explain the ways propositions embed under operations like negation, by providing tables like the above. But in doing so, we may still insist that F and * are both ways of being false. So, in assessing a claim, we count both as failure to achieve its intrinsic purpose. We may keep to the twofold evaluation scheme provided by the prima facie case, and still use all the resources of manyvalued logic.19 This amounts to a kind of gap-closing strategy. Gaps are closed by making potential gap values into subspecies of one of the genuine truth values. If there are real examples of Fregean reference failure, as (2) is supposed to be, this strategy may be applied to them to show they do not lead to substantial truth-value gaps. The strategy might be applied more widely. It could be 19 Dummett (1959, 1976) describes this as the distinction between assertoric content and ingredient sense. At the level of the contents of assertions, we still have a binary evaluation scheme, but at the level of describing the ways propositions embed—provide ingredients to other propositions—we may use a ternary scheme. Formally, this is just the idea that in a many-valued logic the consequence relation is determined by which truth-values are designated. Though we have many values, we have two classes: designated values and non-designated values. In the standard three-valued logics, the value T is designated, while both F and * are undesignated. Truth in the sense of the point of assertion becomes the idea of designated value.


12:01pm

page 174

174 / Michael Glanzberg applied to the ‘smidget’ case, but I shall suggest below that there is a more refined strategy that is appropriate for partial predicates. Regardless, this sort of gap-closing technique gives us a flexible way to account for logical phenomena without undermining the prima facie case. It shows one way to have the benefits of gaps, including many-valued or partial logic, without really needing substantial truth-value gaps themselves.

4.2 Partial Predicates Revisited: The Contextual Gap-Obviating Strategy The gap-closing strategy gives us good reason to doubt we will find examples that require truth-value gaps in global interactions between propositions, like those described by logical operators. But what of examples based on partial interpretations, as in (4) and (allegedly) (3)? Above, I argued that partial predicates on the model of (4) do not provide an answer to the Dummettian challenge. It might be replied, however, that there is no other way to explain the kind of behavior they present than to appeal to truth-value gaps. Thus, it might be insisted, there must be gaps, puzzling or not. In this subsection I shall show that this argument cannot work. I shall introduce a second strategy for avoiding substantial truth-value gaps, based on the effects of context. I shall show how we can use this strategy to incorporate the kinds of rules given in Soames’s example (4) in a way that does not lead to substantial gaps. We can explain the puzzling behavior of this sort of example without them. Let us consider again the kinds of rules that might lead to partial predicates; but this time, paying more attention to the role of context. The natural setting in which we lay down rules like those of (4) is one in which the contextually salient people fall into two groups. In the ‘smidget’ case (4), the contextually salient people fall into group (A) of very short people, and group (B) of people not particularly tall.20 We use this division to introduce the predicate ‘smidget’. In this context, this makes perfect sense. But observe, in this context, dividing the salient people into two groups is precisely and exhaustively to classify them. Those that are not in group (A) are in group (B), and vice versa. Relative to such a context, we may use the term ‘smidget’ with the usual purpose of predication: to classify according to whether 20 Soames explicitly says we have ‘‘assembled two groups of adults in the room’’ (Soames 1999: 164). I assume that we do so in a way that makes only them contextually salient, in the case where the introduction of ‘smidget’ seems to work.


12:01pm

page 175

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 175 objects bear some property or fail to bear it. We need say nothing more specific about the point of using this predicate, as in this context, partiality plays no role. It is tempting to abstract away from the specifics of context to conclude that we have thereby introduced a functionally partial predicate. The predicate ‘smidget’ only works as if total because of highly specific aspects of the context. But the rules of (4) appear to work in other contexts as well. They describe an extension (people of height four feet or less), and an antiextension (people of height five feet or more) even in contexts where these groups do not exhaust the contextually salient individuals. As Soames himself notes (Soames 1999: 165), in introducing ‘smidget’ this way we have provided ourselves with an evidently useful, and seemingly meaningful term. As it is a term whose rules introduce an element of partiality, why have we not thereby introduced a partial predicate? We have indeed introduced a term governed by partial rules. When we write out the character of the term ‘smidget’, we will have to build in some partial extensions for it to follow the rules we have laid down. But I maintain that we may accept such terms without thereby accepting substantial truthvalue gaps. Compare the smidget context with a slightly different one. We gather the people in groups (A) and (B) in a room, but also place Mr Smallman in the middle of the room. In such a context, simply pointing to the two groups (A) and (B) would just raise the question of where to put Mr Smallman. If we refuse to answer the question, we are back to requiring some special story about how we are really classifying the individuals, and how we are really introducing a genuine predicate by doing so. The defense of the prima facie case has given us reason to doubt there can be any such story. Whether or not an attempt to deploy a predicate like ‘smidget’, governed by partial rules, is successful depends on the context in which the attempt is made. The examples we have considered suggest that an attempt may be successful only in a context where somehow, in spite of the partially in the rules, a one-set proposition is expressed. The attempt may be successful only if the context obviates the gap between the extension and the anti-extension by rendering it contextually irrelevant. We thus have a contextual strategy for closing gaps. We may allow partial predicates, or other sorts of terms with rules that introduce some partially. In a given context, an assertion involving such a term will only express a proposition—only be a genuine assertion—if the context obviates the gap by rendering it contextually irrelevant. Only if the context allows for the


12:01pm

page 176

176 / Michael Glanzberg partial rules to produce a one-set proposition is a proposition expressed at all. This is entirely consonant with the prima facie case. Any genuine move in the practice, any assertion, will express a one-set proposition. When we appeal to two-set, partial apparatus, we do so only as a way to extract a one-set proposition in favorable contexts. We need not tell any additional story about how a two-set classification relates to the intrinsic purpose of assertion, for these sets will not figure in the contents of assertions. Genuine evaluation for truth—assessment of assertions—is just as the prima facie case has it. Let me offer some suggestions for how context may have this kind of effect. My goal is to make the contextual strategy plausible, rather than to develop a particular approach in full. To fix some details, let 9P; be a ‘smidget’-like predicate. 9P; has an intension [P]: w ! hPwþ , Pw i, where for some worlds, Pwþ and Pw do not exhaust all the individuals in that world. We normally expect a predicate introduced by rules like the ‘smidget’ rules to have a constant character. It does not behave like an indexical, which changes its intension from context to context. So if we like, we can think of the character of 9P; as the constant function from worlds to [P]. Granting that 9 P; has a welldefined character crudely reflects that 9 P; is a well-defined, meaningful term. When we look for ways to obviate the gap between Pwþ and Pw , it will not suffice to look only at the world in which an assertion takes place. Even if in that world there is nothing contextually relevant in the gap, there will be many similar worlds where this is not the case, and they could produce a gappy proposition. In the ‘smidget’ case, suppose among the people in group (B) is Ms Tall, who is exactly five feet tall. It is no doubt possible for her to be a few inches shorter. Now consider the sentence (5) Ms Tall is a smidget. In a world w where she is six inches shorter, the character of (5) produces a gap. To obviate the gap, we have to rule this situation out, even if it is only a possible variant on the context. To see how context might do so, we may make use of (a somewhat simplified version of) the account of assertion in Stalnaker (1978). I have described the intrinsic purpose of assertion as to convey information, or to say that the world is some way. This requires providing a proposition, which gives the conditions that are in accord with the world being that way. A genuine assertion thus divides the possible world into those that are in accord with what we are saying, and those that are not. But as Stalnaker stresses, such an act takes place against a background of information. To convey information,


12:01pm

page 177

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 177 one need only provide it relative to a background of shared information: a background of pragmatically presupposed propositions. This information fixes a collection of worlds that are in accord with the information presupposed, which Stalnaker calls a context set, and which we may think of as the set of contextually salient worlds. To successfully make an assertion, we need only divide the worlds in the context set. How do we divide these worlds? Very roughly, by relying on the characters of the sentences asserted. For a given sentence 9 s;, the character of 9 s; is a function from worlds to intensions. For any well-formed context, the character of 9 s; will have the same value on all the worlds within the context set. Thus, for a given context set C, the character of 9 s; may be assumed to provide an intension [s]C which maps worlds to truth values. So long as [s]C has the value true or false in each world in C (puts it in one set or the other, on the two-set model), it divides the worlds in C as needed. We may now apply this to a partial predicate like 9 P;. For a given context set C, [P]C is a function from worlds to extensions. So long as for any world w 2 C, Pwþ and Pw exhaust the individuals in that world, for the purposes of dividing the worlds in C, 9P; behaves just as if it were a total predicate. Thus, for making assertions in C, nothing additional needs to be said about the intrinsic purpose of classification. This idea may be refined in many ways. For instance, contexts generally provide domains of salient individuals, not always taken to be all the individuals in the contextually salient worlds. We may thus think of a context as providing not only a context set C, but also a domain of individuals IC , presumably a subset of the individuals in each world in C. In such a context, genuine assertions must always be about the individuals in IC . Thus, so long as a predicate like 9 P; divides IC totally (for each w 2 C, (Pwþ [ Pw )\IC ¼ IC ), 9 P; behaves contextually like a total predicate, and we may successfully use it without contradicting the prima facie case. The context I sketched for the introduction of the term ‘smidget’ might be taken to be like this. We are confronted with two groups of individuals, who comprise the set of salient individuals IC of the context. So long as we presuppose enough about their heights, the context set will be restricted to worlds which share the property of the actual world, of the established extension and antiextension of ‘smidget’ exhaustively classifying the salient individuals of those worlds. Using techniques like this, we may do justice both to the idea that the kinds of stipulations like those for ‘smidget’ do seem to lay down perfectly


12:01pm

page 178

178 / Michael Glanzberg good rules, and to the prima facie case’s conclusion that we cannot understand the intrinsic purpose of using a functionally partial predicate. We may have both at the same time. We may have rules that produce partial extensions, and these may well induce correspondingly partial intensions and characters. We may grant that these rules characterize expressions that are meaningful, and may figure into fully grammatical or otherwise wellformed sentences. But we may still insist that successful use of such an expression is restricted to contexts where the gaps introduced by the rules are made irrelevant by the context. We thus understand the intrinsic purpose of using a predicate along the binary lines upon which the prima facie case insists. Once we see how this strategy works, we can see how there may be much more sophisticated contextual gap-obviating strategies as well. We have so far considered only predicates like ‘smidget’, which have their extensions and anti-extensions fixed by context-independent rules. Consider instead the predicate ‘lidget’, which is introduced in a manner similar to that of ‘smidget’. In the same setting as that for ‘smidget’, with the two groups (A) and (B), suppose there is also a contextually salient standard of similarity. Such a standard might be determined by our interest in who could be a basketball player, or a jockey. We then say: (6a) Anyone like a member of group (A) is a lidget. (6b) Anyone like a member of group (B) is not a lidget. As the comparison ‘like’ is going to be context-dependent, we may expect this predicate to have a non-constant character. Now consider again Mr Smallman. A context which fixes a contextually salient standard of similarity by way of our interest in choosing basketball players may well be one which fixes that Mr Smallman is a lidget in all contextually relevant worlds. Likewise, a context which fixes a standard of similarity by way of our interest in choosing jockeys may well fix that Mr Smallman is not a lidget in all contextually relevant worlds.21 The details will depend on a plausible analysis of the term ‘like’, and its relation to context, so I shall not attempt to provide them here. My point is that we need not see context simply as working to rule out individuals as not salient. It may also work with the rules that fix the extensions and anti-extensions of a term to help extend them to cover all the contextually salient individuals. 21 This example is similar to one found in Graff (2000).


12:01pm

page 179

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 179 The result is that if there really are predicates like ‘smidget’ or ‘lidget’, they may be handled by a contextual strategy that obviates the gaps built into their semantics. This has the result that these predicates will carry substantial pragmatic presuppositions, which can lead to failure to express propositions in some contexts. I thus propose to assimilate some of the more troubling cases of gaps to the already familiar phenomenon of pragmatic presupposition failure.22 We now have seen two strategies for accommodating phenomena that may seem to generate truth-value gaps without them. The gap-closing strategy, introducing additional values but counting them as subspecies of one of the genuine values, allows us to use the techniques of many-valued logic without admitting substantial truth-value gaps. This strategy may be used to avoid examples of gaps like (2). The contextual gap-obviating strategy allows us to use rules which introduce partiality into semantic values, but still not admit two-set propositions as the contents of assertions. This strategy may be used to avoid examples of gaps like (4). (Those who find (1) at all convincing may apply either strategy.) This leaves the vagueness examples like (3), which are our next task.

4.3 Vagueness and Determinateness In Section 1 I suggested that vagueness examples like (3) are sometimes taken as the best case for truth-value gaps. In this subsection I shall discuss why the contextual gap-obviating strategy, together with the prima facie case, give us good reason to reject this case. I shall briefly also discuss some related issue about vagueness, determinateness, and gaps. It is commonly recognized that vague predicates are highly contextdependent. This invites explaining away cases like (3) as faux gaps by the 22 There are a number of further issues related to these sorts of presuppositions to be explored. Let me mention a couple. Like most presuppositions, it appears these can be satisfied by conditionalization, as well as by features of the extra-linguistic context. So, for instance, if Mr Almost is just a fraction of an inch above four feet tall, then ‘If everyone were either shorter than four feet or taller than five, then Mr Almost would be a smidget’ appears to express a proposition, presumably a true one. This behavior is common to presuppositions, as has been stressed by van der Sandt (1992). We similarly see ‘If France had a king, the King of France would be a Bourbon’ and ‘If Nader had voted for Bush, he would have regretted it’. I should also mention that I do not think presupposition failure is always sufficient for expression failure. This raises a number of complications, which I do not have space to address here. I have investigated some of them in Glanzberg (2002, forthcoming a).


12:01pm

page 180

180 / Michael Glanzberg kinds of context-dependent mechanisms towards which I gestured in the discussion of (6). A good theory of vagueness along these lines requires much more development, but promising work along these lines has already been done by Raffman (1994, 1996) and van Deemter (1996). A great deal of work on the linguistics of gradable adjectives supports this work, including Klein (1980) and Kennedy (1997). My own preferred context-dependent approach to vagueness is the ‘interest-relative’ theory of Graff (2000). As Graff makes clear, though much of this work does not require bivalence, it equally does not require truth-value gaps.23 In light of this, a methodological remark is in order. To helpfully apply a device like truth-value gaps to highly problematic cases like vagueness or like the Liar paradox, what is really needed is an independent idea of what truthvalue gaps are, which could be applied to explain what is happening with these problematic cases. I applaud such theorists as Soames and Tappenden (1993) for attempting to do so. But the arguments I have given here show why I do not think their attempts, or indeed any account of truth-value gaps, can really do the job. Indeed, I believe the arguments given here show truth-value gaps to be mysterious to the point of being unintelligible. This renders their application to vagueness unhelpful, and theoretically costly. This conclusion is to work in tandem with more specific developments, such as the contextdependence approaches to vagueness I just mentioned (or the epistemicist approach to vagueness of Williamson 1994). The lack of independent justification for truth-value gaps strengthens the case made by such work, while the availability of bivalent approaches to problems like vagueness strengthens the case I have made here.24 There is much more to be said about vagueness, but I think this is sufficient to turn aside the worry that vagueness itself simply establishes the existence of truth-value gaps. Though I shall not say very much more about this matter, there is one further issue that is worth examining, to bolster the case that bivalent approaches to vagueness have the required theoretical strength to succeed. The issue I have in mind is the relation of gaps to determinateness. 23 Graff makes clear that though vague predicates are context-dependent, her theory is not simply a context-dependence theory. I am inclined to agree that there is more to vagueness than context dependence. But all I need to establish here is that the work that might have been done by truth-value gaps in an account of vagueness can be done by context dependence as well. Indeed, it would be enough to show it could be done by some boundary-shifting mechanism, be it context or something else. 24 The same may be said for the non-gap-based approach to the Liar paradox I have offered in Glanzberg (2001, forthcoming b).


12:01pm

page 181

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 181 There is a sense in which we take borderline cases of vagueness, such as (3), to be somehow indeterminate. In contrast, we take clear non-borderline cases to exhibit some kind of determinateness. A person with no more than two hairs on their head would be determinately bald. It is tempting to say that this contrast is what requires truth-value gaps for vague predicates. The status of being indeterminate, it might appear, is the status of a proposition lacking a truth value, i.e. it is precisely the status of substantial truth-value gap. Similarly, it might be supposed that an adequate semantics for operators like determinately requires a gap-based framework.25 At the very least, it stands as a challenge to explain how determinateness operators work without appealing to gaps. I shall briefly indicate how a context-dependence approach might go about accounting for determinateness. Again, I shall be quite sketchy, as I mostly need to establish, in light of the prima facie case against gaps, that we are not left helpless to address the difficult phenomena of vagueness. The basic strategy I shall investigate is to assimilate phenomena of determinateness and indeterminateness to those of situations of ignorance of context. Let me begin with an example. Suppose you join a conversation late, and so are not up to date on all the relevant features of the context. You hear an assertion of (7) It has two axles. You may have no idea what is being asserted, as you have not yet gleaned what the contextually determined referent of ‘it’ is. Ignorance of this aspect of context can make for ignorance of the proposition expressed by this assertion (assuming there is one). But, in some cases, we may work around this. Suppose you know enough about the context to conclude that ‘it’ refers to a car. Then, you have reason to conclude that what was said was true, even if you do not know precisely what proposition it is. How can you do this, without access to the propositional content? One model is this. You have enough information to conclude that any context compatible with what you do know about the context, including that ‘it’ 25 An important example of this is given by the application of partial predicates to vagueness by Soames (1999; Ch. 7 in this volume). It is also typical of supervaluational approaches, such as Fine (1975). A supervaluationist approach to determinateness is also to be found in McGee and McLaughlin (1995), but they also posit a disquotational and bivalent notion of truth, over and above determinate truth (in their terminology, ‘‘definite truth’’, which they identify as a correspondence notion). Determinateness is, as has been much discussed, closely connected with the difficult issues of higher-order vagueness.


12:01pm

page 182

182 / Michael Glanzberg refers to a car, is one in which the proposition asserted is true. We can think of what you know about the context as placing constraints on contexts. Any context meeting these constraints is one in which the proposition expressed in that context is true. (This should have a familiar ring—it is reminiscent of (though not the same as) what supervaluationists say about supertruth.) Now, consider a case where vagueness is more clearly at work. Suppose in this case that you have learned which car is in question. Suppose that someone says: (8) It is expensive. I shall assume, following my brief remarks above, that vague predicates are highly context-dependent.26 In this case, I shall assume that ‘expensive’ is sensitive to, among things, a contextually determined standard of expensiveness. Let us suppose, in this case, you do not know what the standard of expensiveness at work in the context is, again because you are ignorant of some features of the context. But, suppose you know something about the car, say that it is a Rolls-Royce, and that the salient individuals in the context are all philosophy professors. Then, without knowing the precise standard of expensiveness, you may well still be able to conclude that the proposition expressed is true. You may be able to conclude this, assuming that what you know about the context restricts the standards to those in which a RollsRoyce is indeed expensive.27 In this case, we may say that (8) is determinately true. It is true relative to any context within a small distance from the current context (where this distance is set by other features of the context). The idea is that it is determinately true, as its truth is insensitive to the very precise settings that the context may have made. Determinateness is insensitivity at the margins. Ignorance of context does not occur only when speakers join a conversation late, nor is it something that only some participants in a conversation may experience. Cases of common ignorance of context can be built upon demonstrative reference. Suppose I make a demonstration, such that it is evident to all concerned that I succeeded in picking out a unique individual, but no one knows just what that individual is. Then we are all ignorant of a 26 I should stress that there is much in Soames’s account of vagueness with which I agree. Especially, Soames (1999; Ch. 7 in this volume) emphasizes the context dependence of vague predicates. Though I take issue with his reliance on a two-set framework, important parts of his theory can be implemented in a gap-free, one-set environment. 27 This discussion is indebted to that of Graff (2000), which highlights the importance of ignorance of context for questions of vagueness.


12:01pm

page 183

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 183 feature of the context. (Artificial examples may make this vivid. We can construct a case in which we have one man whose identity is obscured by a screen, and pointing to his shadow, say ‘that man’.) One idea for defining determinateness operators, without making use of gaps, is to make use of the ignorance of context phenomena we have just seen. So, we might very tentatively say that ‘determinately s’ expresses a truth just in case in any nearby context, ‘s’ expresses a truth. In the intensional framework I have been using, this might be put as: (9) [Determinately s]C ¼ {wj(8C’ near C)w 2[s]C0 }. As I have sketched it, we should think of a context C’ as being near C if C’ is compatible with what speakers know about context C. Hence, we get nontrivial determinately operators just when we have ignorance of context.28 We can detect the non-trivial aspects of determinateness by looking at speakers’ assertoric behavior. Suppose we have a case in which we are ignorant of the exact contextual settings of some vague term, say again, ‘expensive’. (Say we have screened off some aspects of the comparison class, for instance.) Consider three sentences: (10a) m is expensive. (10b) m is not expensive. (10c) m is not determinately expensive. In some contexts, for some m, we might well find we cannot assert either (10a) or (10b). Even if bivalence holds, we might simply have no grounds for asserting either. But in such a context, we might still be able to assert (10c). If we know there are some nearby contexts in which ‘m is not expensive’ holds, we could assert this.29 28 The determinateness operator I have defined here has one feature that bears additional mention. It is not, in the terminology of Kaplan (1989), an operator on content. This may be seen in (9), where we need to make reference not just to [s]C but also to [s]C0 . The input to ‘determinately’ is not just the proposition expressed by ‘s’ in the context of utterance, but what ‘s’ would express in other contexts as well. Operators like this are sometimes held to be problematic (Kaplan called them ‘monsters’). But I am inclined to see the complexity they introduce as a way to gain some insight into the clearly difficult matter of higher-order vagueness. 29 The theory of Soames (Ch. 7 in this volume) provides for a similar result, in a two-set framework. In that framework, (10a) has gap status, and the determinateness operator thus allows speakers to ‘assert into the gap’. (There is some complication here, as Soames distinguishes extensions and anti-extensions from determinate extensions and anti-extensions. But where they diverge, we cannot report the difference.)


12:01pm

page 184

184 / Michael Glanzberg I should stress that my sketch of a semantics needs to be filled in, and could be filled in by a number of different ways. My own suggestion, in terms of ignorance of context, makes ‘determinately’ in a way epistemic. It is non-trivial just in those cases where we are ignorant of precisely what is expressed by an utterance in a context, but do know enough about the context to determine a range of options. Thus, it is to be understood as an aspect of speakers’ knowledge of speech situations. But formally, the role ignorance of context plays is to place constraints on contexts which define a nearness relation. C’ is near to C if C’ meets some constraints relative to C. Constraints could be developed which are less epistemic in nature, which could yield less epistemic accounts of determinateness than the one I have briefly outlined.30 This hardly settles the question of how to understand determinateness. But it does show that there are resources available that do not rely on two-set views. On my suggestion, determinateness results from stability of truth across small changes of context. Indeterminateness results from lack of such stability. This can be the result of switching truth values across changes of context, even if in each context, the predicate in question exhaustively partitions the domain of (contextually salient) individuals. This does not by itself suffice to reject gaps; the very same suggestion could be made in a twoset framework. But as before, we see how the contextual gap-obviating strategy works in tandem with the prima facie case to argue against truthvalue gaps. We have now seen several strategies for replacing substantial truth-value gaps with faux gaps. Among the faux gaps are subdivisions like * of the genuine truth values, and failures of a well-defined character to express a proposition in some contexts due to partiality. My claim is that we can always explain any Soames achieves this result by introducing pairs of rules for the determinateness operator. The important rule is the negative one, which says that if ‘s’ is not a necessary consequence of the rules of language and the facts, then ‘Not determinately s’ holds. In ‘Mr Smallman’ cases, according to Soames, we cannot assert ‘s’ or ‘:s’, but we can then assert ‘:Ds’ (using ‘D’ for ‘determinately’), and indeed, we have ‘D :Ds’. Soames argues that in fact ‘D’ is partial, making room for higher-order vagueness. This is so, because vague predicates will be defined not just by partial rules, but by families of partial rules which themselves may be vague. Hence, it can be indeterminate whether the negative rule for ‘D’ applies in some cases. On my proposal, we would expect indeterminacy about determinacy just in case speakers are ignorant about features of context which determine the nearness relation. 30 I suspect that the theory of McGee and McLaughlin (1995) could be recast in this form, though they talk about models satisfying constraints, not contexts. Basically, the idea I am entertaining combines elements of their view with those of Graff (2000). I’m not at all sure either would be happy with the combination.


12:01pm

page 185

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 185 apparently gap-requiring phenomenon with a faux gap instead. We have seen how this may done in some important cases, and seen why doing so leaves room for phenomena of vagueness and determinacy. Of course, we have not examined anything like the range of phenomena required to fully substantiate this claim. Yet the strategies we have examined are extremely flexible, so I hope they do enough to make the claim appear plausible. These strategies combine with the prima facie case to make a strong argument against substantial truth-value gaps. From the prima facie case we have general theoretical reasons to see gaps as dubious. From the gap-closing strategies we have some reason to believe we can make do without them anyway. I believe this warrants, with due caution, the conclusion that there are no such things.

5. Pragmatics and Semantics The contextual gap-obviating strategy works on the border between semantics and pragmatics. Mapping this border can be quite complicated, and I shall pause briefly to comment on how the preceding arguments contribute to this task. The Dummett-inspired arguments of Sections 2 and 3 work at the level of what we might call Gricean (or Stalnakerian) pragmatics: pragmatics that concerns itself with what speakers do in using language as an intentional activity. This stands in sharp contrast to the levels of syntax or semantics.31 As I said in note 14, I wish to remain neutral as to whether syntax or semantics describe aspects of a language faculty in Chomsky’s sense, but it does seem that whatever they are, they are not much like the level of Gricean pragmatics. Most importantly for us, concepts like intrinsic purpose should not be expected to apply to them.32 We thus have an interface phenomenon: semantics (whatever its nature) must provide inputs to Gricean pragmatics, and so must be able to interface with pragmatics. 31 We should include here the semantics of indexicals and other context-dependent terms. We thus might describe this as Kaplanian semantics. Of course, there have been a great many developments since the work of Kaplan (1989). 32 Chomsky himself has been notoriously skeptical about including semantic principles pertaining to truth and reference in the language faculty (e.g. Chomsky 1992), though by the same token, Chomsky repeatedly notes that a great deal of what is often called semantics is included. In contrast, Larson and Segal (1995) sketches a view of the language faculty which includes a semantics module, whose rules crucially involve reference.


12:01pm

page 186

186 / Michael Glanzberg Such interfaces can, and do, have complex structures. The gap-closing strategies I surveyed in Section 4 may be understood not only as ways to avoid truth-value gaps, but as illustrations of the structure of the semantics– pragmatics interface. The arguments of Sections 2 and 3 show that at the level of pragmatics, one-set gap-free propositions are required. I granted in Section 4.2 that there is no reason to disallow partial extensions, and corresponding characters, at the level of semantics. Assuming there are such terms, the semantics level may be able to produce two-set proposition-like objects, which are passed on to the level of pragmatics. Pragmatics must then do something with this input which, of necessity, results in a one-set proposition. One option is simply to ignore one of the sets. This amounts to the gapclosing strategy of Section 4.1. But I suggested in Section 4.2 that pragmatics can make much more subtle use of two-set input. The basic idea of appeal to sets of contextually salient worlds is that pragmatics might provide a way to reconstrue what starts out as two-set input as one-set output. The ‘lidget’ example (6) suggests that even more might be done. It suggests that pragmatics might be able to produce one-set propositions that are not exactly the same as either set of a two-set input, but derived from them in some rather complex ways. I believe that there are a great many examples of this sort of interface phenomenon in language.33 They may also be found in our ordinary applications of concepts. Consider law, for instance. It is a safe assumption that certain legal predicates have only extensions and anti-extensions fixed by statute and precedent. We may assume the law works with some partial 33 Let me briefly mention a couple of examples. One more of the semantics–pragmatics relation is provided by words like ‘even’, which have presuppositions and implicatures that do not appear in the propositions they express (e.g. Rooth 1985, 1992). Some recent thought about the syntax–semantics interface also posits information on the syntax side that is not present in semantic interpretation, for instance, the copy theory of movement (Chomsky 1993; Fox 2000). A similar relation is seen between acoustics and phonetics from the well-known phenomenon of categorical perception. This last example is strikingly similar to the sort of gap closing I discussed in Section 4. It is known that listeners are able to make extremely fine discriminations among sounds; yet when presented with speech sounds, they classify them into phonetic categories, and cannot discriminate among them. For instance, when presented with an evenly spaced range of sounds associated with an [æ], speakers perceive it as divided sharply into the three categories [bæ], [dæ], and [gæ], and cannot discriminate among sounds with these categories. Nonetheless, when presented with the same sounds in isolation from the vowel sound, speakers can discriminate between them, but do not perceive them as speech. (Here I follow Kenstowicz 1994. The experiments supporting these claim are attributed to Liberman. Thanks to Cheryl Zoll for pointing out this example.)


12:01pm

page 187

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 187 concepts. But in application of the law, gaps are generally closed. In criminal law, for instance, it is impossible to be neither guilty nor innocent, and there is a general principle that if one fails to be guilty, one is innocent (called the ‘rule of lenity’). Thus, in application to criminal law, a gap-closing strategy like that of Section 4.1 is applied. In constitutional law, or any area where rulings are prospective, the courts may make more refined decisions about how gaps should be closed in some situations. They thus use a strategy more like that of Section 4.2.34 Let me conclude this section with one final remark about the relation between semantics and pragmatics, concerning the notion of denial. The arguments of Sections 2 and 3 do imply that the nature of such a speech act is quite limited. They show that there cannot be a sui generis speech act of denial that is on par with but distinct from assertion. Any such act, I conclude (with Frege 1918), would be simply the assertion of a negation. This does not imply that there is nothing that could reasonably be called a speech act of denial. There is certainly the phenomenon of rejecting an assertion but not asserting the negation of its contents. This can be done in a huge range of ways: the assertion can be rejected as unfounded, as inappropriate, or as misleading (generating a false implicature). As Horn (1989) has stressed, one can even reject the way a sentence is pronounced. I am willing to describe these sorts of cases as acts of denial, but I am doubtful that they really provide instances of a distinct speech act. They are certainly not assertions of negated sentences, but it seems to me that they are rather ordinary assertions about something else. They are about the sentence asserted in a prior speech act, or some aspect of the act of asserting it. I thus follow Horn (1989) in seeing these as instances of metalinguistic negation, rather than as a distinct speech act of denial.

6. Assertion Failure In the preceding sections I took pains to point out that evaluation for truth is evaluation of an assertion—a move in the practice of using language—for success. Falsehood, I claimed, amounts to lack of success. But in light of context-dependence issues, it must be stressed that truth and falsehood amount to success and failure of genuine moves in the practice of using 34 Here I take issue with Tappenden (1993).


12:01pm

page 188

188 / Michael Glanzberg language. These are values that apply to propositions, and as I argued above, they must be understood in terms of genuine moves in the practice that could express these propositions. There is an additional category of no genuine move being made at all: failure to make an assertion. Failure to make an assertion is not the failure of not achieving the intrinsic purpose of the move. It is not making a genuine move at all. This is a kind of failure, of course. As I mentioned in Section 2, it is the failure of an agent to achieve their attendant aim in attempting to engage in the practice. More importantly for our current concerns, it is also failure to express a proposition. The result is thus a faux gap rather than a substantial one. Failure to express a proposition may sometimes look like the expression of a gappy proposition if we do not pay enough attention to context. But in terms of the way attempted moves in the practice are evaluated, they are entirely different. It may be objected that the situations I require to be failure to express a proposition, failure to make a genuine move, cannot really be so. Some of the arguments of Section 4.2, like those related to example (6), suggest that the extent of such failure may not be all that great. The more sophisticated the contextual gap-obviating devices, the less widespread assertion failure will have to be. But I do have to admit there will be some cases of it. In this section I shall defend my view against this objection, and consider more generally the nature of the phenomenon of expression failure. To fix an example, let us suppose we are in a context in which nothing can be done to obviate the question of whether or not Mr Smallman is a smidget. I am committed to holding that in such a context, an assertion of ‘Mr Smallman is a smidget’ fails to express a proposition. Soames (1999) advances an argument against my position. I believe it is mistaken, and seeing what is wrong with it will help bolster the intuitive appeal of my view. First, Soames asks us to compare two sentences.35 Consider again Ms Tall, who is five feet, and so ruled not a smidget by the rules. Compare: (11a) Mr Smallman is a smidget. (11b) Ms Tall is a smidget. Soames proposes that an assertion of (11b) expresses a proposition. If it does, he notes, it must somehow take into account the world in which Ms Tall’s height is just enough different to make her the same height as Mr Smallman. Hence, it does for this circumstance whatever an assertion of (11a) needs to do 35 I have modified Soames’s phrasing to agree with that of example (5).


12:01pm

page 189

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 189 for Mr Smallman as he actually is. Soames concludes that as there is a proposition expressed by (11b), there must be one expressed by (11a) as well. This argument goes wrong with its first premise, that (11b) expresses a proposition. This is an equivocation on contexts. There are certainly contexts in which an utterance of (11b) could express a proposition, and the ones that naturally come to mind are so. If we just add to the original context in which ‘smidget’ was introduced the fact that Ms Tall is in group (B), we get one. However, this does not imply that in a context in which Mr Smallman or other individuals within the gap are contextually salient, an assertion of (11b) expresses a proposition. The arguments I presented above show that in these contexts (supposing we have no other way to contextually obviate the gap), an assertion of (11b) will no more express a proposition than will an assertion of (11a). The best Soames’s argument does is to further articulate why this is so. It might be replied that it is just intuitively obvious that an utterance of (11b) expresses a proposition in either sort of context. Why? I think the basic reason might be that it appears the speaker successfully conveys some information about Ms Tall’s height. It is worth pausing to note how this relates to the idea of expressing or failing to express a proposition. It is fairly obvious that attempted speech acts can have some of their intended effects, their perlocutionary effects (in the terminology of Austin 1975), even if they fail to achieve their illocutionary purposes, or fail to be genuine speech acts at all. You might intend to stop me from walking into the path of an oncoming car by giving me a warning. If your attempt to warn me fails, because fear stops you from making any more than an odd croaking noise, I might still on the basis of your doing so stop in my tracks. It is only a little less easy to see that in some cases, one can convey information without succeeding in making a genuine assertion. You might convey the information that you have a sore throat by making the same odd croaking noise. You might even be trying to assert that you have a sore throat, but be frustrated by the very condition. To take another example, let us suppose, as I think is relatively common, that failed uses of demonstratives lead to expression failure. Suppose I have nothing to drink with me, and someone walks up to me and says: (12) That looks very thirst-quenching. I would love to have some of it. The speaker fails to express a proposition (or two). But they clearly convey the information that they are thirsty. The same information could be


12:01pm

page 190

190 / Michael Glanzberg conveyed by the speaker walking up to an empty water-cooler and looking sad, though. No proposition is needed. With this in mind, let us look again at the failed assertion of (11b). It does convey information about Ms Tall, but that is not adequate grounds to hold that a genuine assertion has been made. Though we learn something about Ms Tall, we are not able to contextually fix what property is being predicated of her. Hence, the attempt at assertion fails. To fail to express a proposition is not to fail to do anything at all. In many cases, it is to do something: something which can have all kinds of consequences and convey all kinds of information. But to express a proposition is not just to do something, or something which makes information available. Practically any act can do that. To express a proposition is to do something in particular. The account offered in Section 2 helps to explain what. It is to perform a purposive act with a particular kind of success condition. Why prefer this act to any old presentation of information? This is too large an issue to deal with thoroughly, but the success conditions for assertion give some form to the idea of describing the world as being some particular way. Merely making some information available is a much looser standard. (12) makes information available, but in a way that fails to describe the world in any one particular way, as it fails to fix the thing of which properties are being predicated. Likewise, suppose I say in a circumstance empty of lime trees: (13) THAT lime tree is yellow. I make available some information: that I somehow think there is a lime tree, that I somehow apply yellowness. If you pay attention to the stress indicated by the capital letters, you will also get the information that I somehow think it surprising for a lime tree to be yellow. But I do all of this without describing any particular thing as being any particular way. I do all of it without expressing a proposition. To exaggerate the situation, suppose I stop speaking part way through, so I only say: (14) THAT lime tree is . . . Certainly no proposition is expressed here. I make much less information available than I did with (13), but the information that I find it surprising for a lime tree to be something is still accessible. Likewise, in certain contexts, (11b) can fail to express a proposition by failing to fix what property is being predicted of Ms Tall, yet still convey information.


12:01pm

page 191

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 191 Finally, let me turn to a related issue: belief. Just as it might have seemed plausible that an utterance of (11b) expresses a proposition in any context, it might be attractive to hold that anyone misinformed about Mr Smallman’s height could believe that Mr Smallman is a smidget. As Soames notes, in so far as belief is an attitude towards a proposition, it appears there must be a proposition to be believed.36 We may reply to this argument the same way we replied to the previous one. Failing to be in a belief state, in the specific sense of failing to be in the belief relation to a proposition, is not to be in no state at all. It is often to be in a state that has some information value. This is a familiar idea in the case of singular thoughts, such as those reported by demonstratives. In reporting on the mental state of someone claiming (13), we cannot quite say they believe that THAT lime tree is yellow; rather we have to say that they seem to believe, or have the illusion of belief, that there is a lime tree present, and it (in contrast to others) is yellow. This is not a genuine belief state, but it is a state such that we can conclude a great deal about the subject. They think (mistakenly) that there is an object present, that it is yellow, and so on.37 Likewise, I must say that the person who says ‘Mr Smallman is a smidget’ does not have a genuine belief. They are in a mental state that provides us with a great deal of information, including information pertaining to the height of Mr Smallman, but that is not enough to conclude that there is a genuine belief of a proposition reported by the claim.

7. Conclusion I have argued that there are no substantial truth-value gaps. The argument works at two levels. At a high level of abstraction, I offered the Dummettian challenge, and then argued that the challenge could not be met by pro-gaps views. At a somewhat less high level of abstraction, I argued that we can explain away apparently gap-requiring examples by some alternative 36 There is some debate over whether or not the objects of attitudes and the contents of assertions should be exactly the same things or not. However, at the coarse-grained level at which we are examining propositions, we may safely ignore this worry. 37 The literature on this idea is quite large, much larger than that for assertion. Perhaps the classic source for the idea of illusion of belief is Evans (1982), developed by McDowell (1982, 1986). Some related ideas are discussed from a more Kaplan-inspired point of view by Braun (1993).


12:01pm

page 192

192 / Michael Glanzberg strategies. I conclude that substantial truth-value gaps are poorly motivated, in conflict with some attractive general principles, and useless. There are none.

REFERENCES A u s t i n , J. L. (1975), How to Do Things with Words, ed. J. O. Urmson and M. Sbisa`, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). B a r k e r , S. (2003), ‘Truth and Conventional Implicature’, Mind, 112: 1–33. B e l n a p , N. D., Jr. (1970), ‘Conditional Assertion and Restricted Quantification’, Nouˆs, 4: 1–12. B i e r w i s c h , M. (1989), ‘The Semantics of Gradation’, in M. Bierwisch and E. Lang (eds.), Dimensional Adjectives (Berlin: Springer). B l a m e y , S. (1986), ‘Partial Logic’, in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, vol. ii (Dordrecht: Kluwer). B r a u n , D. (1993), ‘Empty Names’, Nouˆs, 27: 449–69. C h o m s k y , N. (1965), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). —— (1986), Knowledge of Language (New York: Praeger). —— (1992), ‘Explaining Language Use’, Philosophical Topics, 20: 205–31. —— (1993), ‘A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory’, in K. Hale and S. J. Keyser (eds.), The View from Building 20 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). D a v i d s o n , D. (1990), ‘The Structure and Content of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 87: 279–328. D u m m e t t , M. (1959), ‘Truth’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 59: 141–162; repr. in Dummett (1978). —— (1976), ‘What is a Theory of Meaning? (II)’, in G. Evans and J. McDowell (eds.), Truth and Meaning (Oxford: Oxford University Press); repr., in Dummett (1993). —— (1978), Truth and Other Enigmas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). —— (1993), The Seas of Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press). D u n n , J. M. (1970), ‘Comments on Belnap’, Nouˆs, 4: 13. E d g i n g t o n , D. (1995), ‘On Conditionals’, Mind, 104: 235–323. E v a n s , G. (1982). The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Oxford University Press). F i n e , K. (1975), ‘Vagueness, Truth and Logic’, Synthese, 30: 265–300. F o x , D. (2000), Economy and Semantic Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). F r e g e , G. (1892), ‘U¨ber Sinn und Bedeutung’, Zeitschrift fu¨r Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 100: 25–50; references are to the translation as ‘On Sense and Meaning’ by M. Black, repr. in Frege (1984).


12:01pm

page 193

Against Truth-Value Gaps / 193 —— (1918), ‘Die Verneinung. Eine logische Untersuchung’, Beitra¨ge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 1: 143–57; references are to the translation as ‘Negation’ by P. Geach and R. H. Stoothoff, repr. in Frege (1984). —— (1979), Posthumous Writings, ed. H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, and F. Kaulbach, trans. P. Long and R. White (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). —— (1984), Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy, ed. B. McGuinness (Oxford: Blackwell). —— (n.d.), ‘17 Kernsa¨tze zur Logik’, previously unpub. MS, trans. as ‘17 Key Sentences on Logic’, in Frege (1979). G l a n z b e r g , M. (2001), ‘The Liar in Context’, Philosophical Studies, 103: 217–51. —— (2002), ‘Context and Discourse’, Mind and Language, 17: 333–75. —— (forthcoming a), ‘Presuppositions, Truth Values, and Expressing Propositions’, in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: On Epistemology, Language and Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press). —— (forthcoming b), ‘A Contextual-Hierarchical Approach to Truth and the Liar Paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic. G r a f f , D., (2000), ‘Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness’, Philosophical Topics, 28: 45–81. H i g g i n b o t h a m , J. (1989), ‘Knowledge of Reference’, in A. George (ed.), Reflections on Chomsky (Oxford: Blackwell). H o r n , L. R. (1989), A Natural History of Negation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). K a p l a n , D. (1989), ‘Demonstratives’, in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Themes from Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press); first publication of a widely circulated MS dated 1977. K e n n e d y , C. (1997), ‘Projecting the Adjective: The Syntax and Semantics of Gradability and Comparison’, Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Cruz. K e n s t o w i c z , M. (1994), Phonology in Generative Grammer (Oxford: Blackwell). K l e i n , E. (1980), ‘A Semantics for Positive and Comparative Adjectives’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 4: 1–45. K r i p k e , S. (1975), ‘Outline of a Theory of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 72: 690–716. L a r s o n , R., and G. Segal (1995), Knowledge of Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). M c D o w e l l , J. (1982), ‘Truth-Value Gaps’, in L. J. Cohen, J. Ło´s, H. Pfeiffer, and K. P. Podewski (eds.), Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science VI (Amsterdam: North-Holland). —— (1986), ‘Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space’, in P. Pettit and J. McDowell (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press). M c G e e , V., and B. McLaughlin (1995), ‘Distinctions without a Difference’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, suppl., 33: 203–51. Q u i n e , W. V. (1970), ‘Comments on Belnap’, Nouˆs, 4: 12. R a f f m a n , D. (1994), ‘Vagueness without Paradox’, Philosophical Review, 103: 41–74.


12:01pm

page 194

194 / Michael Glanzberg R a f f m a n , D. (1996), ‘Vagueness and Context-Relativity’, Philosophical Studies, 81: 175–92. R a w l s , J. (1955), ‘Two Concepts of Rules’, Philosophical Review, 64: 3–32. R o o t h , M. (1985), ‘Association with Focus’, Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts at Amherst. —— (1992), ‘A Theory of Focus Interpretation’, Natural Language Semantics, 1: 75–116. S o a m e s , S. (1989), ‘Presupposition’, in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, vol. iv (Dordrecht: Kluwer). —— (1999), Understanding Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S t a l n a k e r , R. C. (1978), ‘Assertion’, in P. Cole (ed.), Pragmatics, vol. ix of Syntax and Semantics (New York: Academic Press); repr. in Stalnaker (1999). —— (1999), Context and Content (Oxford: Oxford University Press). S t r a w s o n , P. F. (1950), ‘On Referring’, Mind, 59; repr. in Strawson (1971). —— (1952), Introduction to Logical Theory (London: Methuen). —— (1954), ‘A Reply to Mr. Sellars’, Philosophical Review, 63: 216–31. —— (1971), Logico-Linguistic Papers (London: Methuen). T a p p e n d e n , J. (1993), ‘The Liar and Sorites Paradoxes: Toward a Unified Treatment’, Journal of Philosophy, 90: 551–77. U r q u h a r t , A. (1986), ‘Many-Valued Logic’, in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, vol. ii. (Dordrecht: Kluwer). v a n D e e m t e r , K. (1996), ‘The Sorities Fallacy and the Context-Dependence of Vague Predicates’, in M. Kanazawa, C. J. Pinõń, and H. de Swart (eds.), Quantifiers, Deduction, and Context (Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications). v o n F i n t e l , K. (forthcoming), ‘Would you Believe It? The King of France is Back!’, in A. Bezuidenhout and M. Reimer (eds.), Descriptions and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press). v a n d e r S a n d t , R. A. (1992), ‘Presupposition Projection as Anaphora Resolution’, Journal of Semantics, 9: 333–77. W e d g w o o d , R. (1997), ‘Non-cognitivism, Truth, and Logic’, Philosophical Studies, 86: 73–91. W i g g i n s , D. (1980), ‘What would be a Substantial Theory of Truth?’, in Z. van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson (Oxford: Oxford University Press). W i l l i a m s o n , T. (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge). —— (1996), ‘Knowing and Asserting’, Philosophical Review, 104: 489–523. W r i g h t , C. (1992), Truth and Objectivity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).


10:17am page 195

9 Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence, and Infinitely Higher-Order Vagueness Delia Graff

Philosophers disagree about whether vagueness requires us to admit truthvalue gaps, about whether there is a gap between the objects of which a given vague predicate is true and those of which it is false on an appropriately constructed Sorites series for the predicate—a series involving small increments of change in a relevant respect between adjacent elements, but a large increment of change in that respect between the endpoints. There appears, however, to be widespread agreement that there is some sense in which vague predicates are gappy which may be expressed neutrally by saying that on any appropriately constructed Sorites series for a given vague predicate there will be a gap between the objects of which the predicate is definitely true and those of which it is definitely false. Taking as primitive the operator ‘it is definitely the case that’, abbreviated as ‘D’, we may stipulate that a predicate F is definitely true (or definitely false) of an object just in case ‘DF(a)’, where a is a name for the object, is true (or false) simpliciter.1 This yields the following conditional formulation of a ‘gap principle’: I am grateful to Alexis Burgess, Michael Fara, Gilbert Harman, and Harold Hodes for helpful discussion of the topics in this paper, and also to audiences at the University of Connecticut, Oxford University, and the University of Rochester where this material was presented. 1 Throughout, single quotes are used for ‘scare’ quotation, direct quotation, name-forming quotation, and also, instead of corner quotes, for ‘quasi-quotation’.


10:17am page 196

196 / Delia Graff (DF(x) ^ D:F(y)) ! :R(x, y): Here ‘F’ is to be replaced with a vague predicate, while ‘R’ is to stand for a Sorites relation for that predicate: a relation that can be used to construct a Sorites series for the predicate—such as the relation of being just one millimetre shorter than for the predicate ‘is tall’. Disagreements about the sense in which it is correct to say that vague predicates are gappy can then be recast as disagreements about how to understand the definitely operator. One might give it, for example, a pragmatic construal such as ‘it would not be misleading to assert that’; or an epistemic construal such as ‘it is known that’ or ‘it is knowable that’; or a semantic construal such as ‘it is true that’. Those who think that the gappiness of vague predicates amounts to a gap between truth and falsity will also accept a formulation of the gap principle as an argument schema without a definitely operator. Since they believe that a verifier and a falsifier for a given vague predicate cannot be adjacent elements of a Sorites series for that predicate, they will accept, for example, that it is not possible for it to be true that x is tall and that y isn’t unless it’s true that x is more than one millimetre taller than y; that from x’s being tall, together with y’s not being tall, it follows that x is not just one millimetre taller than y. Schematically: F(x) ^ :F(y) : ;:R(x, y) In what follows I argue that acceptance of gap principles creates problems for those who maintain that the gappiness of vague predicates amounts to a gap between truth and falsity. In particular, I argue first that ‘higher-order’ gap principles, in their conditional formulation, lead to contradiction when the definitely operator is given a semantic construal; and second, that supervaluationists who accept gap principles in their formulation as arguments must concede that the sense in which they endorse classical logic is more qualified than is typically advertised.

1. The Paradox of Higher-Order Gap Principles Some say that a predicate is vague just in case it has, or could have, borderline cases, where what it is to be a borderline case of a vague predicate such as ‘tall’ (for example) may be expressed using the definitely operator: to be borderline


10:17am page 197

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 197 tall is to be neither definitely tall nor definitely not tall.2 I prefer to say that a predicate is vague just in case it has fuzzy boundaries of application on an appropriately constructed Sorites series for the predicate. The metaphor of fuzzy boundaries can be understood in at least two ways, which are themselves in turn metaphorically expressed. On one understanding, a predicate has fuzzy boundaries of application just in case it has a grey area of applicability. On this understanding, to have a fuzzy boundary of application just is to have borderline cases. On another understanding of the metaphor of fuzziness, a predicate has fuzzy boundaries of application along a Sorites series when there is an apparently seamless transition along the series from cases where the predicate applies to cases where it doesn’t apply. On this understanding, fuzziness is associated with susceptibility to paradoxical Sorites reasoning. I regard fuzziness understood as seamless transition as equally well described using Crispin Wright’s (1975) notion of tolerance—the applicability of vague predicates seems to us tolerant of small differences or changes yet not always tolerant of large ones, which is paradoxical since small changes accumulate. I prefer to think of fuzziness qua seamless transition in terms of Mark Sainsbury’s (1991a) notion of boundarylessness: although a vague predicate clearly does apply to some initial segment of its Sorites series but clearly doesn’t apply to some final segment, the transition from the former segment to the latter seems boundaryless; the transition seems to occur along the series while seeming not to occur at any point in the series. Crucially, the two conceptions of fuzziness come apart. There could seem to be a grey area of applicability on a Sorites series without an appearance of boundarylessness, since a grey area may itself appear sharply bounded. Conversely, there could in principle be an appearance of boundarylessness without there seeming to be any grey area at all. The metaphor of fuzziness may obscure this latter point, since it seems that a fuzzy boundary must occupy an extended region, and hence that to lie within this region is to be a borderline case. To that extent, the metaphor of fuzziness is not entirely apt. The positing of a gap between a vague predicate’s definite cases and its definite non-cases often seems, in theories of vagueness, to serve two functions, corresponding to the two conceptions of fuzziness just outlined. Consider the case of the predicate ‘tall (for a man)’. On the one hand, there are men who seem to fall in the grey area—when asked whether they are tall, we feel that some kind of hedged answer would be most 2 Although I do not think that gradable adjectives such as ‘tall’ have predicate-type semantic values, I regard it as harmless in this context to call them predicates.


10:17am page 198

198 / Delia Graff appropriate; and moreover it seems that no further information would make us feel more confident in answering simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’. These men falling in the grey area are classified as not definitely tall but not definitely not tall either. On the other hand, when confronted (in our imagination) with a Sorites series for the predicate, we find ourselves unable to locate any point marking the transition from the tall to the not tall. The proposed reason for this inability is that between the men who definitely are tall and those who definitely are not are some men who are neither. Thus a theory of definiteness on this picture is required simultaneously to be both a theory of what it is to fall in the grey area, i.e. cause us to hedge, and a theory of our inability to locate a boundary. But we are no more able to locate a point marking a transition from the definitely tall to the not definitely tall than we are able to locate one marking a transition from the tall to the not tall. The push to accept higher-order vagueness comes from requiring that the very same explanation be given for this inability as was given for the first: just as we cannot locate a boundary dividing the tall from the not tall because there are men who do not fall definitely into either category between the men who fall definitely into one or into the other, we cannot locate a boundary dividing the definitely tall from the not definitely tall because there are men who do not fall definitely into either of these categories between the men who fall definitely into one or into the other. So although there is no obvious phenomenon of second-order hedging—anyone indecisive about whether to be indecisive about whether a given man is tall just is being indecisive about whether the man is tall; the claim that a given man is tallish-ish is not clearly even sensible—a theory of definiteness is now on this picture required to accommodate there being not only first-order borderline cases, men who are neither definitely tall nor definitely not tall, but also ‘second-order borderline cases’, men who are neither definitely definitely tall nor definitely not definitely tall. The problem does not stop there, for we also cannot locate a boundary between the definitely definitely tall and the not definitely definitely tall (assuming, for the sake of argument, that we can understand what it would be to fall into these categories). So in addition to our first-order gap principle (in conditional formulation) for ‘tall’, we also have many higher-order gap principles. (DT(x) ^ D:T(y)) ! :R(x, y) (DDT(x) ^ D:DT(y)) ! :R(x, y)

Gap Principle for ‘T(x)’ Gap Principle for ‘DT(x)’


10:17am page 199

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 199 (DDDT(x) ^ D:DDT(y)) ! :R(x, y) .. .

Gap Principle for ‘DDT(x)’ .. .

I will assume that we have classical equivalences governing the interaction of the conditional with conjunction and negation, so that the following, for example, are equivalent: (j ^ c) ! :y and y ! (c ! :j).3 By ‘equivalent’, I mean must have the same truth value, where for the purposes of this definition, a lack of truth value is stipulated to be a truth value. The equivalences in question are accepted by standard gap theorists, such as supervaluationists and also those who adopt the Kleene strong three-valued truth tables. Now, using prime symbol notation to denote the successor of a term in a Sorites series (following Crispin Wright), we may represent our gap principles schematically as follows, extended to cover any number of iterations of the definitely operator, as indicated by superscripts. Gap Principle for Dn F(x): Equivalent formulation:

DDn F(x) ! :D:Dn F(x’) D:Dn F(x’) ! :DDn F(x).

Some principles governing the logic of the definitely operator are uncontroversial, while others are appropriate only to particular construals of it. Some relatively uncontroversial principles are the following: (T) ‘ Dj ! j (K) ‘ D(j ! c) ! (Dj ! Dc) (RN) if ‘ j then ‘ Dj. The semantic construal of the definitely operator, according to which it may be understood as akin to an operator such as ‘it is true that’, leads in addition to a principle to which epistemicists emphatically object: a rule of D-introduction. In its strong form the rule allows one to infer Dj from some premises if one can infer j from those same premises. (D-intro) if ‘ j then ‘ Dj. It is natural for a truth-value gap theorist to accept D-introduction, and in particular (since j ‘ j) to regard the inference from j to Dj as valid, given her construal of definiteness as truth. For it seems impossible for a sentence S to be true while another sentence—‘it is true that S’—that says (in effect) that 3 I’ll freely use symbols, such as : or D, as names of themselves; and also use concatenation itself, rather than the concatenation symbol _ , to stand for the concatenation function so that, for example, Dj ¼ ‘D’_ j (using name-forming quotes) ¼ ‘Dj’ (using quasi-quotes) for any formula j.


10:17am page 200

200 / Delia Graff it’s true is not true. Standard supervaluationist semantics and conceptions of validity such as that developed by Kit Fine (1975) and endorsed more recently by Rosanna Keefe (2000)4 do indeed yield that D-introduction is validitypreserving.5 Crispin Wright (1987, 1992) has argued that acceptance of a secondorder gap principle leads to paradox. Specifically, he has argued that given D-introduction one can deduce from a second-order gap principle— for ‘definitely tall’—the following Sorites sentence: for all x, if the Soritessuccessor of x definitely isn’t definitely tall, then x definitely isn’t definitely tall as well.6 This is paradoxical: a three-foot tall man definitely isn’t definitely tall, so appeal to the deduced Sorites sentence yields that the preceding man on the series, who is just one millimetre taller, also definitely isn’t definitely tall. Repeated appeal to the Sorites sentence yields that the first man on the series, who, we may presume, is 2.5 metres tall, also definitely isn’t definitely tall. But this is false. Any 2.5-metre tall man definitely is definitely tall. With some minor variations, Wright’s deduction is as follows (line numbers in square brackets track premises): [1] (1) [1] (2) [3] (3) [4] (4) [4] (5) [1,4] (6) [1,3,4] (7) [1,3] (8) [1,3] (9) [1] (10) [1] (11)

8x(DDT(x) ! :D:DT(x’)) DDT(x) ! :D:DT(x’) D:DT(x’) DT(x) DDT(x) :D:DT(x’) D:DT(x’) ^ :D:DT(x’) :DT(x) D:DT(x) D:DT(x’) ! D:DT(x) 8x(D:DT(x’) ! D:DT(x))

Premise (1) 8-elim Premise (for conditional proof) Premise (for reductio) (4) D-intro (2,5) !-elim (3,6) ^-intro (7)[4] :-intro (8) D-intro (9)[3] !-intro (10) 8-intro

Dorothy Edgington (1993) and Richard Heck (1993) respond by claiming that one cannot apply D-introduction within sub-proofs. As Heck formulates the response, D-introduction is validity-preserving, but in its presence rules such as conditional-introduction and negation-introduction that involve 4 See also Heck (1993) and Williamson (1994, ch. 5). 5 Vann McGee and Brian McLaughlin are supervaluationists who do not accept D-introduction because they think the principle conflicts with higher-order vagueness, but for reasons different from the ones brought out here (McGee and McLaughlin 1998, forthcoming). 6 Wright formulates the deduction so that it appeals only to a weakened form of D-introduction: if D ‘ j then D ‘ Dj, where D ¼ {Dg: g 2 }.


10:17am page 201

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 201 discharge of premises cease to be validity-preserving without restriction, with the result that premises may not be discharged via these rules once D-introduction has been applied to them or to something deduced from them. I now want to argue, revisiting this decade-old debate,7 that higher-order gap principles lead, given D-introduction, to contradiction. I will construct a new argument, based on the same idea as Wright’s, that is not subject to Edgington and Heck’s criticism. We have a Sorites series of m objects (call the first ‘1’, the second ‘2’, and so on), each R-related to its successor in the series, beginning with an object we can truly describe as tall and ending with an object we can truly describe as not tall. Then the sequence of sentences below begins with a true sentence, while each subsequent sentence follows from the one immediately preceding it either by D-introduction or by appeal to a gap principle (second conditional formulation) and modus ponens. No discharge of premises is involved. :T(m) D:T(m) :DT(m1) D:DT(m1) :D2 T(m2) D:D2 T(m2) :D3 T(m3) .. . :Dm1 T(1)

D-intro Gap principle for T(x) D-intro Gap principle for DT(x) D-intro Gap principle for D2 T(x) Gap principle for Dm2 T(x)

A further argument beginning with T(1) yields Dm1 T(1), after m1 applications of D-introduction. Contradiction. My proof that the truth of higher-order gap principles makes it impossible (given D-introduction) to get from an object that isn’t tall, in any finite number of R-steps, to one that is tall exploits a rather obvious fact: it is not possible for any relation R to densely order only finitely many objects. We can make the point more vivid. Grasp the first member of a length-m Sorites series for ‘tall’ in your left hand; grasp the last member in your right hand. To illustrate that there’s no ‘sharp’ boundary between the tall and the not-tall, you want to move your right hand leftward to grasp a different object that is a borderline case of the predicate ‘tall’ that’s true of the object in your left hand but false of the object in your right hand.8 After one move leftward of your 7 See also Sainsbury (1991b).

8 I equate falsity with truth of the negation.


10:17am page 202

202 / Delia Graff right hand you still have the object in your left hand that is tall, hence definitely tall, and a new object in your right hand that’s a borderline case of ‘tall’, hence not definitely tall. Now to illustrate that there is no sharp boundary between the definitely tall and the not definitely tall, you want to move your right hand leftward again, to grasp an object that’s a borderline case of the predicate ‘definitely tall’ that’s true of the object in your left hand but false of the object in your right hand. Each time you do this, you find you have an object in your left hand of which a predicate of the form ‘Dn T(x)’ is true, and an object in your right hand of which that predicate is false. The collection of m1 gap principles appealed to in my argument entails that you can do this at least m1 times. But you cannot do this as many as m1 times; there were only m2 objects between your hands at the start.9 We should get clear about what exactly has and has not been shown. It has not been shown that there are higher-order predicates of the form ‘Dn T(x)’ for which there is no true gap principle. Let me explain. Compare two Sorites series for the predicate ‘tall’, each beginning with a man whose height is 2.5 metres (definitely tall) and ending with a man whose height is 1.5 metres (definitely not tall). One series consists of 101 men, each one centimetre taller than the next; while the other series consists of 1,001, each one millimetre taller than next. All we have shown is that the truth of gap principles involving the successor relation from the first series must give out before we get to 100 iterations of the definitely operator, while the truth of gap principles involving the successor relation from the second series must give out before we get to 1,001 iterations of the definitely operator.10 So it remains an open possibility that for any predicate of the form ‘Dn T(x)’, involving any number of iterations of the definitely operator, there is some (perhaps very) finely discriminating relation involved in a true gap principle for that predicate. That that possibility remains open, however, has no bearing on the point I wish to make. The point I wish to make is that given a particular finite-length Sorites series for the predicate ‘tall’, involving a particular Sorites relation for that predicate, we are no more able to locate a point on that series marking the transition from the objects of which ‘definitely definitely . . . definitely 9 A related challenge can be posed for Timothy Williamson’s (1994) view that gaps in knowledge rather than gaps in truth value explain our inability to locate boundaries for vague predicates. See Go´mez-Torrente (1997) for presentation, and Williamson (1997) for a reply. See also Go´mez-Torrente (2002) and Graff (2002) for further developments of the challenge, and Williamson (2002) for a reply to those. 10 This has been emphasized to me by Hartry Field, Stewart Shapiro, and Timothy Williamson.


10:17am page 203

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 203 tall’ is true to those of which it is false than we are able to locate one marking the transition from the objects of which ‘tall’ is true to those of which it is false. The truth of higher- and higher-order gap principles for the particular series—involving its particular successor relation—cannot be what explains our inability to locate such points, since (given D-introduction) not all such principles are true. We correspondingly have also not shown that there is no such thing as infinitely higher-order vagueness. I take it that on the picture we’re working with a predicate is first-order vague if, on some Sorites series for it, there is a gap between the things of which it is definitely true and the things of which it is definitely false. I take it also that a predicate is infinitely higher-order vague if it is vague to some order but not to any greatest order. We have not yet said, however, what it is for a predicate to be vague to an order greater than one. I presume that the first-order vagueness of ‘definitely tall’ would suffice for the second-order vagueness of ‘tall’, and in general that the first-order vagueness of ‘definitelyn tall’ would suffice for the (n þ 1)th-order vagueness of ‘tall’. This does not amount to a definition, however,11 since there may be other higher-order predicates, including ‘definitelyn not-tall’ and ‘borderlinen tall’, the first-order vagueness of which would also suffice for the (n þ 1)th-order vagueness of ‘tall’. But we won’t need a general definition for the purposes of the discussion here; it will be enough to have identified the sufficient conditions for nth-order vagueness already mentioned. A gap principle for ‘definitelyn tall’ is (the universal closure of): DDn T(x) ! :D:Dn T(x’). If for each such predicate there is some Sorites series—involving perhaps only very slight differences in height between adjacent elements—that furnishes us with a successor relation that renders the corresponding gap principle true, then, given the preceding considerations, that suffices for ‘tall’ to be infinitely higher-order vague. For if a gap principle for ‘definitelyn tall’ is true, relative to some given Sorites series, then nowhere on that series will we find an object which ‘definitelyn tall’ is definitely true succeeded by one of which it is definitely false. So if for every predicate of the form ‘definitelyn tall’ there is some such Sorites series, ‘tall’ is infinitely higher-order vague. One might think, in light of the foregoing discussion, that at the very least we have shown that if ‘tall’ is infinitely higher-order vague, this cannot be 11 See Williamson (1999) and the introduction to Graff and Williamson (2002, p. xxi) for a general definition of nth-order vagueness.


10:17am page 204

204 / Delia Graff exhibited on any one finite-length Sorites series. Yet we have not shown even that much. What we have shown, using reasoning the typical truth-value gap theorist accepts, is that given a particular Sorites series for ‘tall’, not every higher-order gap principle formulated with the successor relation from that series is true. We have not, however, shown that a truth-value gap theorist must accept that any such principle is false. It is only when a gap principle for ‘definitelyn tall’ is false that we are assured of finding, on the Sorites series in question, an object of which that predicate is definitely true right next to one of which it is definitely false. If none of the higher-order gap principles are false, then no matter how many iterations of the definitely operator we ascend to, we will always find that between the objects that are definitely definitelyn tall and those that are definitely not definitelyn tall are some objects; but since not all of the higher-order gap principles are true, we will not always be able to truly describe these objects as neither definitely nor definitely not definitelyn tall. We can represent the situation in a diagram: 2.5 m.

1.5 m. T (x)

T (x)

DT (x)

DT(x)

DDT (x)

DDT (x)

DDDT(x)

DnT(x)

DDDT (x)

DnT(x)

Given D-introduction, those objects that are definitelyn tall are precisely the objects that are definitelynþ1 tall. However, the envisaged truth-value gap theorist does not always accept arguments by reductio or contraposition of implications. So in particular, those objects that are not definitelyn tall may be properly included among those objects that are not definitelynþ1 tall. (For example, the things that are definitely not tall, and also the things that are borderline tall, are among the things that are not definitely tall.) But since our series is finite, this proper inclusion cannot continue indefinitely. But still, if no higher-order gap principle is false, then for any n there will still be a gap between the objects of which ‘definitelyn tall’ is definitely true and those of which it is definitely false.


10:17am page 205

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 205 This may count as infinitely higher-order vagueness. But what it really brings out is that there is no connection between infinitely higher-order vagueness and the presence of ‘fuzzy boundaries’, properly construed. We could have infinitely higher-order vagueness exhibited on a series of three objects: let ‘definitelyn tall’ be true of the first object, for any n; false of the last object, for any n; and let the middle object be such that for any n, we speak neither truly nor falsely when we ascribe ‘definitelyn tall’ to it. Then we have infinitely higher-order vagueness in the sense that, for any n, the segment of objects of which ‘definitelyn tall’ is definitely true is not contiguous with the segment of objects of which it is definitely false, and in that sense there is no sharp boundary (there being no boundary at all) between the two segments of objects. But there is no sense in which it would be correct to say that there is a fuzzy boundary between these two classes of objects.

2. How Classical is the Supervaluationist’s Logic? I turn now to a different set of problems, directed at supervaluationists in particular, that are raised by gap principles formulated as arguments. F(x) ^ :F(y) ;:R(x, y) Ordinary argumentation makes use of a notion of consequence with distinctively classical properties. So, one ordinary way to argue for a conditional is to assume the antecedent and argue for the consequent from that assumption. It is well known, however, that argument by conditional-introduction for example, or by contraposition or reductio ad absurdum, is not acceptable given certain treatments of vagueness involving truth-value gaps. For those who retain truth-functionality for the sentential connectives and quantifiers, no classically valid formula is deemed valid, since any such formula may have only ‘indefinite’ constituents (or instances, in the case of quantified formulas). Suppose, for example, that the sentence ‘Al is tall’ is indefinite, but that ‘Al is bald’ is false. Then given Kleene’s strong three-valued truth tables (as adopted, for example, by Soames 1999, Tappenden 1993, and Tye 1994) the classically valid conditional ‘If Al is tall then he is either bald or tall’ will itself be indefinite. But still, the antecedent of this conditional is taken to imply its consequent in the sense that it is impossible for the antecedent to be true while the conclusion is not true. So conditional-introduction (if G, j c


10:17am page 206

206 / Delia Graff then G j ! c) fails. Supervaluationists, who eschew truth-functionality along with bivalence, typically claim to have the upper hand here. For them, the conditional ‘If Al is tall then he is either bald or tall’ is true (indeed, valid) since classically true for every way (‘admissible’ or not) of making the vague predicates in it completely precise. The conditional is classically true on any precisification that falsifies its antecedent; and classically true also on any precisification that verifies its antecedent, since any such precisification also verifies its consequent. Supervaluationists cannot endorse every case of argumentation by conditional-introduction, however, but it has been suggested that this restriction on our ordinary deductive practice is acceptable, because it is limited to arguments involving the definitely operator, or similar constructions. According to Fine (1975: 290), the failure of conditional-introduction ‘distinguishes the presence of D from its absence’, and according to Keefe (2000: 178) ‘the cases in which [conditional-introduction and other classical principles] fail all involve the D operator (or similar such devices)’. While in one sense these claims are incontrovertible, there is another sense in which they are false. When relations of consequence other than the rather stringent logical consequence relation are at issue, the supervaluationist must countenance failures of conditional-introduction even in the absence of a definitely operator or any similar such devices. The question whether supervaluationists really endorse classical logic has received a fair amount of attention since Williamson’s (1994, ch. 5) discussion of it. The reason some commentators have claimed that the supervaluationist’s semantics for a language with a definitely operator yields something less than classical logic is not that there turn out to be classically valid formulas or even arguments that are not supervaluationally valid, but rather that the supervaluationist’s semantics for the language with the definitely operator yields a consequence relation that isn’t closed under such classical operations as conditional-introduction, contraposition (if G, j c, then G, :c :j), or reductio ad absurdum (if G, j c ^ :c, then G :j). For example, on versions of supervaluation semantics that endorse D-introduction,12 ‘Al is bald’ implies ‘Al is definitely bald’; but the conditional ‘If Al is bald then Al is definitely bald’ need not be true—it is not true when Al is a borderline case. My focus in this section is on the question whether the classical closure principles fail only in the presence of the definitely operator. 12 Fine (1975); Keefe (2000).


10:17am page 207

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 207 Vann McGee and Brian McLaughlin (forthcoming) have recently contributed to the debate by arguing that commitment to classical logic requires only that discharge of premises be permissible in the case of arguments that are classically valid. No argument whose validity results from the special logic of the definitely operator—or their ‘determinate truth’ predicate, or any other expression not traditionally treated as a logical constant—is required to support conditional-introduction.13 I disagree with their general claim. We who accept classical logic accept forms of argumentation involving conditional-introduction and contraposition irrespective of whether the consequence relation at issue is logical consequence or just our everyday context-dependent conception of what follows from what. For example, if you accept that it in some sense follows from someone’s being a friend of yours that you have an obligation to convey your condolences to him if he has recently suffered the death of a loved one, then you must—it seems to me—accept that in the same sense it follows from your having no obligation to convey condolences to someone who has recently suffered the death of a loved one that he is not a friend of yours. Argument IA X is a friend of yours. Therefore, if X has recently suffered the death of a loved one, then you have an obligation to convey your condolences to X. Argument IB X has recently suffered the death of a loved one. You have no obligation to convey condolences to X. Therefore, X is not a friend of yours. I do not suggest that you must accept either argument; you might think that you incur an obligation to convey condolences to your bereaved friend only once you know about his loss. But that is not to object to my point, which is rather that if you accept that in the A case the conclusion follows from the premises then you must accept it in the B case as well. The converse also holds. The two arguments stand or fall together. Similarly, on the classical perspective, since Sorites paradoxes show us that there is no sense in which it follows from X’s being tall and X’s being no more 13 McGee and McLaughlin have a stake in the issue, since even though they do not endorse D-introduction, they are still committed to failures of conditional-introduction in the presence of the D operator, as pointed out by Williamson (forthcoming).


10:17am page 208

208 / Delia Graff than a millimetre taller than Y that Y is tall as well,14 it also shows us that there is no sense in which it follows from X’s being tall and Y’s not being tall that X is more than a millimetre taller than Y. Argument IIA X is tall. X is no more than a millimetre taller than Y. Therefore, Y is tall. Argument IIB X is tall. Y is not tall. Therefore, X is more than a millimetre taller than Y. Supervaluationists, however (and other truth-value gap theorists), do think that there is at least some important sense in which in case IIB we have a genuine entailment. For they think that on a Sorites series for the predicate ‘tall’, there are borderline cases between those of which the predicate is true and those of which it is false. Argument IIB is an instance of the argumentschema formulation of a gap principle. No definitely operator is involved, but contraposition or conditional-introduction on the argument-schema formulation of the gap principle yields a Sorites paradox.

Background Since I want in this section to spell out exactly what’s meant in saying that the supervaluationist does or does not endorse classical logic, it will help for the sake of concreteness to include a brief presentation of a supervaluation semantics.15 It will be important for what follows that the language for which the semantics is given is a language whose predicates are expressions of English. A supervaluational model (‘model’ for short) is a specification space consisting of one or more specification points, each of which may be thought of as a classical model, including a domain of discourse and an assignment of 14 Richard Feldman has pointed out to me that I should qualify my claim here, since there are inductive or probabilistic notions of ‘follows from’. When I say that there is some sense in which B follows from A, I mean that there is some sense in which the truth of A guarantees the truth of B. 15 My presentation is based on Fine’s.


10:17am page 209

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 209 extensions from that domain to the predicates in the language.16 A formula is true in a model just in case it is true at every point in the model; false in a model just in case it is false at every point in the model.17 Truth value at a point for formulas is defined with the standard classical truth clauses, with the result that at any given point in a model every formula is either true or false (not both).18 A formula is neither true nor false in a model when it is true at at least one point in the model and false at at least one other. So what happens when a definitely operator is added to the language? As before, any formula, including one containing D, is true in a (supervaluational) model just in case it is true at every point in the model. What needs to be added is a clause for truth-at-a-point for D-initial formulas. One might like to say, as Fine provisionally does, that a formula Dj is true at a point in a model just in case j is true at every point in the model. Adoption of this truth clause, however, precludes the possibility of there being borderline cases at even the second order (e.g. borderline definite cases or borderline borderline cases), since it makes it impossible for the value of a D-initial formula to vary from point to point within a model with the result that D-initial formulas are bivalent. To avoid this we first enrich the structure of the models by introducing an accessibility relation on the points in the model.19 A formula Dj is true at a point in a model just in case j is true at every point in that model accessible to it, false otherwise.20 (Truth-at-a-point remains bivalent.) One may add further constraints on the accessibility relation, depending on one’s view of the logic of the D operator. Minimally one should require that the accessibility relation be reflexive, in order to ensure the validity of Dj ! j. Nothing here will turn on any particular 16 Perhaps one would want to allow domains to vary from point to point within a space; perhaps not. Nothing here turns on that decision, but for simplicity I assume invariant domains within a space. 17 In the main text I leave implicit the relativization of truth in a model to a variable assignment. A formula with free variables is true (false) in a model on a variable assignment just in case it is true (false) at every point in the model on that variable assignment. 18 The models here are structurally simpler than those in Fine’s work, where models include an ‘extension’ relation on points and allow for there to be points at which evaluation is not bivalent. Fine’s richer semantic framework allows for semantic theories other than supervaluationism, such as ‘bastard intuitionism’. The simplifications here are appropriate for the supervaluation theory advocated in Fine’s (1975) paper. 19 Not to be confused with the ‘extension’ relation on points in Fine’s models for a D-less language. See Fine (1975: 293–4) for his accessibility-relation semantics for D. 20 Dj is true at a point on a variable assignment, just in case j is true at every accessible point on that same variable assignment.


10:17am page 210

210 / Delia Graff properties required of the accessibility relation, though I make the minimal assumption that it is reflexive. Treating truth as the sole designated value, a relation of logical consequence is defined as follows: an argument from a premise set of formulas to a conclusion formula j is supervaluationally valid just in case every (supervaluational) model in which all members of are true is a model in which j is true. A formula is valid when it is the conclusion of a valid argument with an empty premise set, that is, when it is true in every model whatsoever. In what sense does the supervaluationist’s semantics for the extended language yield (or not) a classical logic? At this point I prefer to rephrase the question by asking in what sense the semantics yields a classical consequence relation. In order for a consequence relation to be a classical one, it must have certain properties. It must, for example, be reflexive and transitive. It must also contain certain arguments in its extension, for example, any argument with an instance of excluded middle as conclusion. Supervaluation semantics for a standard first-order, D-less language yields a consequence relation that coincides in extension with the classical consequence relation. The semantics for the extended language, however, yields a consequence relation possessing some of the classical properties but lacking some others. Any classically valid argument or formula (including, e.g., Dj _ :Dj) is supervaluationally valid.21 Others of the classical properties of the consequence relation are guaranteed by the given model-theoretic characterization of consequence. Examples are reflexivity and transitivity, and, more generally, reiteration (if j 2 then j), and generalized transitivity (if j and D g for every g 2 then D j), hence also monotonicity (if j and D then D j) and cut (if [ D j and d for every d 2 D then j). But, now leading up to the main point, other classical properties are lost.22 Examples already mentioned were failure of closure under contraposition, conditional-introduction, and reductio ad absurdum. To the extent that the supervaluationist wants to endorse such standard forms of argumentation under the heading ‘classical logic’, her aim of preserving classical logic falls short of its mark. Nevertheless, if failures of the classical closure principles 21 The converse does not hold; since D is being treated as a logical constant, there are arguments (e.g. from j to Dj) and formulas (e.g. :j ! :Dj) that are supervaluationally valid yet not classically valid. 22 Williamson (1994) and Keefe (2000) discuss this point in detail. It is also discussed by Machina (1976).


10:17am page 211

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 211 always involved the definitely operator then, as Williamson (1994: 152) puts it, ‘our deductive style might not be very much cramped’. I proceed by proving, first, that failures of conditional-introduction do all involve the definitely operator when the consequence relation involved is the supervaluationist’s strict relation of logical consequence. I then go on to argue that the result must be qualified and that in an important sense the supervaluationist is committed to more rampant failures of conditional-introduction. Suppose that a formula c is true in every supervaluational model in which j and all members of premise set are true, i.e. that , j SV c. Suppose also that there is a supervaluational model M in which every member of is true, but in which j ! c is not true, i.e. that 6SV j ! c. We can prove that some formula involved in the argument contains D. In the model M there is at least one point p at which j ! c is false, hence at which j is true and c is false. Every member of is true at p in M. Now let M’ be the model that has p as its only point. (There is only one such model given the assumed reflexivity of the accessibility relation.) Suppose that D occurs nowhere in or in j. Then j and all members of must have the same truth value at p in M’ that they have at p in M since the truth-at-a-point clause for D is the only one that makes reference to other points in a model. So j and all members of are true at p in M’, so they are true in M’ since p is the only point in M’. Since , j SV c, c is also true in M’, hence true at p in M’. Since c has a different truth value at p in M’ from the value it has at p in M, it contains D.23

More Inclusive Consequence Relations The consequence relation so far under discussion has been a relation of logical consequence characterized model-theoretically: in order for some premises to logically imply a conclusion it must be that every model in which the premises are all true is one in which the conclusion is as well. But among all the models are some seemingly very strange ones, since the language with which we are working is a so-called ‘interpreted’ one containing expressions 23 Were there other expressions in the language, such as a truth predicate, or perhaps an ‘-ish’ modifier, that had truth-at-a-point clauses that made reference to other points in a model, we could conclude only that the argument in question involved at least one such expression. This is what Keefe means by saying that the classical closure principles fail only in the presence of D ‘or similar such devices’ (Keefe 2000: 178).


10:17am page 212

212 / Delia Graff of English. For example, there are supervaluational models that consist of exactly one point, at which ‘Tall’ and ‘Short’ have exactly the same nonempty extension: there are, for example, models in which ‘Tall(Al)’ and ‘Short(Al)’ are both true. ‘: Short(Al)’ is not a logical consequence of ‘Tall(Al)’. But arguments such as ‘Tall(Al), therefore : Short(Al)’ are ones that the supervaluationist wants in some sense to validate, since they express ‘penumbral connections’ between the two vague predicates ‘tall’ and ‘short’. Similarly, there are models in which an ordered pair in the extension of ‘Shorter’ at every point in the model has a first member in the extension of ‘Tall’ at every point in the model, but a second member in the extension of ‘Tall’ at no point in the model: there are, for example, models in which ‘(Tall(Al) ^ Shorter(Al, Joe) ) ! Tall(Joe)’ is false. The sentence is not logically true, but the supervaluationist wants in some sense to validate it. Preservation of penumbral connections is supposed to be one of the main advantages of the theory. We don’t yet have a problem for the supervaluationist, just the makings of one. The supervaluationist might try to forestall the problem by claiming that sentences expressing penumbral connections aren’t in any sense supposed to come out valid on supervaluation theory; they are merely supposed to come out true as a matter of fact. Among all the models there are is one we might call the correct (or ‘intended’, or ‘actual’) model. The correct model is the one in which sentences have the truth value that they actually have.24 (Correctness must probably be relativized to times and contexts of utterance.) Since I am a short philosopher, the sentence ‘9x (Short (x) ^ Philosopher (x) )’ is true in the correct model, though false in many others. The collection of classical models that make up the points in the correct model are those that represent the extensions our predicates would have upon admissible precisification. On no admissible precisification does a pair in the extension of ‘Shorter’ have a first member in the extension of ‘Tall’ unless its second member is as well. In the correct model, the penumbral sentence ‘8x8y( (Tall(x) ^ Shorter (x,y) ) ! Tall(y) )’ is true. This alone constitutes an advantage for supervaluations over a three-valued truth-functional theory on which, due to the presence of borderline cases, the sentence is actually neither true nor false. But still, in addition to desiring a theory on which sentences expressing penumbral connections all come out true, the super24 One way that a supervaluationist might deal with higher-order vagueness would be by saying that although it is true that there is exactly one correct model, there’s no model such that it is true that it is the correct model.


10:17am page 213

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 213 valuationist presumably also desires a theory on which arguments expressing penumbral connections (‘Al is tall, therefore not short’) come out as good in some sense. Saying that an argument expressing penumbral connection has the property that its conclusion is true in the correct model if its premises are is not saying much. Many bad arguments have that property since any argument with a false premise has that property. Instead, the relevant notion of goodness may be characterized as a relativized consequence relation. In addition to the supervaluationist’s logical consequence relation SV , there corresponds to each class C of supervaluational models a relativized supervaluational consequence relation SVC defined as follows: SVC j just in case j is true in every model in C in which all members of are true. ‘: Short(Al)’ is a consequence of ‘Tall(Al)’ relative to the class of supervaluational models that verify every penumbral sentence. My point is that when we consider consequence relations that better capture what the supervaluationist regards as a good argument than the logical consequence relation does, failures of conditional-introduction become far more rampant for the supervaluationist than is typically acknowledged. It’s not that logically valid arguments are sometimes regarded as bad (except perhaps in the sense, not at issue here, of being boring or trivial), but rather that some good arguments, such as those expressing penumbral connections, are not logically valid. I do not intend to single out any one relativized consequence relation that is to be privileged as capturing, context-invariantly, a supervaluationist conception of what constitutes a good argument, or of what ‘follows from’ what. (We may, adapting an idea of Robert Stalnaker’s, think of the class of models to which we relativize our consequence relation as growing or shrinking with the context.) What I intend to show is rather that for at least one supervaluationist conception of what follows from what that can be captured as a relativized consequence relation, conditional-introduction fails in the absence of a definitely operator. Let me proceed by substantiating the point first informally. Supervaluationists, along with many other philosophers who think that bivalence should be rejected in the face of vagueness, think that on a Sorites series for a vague predicate, we never find an object of which the predicate is true adjacent in the series to an object of which the predicate is false. Presumably they do not think this to be the case merely as a matter of contingent fact but rather as matter of some kind of necessity, as the kind of thing you can figure out while sitting thinking in your office. From the supervaluationist’s perspective, this may be expressed by saying, for example, that it’s not possible for


10:17am page 214

214 / Delia Graff it to be true that X is tall and Y isn’t unless it’s true that they’re not adjacent members of a Sorites series for ‘tall’—it follows from X’s being tall and Y’s not being tall that they differ in height by more than a millimetre. (Pick a lesser difference if you think it required.) I hesitate somewhat to describe the entailment as an analytic, conceptual, or a priori one, since it may take some experience interacting with objects and people, reading books, or using rulers to know that differing in height by no more than a millimetre from is a Sorites relation for ‘tall’. Nevertheless, just to have a suggestive term, I’ll call the entailment an a priori one: according to the supervaluationist, X’s being tall together with Y’s not being tall a priori entails that X is more than a millimetre taller than Y. But now consider the conditional ‘If X is tall and Y isn’t, then X is more than a millimetre taller than Y’. This conditional need not be true on the supervaluationist’s view; though never false, it is not true when its consequent is false, X is taller than Y, and at least one of X and Y is a borderline case. One way to see the point is to note that the conditional is classically and hence supervaluationally equivalent to the conditional ‘If X is tall and X is no more than a millimetre taller than Y, then Y is tall’. The thought that every such conditional is true is precisely what leads to the Sorites paradox. On the assumption that the actual heights of people form a sufficiently smooth curve, supervaluationists and epistemicists agree that at least one such conditional must be actually untrue.25 The relevant formal difference between supervaluation semantics and classical semantics that underlies the point is the following. Given the classical characterization of a model (a domain of discourse, an assignment of extensions to predicates, etc.) and of truth in a model, one may associate with each class C of classical models a relativized classical consequence relation CLC defined as in the supervaluational case: CLC j just in case j is true in every model in C in which all members of are true. The classical relation of logical consequence CL is the least inclusive relativized consequence relation, by which I mean the relation obtained by relativizing to the largest class of classical models. Not every class of classical models yields an interesting consequence relation, but since our language is an ‘interpreted’ one, many classes do yield an interesting consequence relation, such as the class of models that verify all analytic truths, or all sentences expressing metaphysical necessities or all those expressing a priori truths. In the classical case, all of the 25 Pace Kamp (1981).


10:17am page 215

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 215 relativized consequence relations, including the uninteresting ones relativized to gerrymandered classes of models, are closed under contraposition and conditional-introduction. In the supervaluational case, however, this is not so, even if we revert to the basic semantics for the D-less language. The point can be illustrated simply by considering an uninteresting consequence relation relativized to a class C containing just one supervaluational model in which j is neither true nor false but in which c is false. In the model, j must be true at at least one point; but c is false at that point (since false in the model) so j ! c is false at that point and so not true in the model: 6SVC j ! c. But still, j SVC c: j is not true in any model in C, so vacuously, c is true in every model in C in which j is true. So SVC is not closed under conditional-introduction. Nor is it closed under contraposition: Although j SVC c, :c 6SVC :j, since :c is true in the one model in C but :j is not. In order to substantiate the main point of this section, I must describe a class of supervaluational models that yields an ‘interesting’ relativized consequence relation for which conditional-introduction fails. Building on my informal presentation of the point, let’s take the relevant class C to contain those models that faithfully represent everything the supervaluationist takes herself to know a priori; more specifically, let’s take C to contain those models that faithfully represent everything that the supervaluationist takes herself to know a priori about a Sorites series. When F is a vague predicate, and R is a Sorites relation for that predicate, no model that verifies both of F(x) and R(x, y) but falsifies F(y) is in the class C. On the simplifying yet harmless assumption that R is not vague, so that R(x, y) is false in any model in C in which it is not true, the relation SVC is not closed under conditional-introduction: F(x) ^ :F(y) SVC :R(x, y); yet 6SVC (F(x) ^ :F(y)) ! :R(x, y), since there will be models in C in which R(x, y) is true, yet which contain points at which F(x) ^ :F(y) is true. In the familiar language of precisification: when R(x, y) is true, F(x) ^ :F(y) can be true on a precisification, but not on every precisification.

Phenomenal Sorites Of special interest are instances of my main example that are connected to phenomenal versions of the Sorites paradox—cases where F is a vague observational predicate, such as ‘looks red’ or ‘tastes sweet’, and where R is


10:17am page 216

216 / Delia Graff an associated observational sameness relation, such as the relation of looking the same as or tasting the same as. Normally, one would say that it follows from one thing’s looking red and another thing’s not looking red that the two things do not look the same; that it follows from one thing’s tasting sweet and another thing’s not tasting sweet that the two things do not taste the same. Conditional-introduction might get one into trouble here, however—that is, if one accepts something that few philosophers would deny, namely, that a thing that does look red and a thing that doesn’t look red can be members of a sequence of things each of which looks the same as the next. For then if by conditional-introduction one concludes that if X looks red and Y doesn’t then X and Y do not look the same, one can further conclude, by classical principles that the supervaluationist accepts, that if X looks red and X does look the same as Y then Y looks red as well. Repeated application of this principle along a Sorites series of the described kind results in contradiction. The last thing both does and does not look red. The argument ‘This looks red and that doesn’t; therefore this does not look the same as that’ has some features worth noting here. First, an epistemicist who accepts what I’ll call a ‘chaining principle’—that a thing that looks red can be connected by a looks-the-same-as chain with a thing that does not look red—cannot accept the argument.26 Such a person, in keeping with his general treatment of the Sorites paradox, will say that the following universal generalization is false: 8x8y ((x looks red ^ x looks the same as y) ! y looks red); and will hence say that it has a particular false instance, that for some particular values of x and y, ‘x looks red’ and ‘:y looks red’ and ‘x looks the same as y’ are all true. On this view the argument ‘This looks red and that doesn’t, therefore this does not look the same as that’ is no good. (I, being an epistemicist who does accept the argument, reject the chaining principle.27) Second, and relatedly, the supervaluationist who accepts the chaining principle is committed to accepting the argument as a special case of her view that verifiers and falsifiers do not sit next to each other on a Sorites series since they are separated by intervening borderline cases. Third, unlike non-phenomenal instances of my main example, the phenomenal instances of the argument seem to be cases of arguments expressing penumbral connections. The argument ‘This candy tastes sour and that candy 26 I thank Alexis Burgess for this forceful formulation of the problem. 27 See my ‘Phenomenal Continua and the Sorites’ (Graff 2001) for a defense. Any epistemicist who thinks there are non-epistemic senses of ‘looks’ should wholeheartedly welcome the arguments of that paper.


10:17am page 217

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 217 doesn’t; therefore the two candies do not taste the same’ has a conclusion that follows from its premise in just the same sense that it follows from one woman’s being tall and another’s not being tall that they are not the same height. But unlike the other penumbral argument we considered—Al is tall, therefore not short—this argument will not on the supervaluationist’s view support conditional-introduction: the associated conditional ‘If this tastes sour and that doesn’t then they do not taste the same’ cannot be admitted as a sentence expressing penumbral connection, unless of course the chaining principle is, as I think, false.

Implicit Premises An important question emerges at this point. Can a relativized consequence relation always be alternatively characterized in supervaluation theory as logical consequence given some (perhaps infinite) set of implicit premises? In other words, when SVC is a relativized supervaluational consequence relation, must there be some set of formulas S, to be thought of as implicit premises, such that SVC j if and only if S [ SV j? We know that if C is characterized as the class of models in which every member of a set S of formulas is true, then SVC j if and only if S [ SV j. The question is whether for every relativized consequence relation SVC there is some set of formulas S meeting the stated criterion. For example, ‘8x(Tall(x) ! :Short(x) )’ is a penumbral sentence, so ‘: Short(Al)’ can be characterized as a consequence of ‘Tall(Al)’ relative to the class of models in which all penumbral sentences are true, or it can be characterized as a logical consequence, given penumbral sentences (though not all of them are needed) as implicit premises. But since we have at this point seen at least one example of an argument expressing penumbral connection for which conditionalintroduction fails, the question arises whether the supervaluationist’s penumbral consequence relation can be alternatively characterized as logical consequence plus implicit premises. It cannot be assumed on the supervaluationist picture that every relativized consequence relation can be alternatively characterized as logical consequence plus implicit premises. In fact, if we restrict ourselves to the basic supervaluational semantics for a standard first-order language without a definitely operator, we find that we have already shown that there is a relativized supervaluational consequence relation that cannot be so characterized. We


10:17am page 218

218 / Delia Graff have shown that even in the absence of D, there is a class C of supervaluational models that yields a relativized consequence relation not close under conditional-introduction, so that for some , j, and c: , j SVC c but 6SVC j ! c. But we have also seen that in the absence of D, if [ S, j SV c then [ S SV j ! c, for all S.28 I say all this as a preface to offering a reply to the main point of this section on behalf of the supervaluationist. I argued that the relativized supervaluational consequence relation plausibly called supervaluational a priori consequence is one for which conditional-introduction fails even in the absence of the D operator. I argued also that if (contrary to my own view) some chaining principles are true, then even the supervaluationist’s penumbral consequence relation is one for which conditional-introduction fails even in the absence of the D operator. In substantiating the point I characterized a class of supervaluational models in a way that made essential use of the supervaluationist’s metalinguistic truth predicate. Noting this, the supervaluationist might like to respond to my point by arguing that the relativized a priori or penumbral consequence relations can be alternatively characterized as a relation of logical consequence plus implicit premises that do contain the D operator. Given the supervaluationist’s extended language and semantics, the class of models appealed to in substantiating my main point can be characterized as the class of models in which the universal generalization of every formula (DF(x) ^ D:F(y) ) ! :R(x, y) is true whenever F is a vague predicate and R stands for a Sorites relation for that predicate. So, the reply goes, the case I offered of a relativized consequence relation for which conditionalintroduction fails even in the absence of the D operator was really just a case of the failure of logical consequence to be closed under conditionalintroduction in the presence of the D operator, with the premises of the argument containing D serving as ‘implicit’ premises. The reply is to the point, but serves as something of a double-edged sword for the supervaluationist. If every worrisome failure of conditional-introduction and contraposition is to be accounted for as a case implicitly involving the D operator, then argumentation involving the D operator is much more common than it would at first appear. 28 In fact, even with the D operator we can show, given the compactness theorem for the classical consequence relation, that not every relativized supervaluational consequence relation can be characterized as logical consequence plus implicit premises.


10:17am page 219

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 219

Implicit Premises and Higher-Order Vagueness But there is a sharper edge to the sword: the implicit premises now being appealed to are universal closures of gap principles, which as we saw in the first section cannot all be true. Before elaborating this point, and spelling out the dilemma it poses for the supervaluationist, we should first take stock of the dialectic so far. The supervaluationist’s relation of logical consequence, when expanded to capture the validity of arguments resulting from the logic of the definitely operator, does not satisfy certain classical closure principles such as closure under conditional-introduction. Failures of conditionalintroduction are nevertheless, it is claimed, suitably restricted to arguments involving the definitely operator.29 I showed that supervaluationists’ own view of what constitutes a lack of sharp boundary on a Sorites series commits them to failures of conditional-introduction, even in the absence of a definitely operator, once we consider consequence relations that are less restrictive than logical consequence—such as the relation I (somewhat tendentiously) called a priori consequence; and also, if chaining principles are true, the relation of penumbral consequence so dear to the supervaluationist’s heart. Examples, respectively, were the arguments ‘Al is tall and Joe isn’t, therefore they differ in height by more than a millimetre’ and ‘This looks red and that doesn’t, therefore they do not look the same’. Since these are the sorts of consequence relations often involved in ordinary argumentation, the supervaluationist who, as part of her advocacy of classical forms of argumentation, wants failures of the classical closure principles to be suitably restricted now has something to worry about. The more inclusive consequence relations were characterized model-theoretically as relativized consequence relations for it which it can be shown that conditional-introduction fails in absence of the definitely operator. On behalf of the supervaluationist, I proposed an alternative characterization of these inclusive consequence relations as logical consequence plus sets of implicit premises, and explained why, so characterized, the definitely operator proved to be involved after all—in the set of implicit premises. It emerged that the crucial implicit 29 Something stronger may be said: a valid argument will support conditional-introduction not only when it does not contain D, but also when it is classically valid. The classically valid argument from Dj to Dj _ D:j does support conditional-introduction. Something even stronger may be said, though I won’t provide a general formulation here, since the supervaluationally valid argument from Dj to j also supports conditional-introduction.


10:17am page 220

220 / Delia Graff premises were universal closures of gap principles (conditional formulation). If the supervaluationist is to appeal to such sentences as implicit premises, then she had better think that they are true. But as we saw in the first section, she cannot think they are all true, on pain of contradiction. I’ll close by posing the following dilemma for the supervaluationist who accepts the validity of D-introduction. If she thinks that there is infinitely higher-order vagueness, in particular if she thinks that for any n, there is a gap on a Sorites series (even one of finite length) between the things of which Dn F(x) is definitely true and those of which it is definitely false, then she is committed to the validity (in some inclusive sense) of the argument from Dn F(x) and :Dn F(y) to :R(x, y), for any n. This is an argument for which conditional-introduction fails, and its validity cannot be alternatively characterized as logical consequence plus implicit premises the supervaluationist accepts as true, since we saw at the outset that for some m, the corresponding gap principle is not true. In the case where n ¼ 0, we have an argument for which contraposition and conditional-introduction fail even in the absence of a definitely operator. And since nth-order vagueness turns out not to be so intimately connected with nth-order gap principles, it is unclear why the supervaluationist should think that first-order vagueness is best expressed by a first-order gap principle. For, as we saw, nth-order vagueness can be secured by the non-falsity of an nth-order gap principle, which on the view under discussion cannot be equated with its truth. If the supervaluationist does not think that there is infinitely higher-order vagueness, in particular, if for some n, she accepts a sharp boundary (no gap) between the things of which Dn F(x) is true and those of which it is false, then it is unclear what her motivation is for rejecting such a boundary at the first level.

REFERENCES E d g i n g t o n , D. (1993), ‘Wright and Sainsbury on Higher-Order Vagueness’, Analysis, 53/4: 193–200. F i n e , K. (1975), ‘Vagueness, Truth and Logic’, Synthese, 30: 265–300. G o´ m e z - T o r r e n t e , M. (1997), ‘Two Problems for an Epistemicist View of Vagueness’, in E. Villanueva (ed), Philosophical Issues, viii: Truth (Atascadero, Calif.: Ridgeview). —— (2002), ‘Vagueness and Margin for Error Principles’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 64/1: 107–25.


10:17am page 221

Gap Principles, Penumbral Consequence / 221 G r a f f , D. (2001), ‘Phenomenal Continua and the Sorites’, Mind, 110/440: 905–35. —— (2002), ‘An Anti-epistemicist Consequence of Margin for Error Semantics for Knowledge’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 64/1: 127–42. —— and T. Williamson (eds.) (2002), Vagueness (Burlington, Vt.: International Research Library of Philosophy, Ashgate). H e c k , R. G., Jr. (1993), ‘A Note on the Logic of (Higher-Order) Vagueness’, Analysis, 53/4: 201–8. K a m p , H. (1981), ‘The Paradox of the Heap’, in U. Mo¨nnich (ed), Aspects of Philosophical Logic (Dordrecht: Reidel). K e e f e , R. (2000), Theories of Vagueness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). M c G e e , V., and B. Mc La u g h l i n (1998), ‘Review of Timothy Williamson’s Vagueness’, Linguistics and Philosophy, 21: 221–35. —— —— (forthcoming), ‘Logical Commitment and Semantic Indeterminacy: A Reply to Williamson’, Linguistics and Philosophy. M a c h i n a , K. F. (1976), ‘Truth, Belief, and Vagueness’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 5: 47–78. S a i n s b u r y , R. M. (1991a), Concepts without Boundaries, King’s College London, Department of Philosophy, Inaugural lecture delivered 6 Nov. 1990. —— (1991b), ‘Is there Higher-Order Vagueness?’, Philosophical Quarterly, 41/163: 167–82. S o a m e s , S. (1999), Understanding Truth (New York: Oxford University Press). T a p p e n d e n , J. (1993), ‘The Liar and Sorites Paradoxes: Toward a Unified Treatment’, Journal of Philosophy, 90/11: 551–77. T y e , M. (1994), ‘Sorites Paradoxes and the Semantics of Vagueness’, Philosophical Perspectives, 8: 189–206. W i l l i a m s o n , T. (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge). —— (1997), ‘Imagination, Stipulation and Vagueness’, in E. Villanueva (ed), Philosophical Issues, viii: Truth (Atascadero, Calif.: Ridgeview). —— (1999), ‘On the Structure of Higher-Order Vagueness’, Mind, 108/429: 127–43. —— (2002), ‘Epistemicist Models: Comments on Go´mez-Torrente and Graff ’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 64/1: 143–50. —— (forthcoming), ‘Reply to McGee and McLaughlin’, Linguistics and Philosophy. W r i g h t , C. (1975), ‘On the Coherence of Vague Predicates’, Synthese, 30: 325–65. —— (1987), ‘Further Reflections on the Sorites Paradox’, Philosophical Topics, 15: 227–90. —— (1992), ‘Is Higher-Order Vagueness Coherent?’, Analysis, 52/3: 129–39.


10:17am page 222


10:18am page 223

II SEMANTIC PARADOXES


10:18am page 224


10:18am page 225

10 A Definite No-No Roy A. Sorensen

From the summit of Delia Graff ’s ‘Infinitely Higher-Order Vagueness’ (Graff 2003), I spied a curiosity nestled in the valley below. I was primed by Professor Graff ’s high-altitude discussion of the relationship between definite operators and rules of inference. The puzzle I will discuss below echoes her interests; it raises, in miniature, an issue about the relationship between definiteness and proof. Since those presiding over this conference gave commentators wide latitude in their responses, I will not resist the temptation to lower the level of discussion.

1. Indefinite Denial In Greek mythology Acrisius and Proetus are twins who quarrel in the womb. Since Acrisius and Proetus were not fully formed beings, their dispute is of an indefinite nature. I name the following pair of denials in their honor: acrisius. Proetus is not definitely true.

proetus. Acrisius is not definitely true.

I have given each sentence ‘‘equal billing’’ to ensure that they are asserted in parallel. Neither is the ‘‘first’’ sentence. Consequently, there is no difference in their context or level of truth or level of determinacy. There is no principled way of assigning a different subscript to Acrisius’ use of ‘true’ than Proetus’ use of ‘true’.


10:18am page 226

226 / Roy A. Sorensen Acrisius and Proetus are outwardly oriented. Neither sentence undermines itself. Neither sentence supports itself. Acrisius and Proetus merely deny another sentence. Acrisius and Proetus are mild caveats. You should certainly think twice before denying that Acrisius and Proetus are true. The untruth of one implies the definite truth of the other. Thus the logic of definiteness prevents us from assigning falsehood to both sentences (or an intermediate degree of truth or truth-value gaps). Happily the logic of definiteness seems to tolerate any other assignment of truth-values.

2. Symmetry and the Definite Operator However, the symmetry of the two sentences is destabilizing. We have the following feeling: As twins, Acrisius and Proetus should have matching truthvalues (or should be equally bereft of truth-values). Since we have already ruled out the possibility that both are untruths, we conclude that Acrisius and Proetus are both true. The truth of the pair is no problem in itself. But there is an ironical difficulty in us possessing such a tidy argument that Acrisius and Proetus are true. The discovery of a proof for a proposition is generally regarded as a sufficient condition for that proposition being definitely true. Since Acrisius and Proetus each deny that the other is definitely true, they would each be false if proven true. Strangely, any cogent argument to the effect that both sentences are true must backfire. Acrisius and Proetus have relatives that are triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, and so forth. Let us reason about them abstractly: (1) (2) . . . (n1) (n)

Statement 2 is not definitely true. Statement 3 is not definitely true.

Statement n is not definitely true. Statement 1 is not definitely true.

The symmetry principle implies that all the members of the sequence are true or none of the members are true. If none are true, then they are all definitely true (because each would be described as definitely true by some


10:18am page 227

A Definite No-No / 227 true member of the sequence). So if none are true, then they are all true. Therefore, they are all true. But this is a proof that all are true. So all of the sentences must be definite truths. Yet each member of the sequence says of another that it is not definitely true. Contradiction. Returning to Greek mythology, Maia was the eldest of the Pleiades (the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione). She was so shy that she lived alone in a cave. If we let n ¼ 1 in above sequence, we obtain a sentence suited to be her namesake: (Maia) Maia is not definitely true. If Maia is false, then Maia is definitely true. But definite truth implies truth. Therefore, Maia is true. This proof that Maia is true ensures that Maia is a definite truth. But Maia says Maia is not definitely true. Contradiction. Maia is more open to traditional therapies associated with the Liar paradox: the ban on self-reference, indexical theories of ‘true’, etc. Weak variations of puzzles are helpful stepping stones for diagnosis. But to test the adequacy of a solution, we should revert to Maia’s stouter cousins.

3. The No-No Acrisius and Proetus can trace their lineage to Jean Buridan’s eighth sophism. Socrates says: (8.0) What Plato is saying is false. Plato says ‘What Socrates is saying is false’. Neither Socrates nor Plato says anything further. Buridan excludes the T–F and F–T assignments because they do not respect the symmetry of the sentences. He reviews the apparent difficulty in assigning sentences the same truth-value. Nevertheless, Buridan concludes both are false. He appeals to an infallible principle: ‘‘any proposition that in conjunction with something true entails something false, is itself false’’ (Hughes 1982: 73) If 8.0 were true then the negation of Plato’s remark would be true and that truth would imply the falsehood of 8.0. Notice that Buridan’s infallible principle is not triggered for Acrisius and Proetus. If Acrisius is true then the conjunction of Acrisius and Proetus would only imply that Acrisius is an indefinite truth. In earlier ruminations (Sorensen 2001, ch. 11) I dubbed an inadvertently improved version of Buridan’s eighth sophism ‘‘the no-no paradox’’. That


10:18am page 228

228 / Roy A. Sorensen would make Acrisius and Proetus a definite no-no paradox. I now think there is a family of no-nos paralleling the family of Liar paradoxes. There is a possible no-no (modeled on Post 1970), a knower no-no (Sorensen 2002), and a probable no-no (in which each pair denies that the other is probable). My solution to the no-frills no-no was to reject the symmetry principle. The thought was that just as the supervaluationist postulates truth-value gaps, classical logic can have truth-maker gaps—statements that have unforced truth-values. One of the sentences is true and the other is false. Since they are ungrounded, there is no way to tell which is the truth and which is the falsehood. One might extend this solution to the definite no-no. All definite truths have truth-makers but the meta-statement ‘It is definitely true that p’ may itself lack a truth-maker. What makes it true that p need not make it definitely true. Unlike the no-no, both members of the definite no-no can be true. The definite no-no uses more premises than the no-no. So one might solve the definite no-no by challenging the connection between proof and definiteness. As a first step, one might deny that proof that p implies that it is definitelyn true that p. As the definite operator is iterated, it becomes more demanding. Perhaps a proof that makes p definitely true need not make p definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely true. After all, the following pair of awkward sentences seem less fractious than Acrisius and Proetus: (M) N is not definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely true. (N) M is not definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely true. As before, we cannot consistently say the pair are untruths. Symmetry precludes one from being true while the other is false. If this is proof that M and N are true, then it may be a proof that makes M and N definitely true without making them definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely true. If proofs vary in their definitude, then perhaps there are proofs that fail at the first stage: they prove p without making p definitely true. Many sound arguments are incapable of increasing warrant for their conclusions, for instance, circular arguments and some slippery slope arguments. If ‘definite’ is sensitive to warrant (as it is under an epistemicist reading


10:18am page 229

A Definite No-No / 229 of ‘definite’ as knowable), then an epistemically sterile proof that p would fail to make p definite. Epistemicists can admire this solution from a distance. They interpret ‘definite’ as akin to ‘knowable’. An epistemicist can take the further step of admitting that proof is a good way of making propositions knowable while denying that it is universally effective. Some proofs are too complicated or too long or otherwise inaccessible to yield knowledge of their conclusions. The logicist’s proof that a million plus a million equals 2 million is criticized in this spirit. The proof is sound but too long to give a human being extra warrant for the conclusion. Obviously, no knowledge can be gleaned from a proof that a proposition is both true but unknowable. Perhaps this is a wake-up call to oversimplistic epistemologies of proof. If this is the solution to the definite no-no paradox, then it is a solution that we can never know. My point is only to raise the solution as a possibility—an instructive possibility in the eyes of the epistemicist.

REFERENCES G r a f f , D e l i a (2003), ‘Infinitely Higher-Order Vagueness (and Other Problems for Supervaluationists)’, in JC Beall (ed.), Liars and Heaps (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 195–221. H u g h e s , G. E. (1982), John Buridan on Self-Reference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). P o s t , J o h n F. (1970), ‘The Possible Liar’, Nouˆs, 4: 405–9. S o r e n s e n , R o y (2001), Vagueness and Contradiction (Oxford: Clarendon Press). —— (2002), ‘Formal Problems in Epistemology’, in Paul Moser (ed.), The Handbook of Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 539–68.


10:18am page 230

11 Reference and Paradox Keith Simmons

Consider the phrase (B) the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables. There are only finitely many syllables of English. And so there are only finitely many phrases of English with fewer than nineteen syllables. But there are infinitely many integers, so there are integers not nameable by any phrase of English with fewer than nineteen syllables. And among these integers there is a least, call it k. Then the phrase B denotes the integer k. But the phrase B itself has eighteen syllables. So the number not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables is denoted by a phrase with eighteen syllables. We have a contradiction, and we are landed in paradox. This is Berry’s paradox, presented by Berry in a letter to Russell in 1904. (Russell, by the way, says that the Berry phrase B denotes 111,777.1) Berry’s paradox is one of the so-called paradoxes of definability—the others are Richard’s paradox and Ko¨nig’s paradox, both discovered in 1905, within a month of each other. It should be said that the label ‘paradoxes of definability’ is unfortunate. These paradoxes do not turn on the notion of definition in any ordinary sense of ‘definition’, and there’s nothing particularly modal going on. Rather, the paradoxes turn on the notion of reference or denotation, the relation between a referring expression and its referent. This is one of the fundamental semantic relations, along with the relation between a predicate and its extension, and a sentence and its truth value. So like Russell’s paradox 1 Berry’s paradox is reported in Russell (1908).


10:18am page 231

Reference and Paradox / 231 about extensions and the Liar paradox about truth, the paradoxes of definability suggest that we do not have an adequate understanding of our basic semantic concepts. Now, attention has been lavished on the Liar and Russell’s paradox, while the paradoxes of definability have largely taken a back seat. So in this paper I’d like to redress the balance a little. The semantic notion of reference or denotation is no less fundamental than that of truth—indeed, arguably it’s more fundamental—and we should attend to the paradoxes of denotation just as urgently as we attend to the Liar.

1. A Simple Paradox of Denotation It will help if we work with a simple paradox of denotation, much simpler than the Berry. The story goes as follows. Suppose I’ve just passed by a colleague’s office, and I see denoting phrases on the board there. That puts me in the mood to write denoting phrases of my own, and so I enter an adjacent room, and write on the board the following expressions: pi six the sum of the numbers denoted by expressions on the board in room 213. Now I am in fact in room 213, though I believe that room 213 is my colleague’s office. I set you the task of providing the denotations of these expressions. You respond as follows: But we’re in room 213! It’s clear what the first two phrases denote. But what about the third? Let’s call your third phrase P. Suppose P denotes the number k. Now, P denotes k if and only if the sum of the numbers denoted by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. So it follows that the sum of the numbers denoted by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. But then k ¼ p þ 6 þ k, which is absurd. So P is pathological— it appears to denote a number but it doesn’t, on pain of contradiction. You continue: And now, since P does not denote a number, the only expressions on the board that do denote numbers are the first two. But then the sum of the numbers denoted by expressions on the board in room 213 is p þ 6.


10:18am page 232

232 / Keith Simmons You conclude: In the previous sentence, there is a token of the same type as P, call it P*. And P* does denote a number, namely p þ 6. There’s something remarkable about this discourse. You establish that P is pathological, but the reasoning does not stop there. You reason past pathology. By reasoning that is natural and intuitively valid, you reach a phrase, P*, composed of the very same words as P, with the very same meaning. And yet, while P fails to denote, P* succeeds. We can repeat the words of a pathological denoting phrase and successfully denote. This phenomenon calls for explanation. There is another way you could have continued. Instead of repeating P, you could revisit P: And now if P does not denote a number, then the only expressions on the board that do denote numbers are the first two. But now attend to the words on the board that make up the phrase P. They make reference to the phrases on the board that denote numbers, and the only phrases that do so are the first two. And the sum of those numbers is p þ 6. And now you conclude: So P denotes p þ 6. Again, something remarkable happens: you reason past the pathology of P, and find, by natural and intuitive reasoning, that P does denote. How can one and the same phrase be pathological and yet successfully refer? Again, an explanation is called for. (In their neglected writings on the definability paradoxes, Richard, Peano, and Poincare´ show sensitivity to the fact that we can repeat and revisit pathological phrases.2) So we want to explain these two stretches of discourse, one in which we repeat P, and the second in which we revisit P. In each case, your reasoning is natural and intuitive, and appears to be valid. We should not block it by artificial, ad hoc means. Since the reasoning is natural, I would rather regard it as data that express semantic intuitions we have about the notion of denotation or reference. My strategy will be to find a plausible analysis that preserves the validity of the reasoning, and respects the data. And, I want to 2 See Peano (1906); Poincare´ (1906, 1909); Richard (1905, 1907). For a discussion, see Simmons (1994).


10:18am page 233

Reference and Paradox / 233 suggest, the explanation must be a pragmatic one, at least in the sense that the notion of context will play a crucial role. Given P and P*, two tokens of the same type, how can one fail to refer and the other succeed? Or given the phrase P, how can its semantic status change in the course of your reasoning? A natural response is this: because of some change in the context. So I shall be claiming that there are context-changes within our discourses. And I shall also be claiming that the term ‘denotes’ is sensitive to those changes. But let us first consider context-change and discourse analysis more generally.

2. Context-Change and Discourse Analysis We are all familiar with indexical terms, like ‘I’, ‘now’, ‘here’, and so on. It’s a familiar idea that context acts on content. But it is increasingly being recognized that this is not a one-way street. The reverse direction holds as well: content acts on context. Stalnaker writes: context constrains content in systematic ways. But also, the fact that a certain sentence is uttered, and a certain proposition expressed, may in turn constrain or alter the context. . . . There is thus a two-way interaction between contexts of utterance and contents of utterances.3

Or as Isard puts it: Utterances do more than merely display themselves before a context and then Vanish. They alter the context and become part of it.4

At a given point in a conversation or discourse, the context will in part depend on what has been said before. For example, the context may change as new information is added by the participants in the conversation. Over the last twenty years or so the kinematics of context-change has been studied by philosophers, linguists and semanticists alike—for example, by Stalnaker, Lewis, Heim, Kamp, Reinhart, Grosz and Sidner, and many others.5 According to Stalnaker, the connection between context and available information is very tight indeed. Stalnaker says that a context should be 3 Stalnaker (1999b: 66). 4 Isard (1975: 287). 5 I am grateful to Zoltań Szabo´ for emphasizing the relevance of Stalnaker’s work to my account of the Liar. Glanzberg (2001) also stresses the relevance to the Liar of context-change and discourse analysis.


10:18am page 234

234 / Keith Simmons identified with the body of information that is presumed to be available to the participants in the speech situation—the ‘common ground’, to use a phrase from Grice, or the shared presuppositions of the participants. As new utterances are produced, and new information is made available, the context changes. To keep track of these context-changes, then, we need a running record of the information provided in the course of the conversation. Lewis works with a related notion of the conversational score. The analogy is with a baseball score. A baseball score for Lewis is composed of a set of 7 numbers that indicate, for a given stage of the game, how many runs each team has, which half of which innings we’re in, and the number of strikes, balls, and outs. Notice that correct play depends on the score—what is correct play after two strikes differs from what is correct play after three strikes. Similarly for conversations: the correctness of utterances (their truth, or their acceptability in some other respect) depends on the conversational score. Lewis identifies a number of components of a conversational score. One is the set of shared presuppositions of the participants, the common ground. Here Lewis follows Stalnaker. As Lewis puts it: ‘‘Presuppositions can be created or destroyed in the course of a conversation.’’6 As the set of presuppositions changes, the conversational score changes. Of course, the notion of conversational score is a vivid way of capturing the notion of context. A change in the set of presuppositions is a change of context. Another component of conversational score, according to Lewis, is the standard of precision that is in force at a given stage of the discourse. Suppose I say ‘France is hexagonal’. If you have just said ‘Italy is boot-shaped’, and got away with it, then your utterance is true enough. The standards of precision are sufficiently relaxed. But if you have just denied that Italy is boot-shaped, and carefully pointed out the differences, then my utterance is far from true enough—the standards of precision are too exacting. The acceptability of what I say here depends on the conversational score, on the context, which is determined by what has been said before. In both Stalnaker and Lewis we find the idea of tracking context-change by keeping a running record of shifts in the information presumed to be available to the conversants. A number of linguists have also developed this idea. For example, in Irene Heim’s file change semantics, a ‘file’ contains all the information that has been conveyed up to that point—and the file is continu6 Lewis (1983a: 233).


10:18am page 235

Reference and Paradox / 235 ally updated as the discourse moves on. The same basic idea informs Grosz and Sidner’s theory of discourse structure and their notion of a focus space, and also Tanya Reinhart’s analysis of sentence topics. The distinction in linguistics between given information and new information is also relevant here. For example, Chafe characterizes given information as the ‘‘knowledge which the speaker assumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the utterance’’, and new information as ‘‘what the speaker assumes he is introducing into the addressee’s consciousness by what he says’’.7 Context-change will be marked by the introduction of new information.

3. Context-Change and the Denotation Discourse Let’s go back to the denotation discourses. Consider first the repeating discourse. It is natural to divide the discourse into four segments: first, where I produce the tokens on the board; second, where you argue to the conclusion that P is pathological and does not denote; third, where you build on that conclusion and produce P*; and fourth, where you reflect on P* and conclude that it does denote. We can identify changes in the common ground as this discourse progresses. For example, there is a change in our shared presuppositions as we move from the first segment of the discourse to the second. Your assertion that we are in room 213 changes the context: it provides new information and a change in the common ground. There is also a crucial difference between the first and second segments on the one hand, and the third and fourth on the other. The culmination of the reasoning of the second segment is the proposition that P is pathological and does not denote. This proposition is part of the common ground for the third and fourth segments. Throughout these subsequent segments, we are presupposing that P is pathological and does not denote. So in the transition from the second segment to the third, there is a shift in the context—there is a change in the body of information that is presumed to be available to us. It is this context-change that I want to focus on—the one that occurs as we move from the second segment to the third and fourth. I shall call the new context reflective with respect to P. In general, a context associated with a given stage of a discourse is reflective with respect to a given expression if at that stage it is part of the common ground that the expression is semantically pathological (and 7 Chafe (1976: 30).


10:18am page 236

236 / Keith Simmons so does not denote—or isn’t true, or does not have an extension). So as we move from the second segment to the third and fourth, there is a change in the conversational score—a shift from an unreflective context to a reflective one. We see exactly the same shift in the case of the revisiting discourse. There too we shift to a context that is reflective with respect to P.

4. The Action of Context on Content Thus far, we have seen that content acts on context—newly available information changes the context. But there is a two-way interaction between context and content—context also acts on content. So now we want to see how the changes in context affect content. Remember the challenge posed by the repeating discourse: P and P* are composed of the very same words with the very same meaning, and yet one fails to denote while the other denotes a definite number (p þ 6). Somehow the change in context produces this phenomenon, and our task is to explain how. Now if the context acts on content, we would expect at least one expression in the discourse to be sensitive in some way to context-change. I want to claim that ‘denotes’ is that expression. (When we examine the terms that appear in the denotation discourse, it’s very hard to see a viable alternative.) So let us now see if this claim can be made out, not by any ad hoc maneuvering, but by a reasonable methodology. The methodology is this: given that the denotation discourse exhibits valid reasoning to a true conclusion, we are to find the most plausible analysis that preserves the validity of the reasoning and the truth of the conclusion. How does the term ‘denotes’ behave in our discourse? Does its extension change at any point because of a change in context? Let i be the initial context associated with the first segment, where I produce the token P. My first use of ‘denotes’ is a component of the utterance P, and so occurs in the context i. So let us represent this first use of ‘denotes’ by ‘denotesi ’. This representation does not commit us to the claim that ‘denotes’ is context-sensitive—we are only marking the fact that this use of denotes occurs in context i. Let us continue to attach the subscript ‘i ’ to each subsequent use of ‘denotes’ if no change of extension is forced upon us. If context has no effect on the extension of ‘denotes’—if ‘denotes’ is a predicate constant—then the continued appearance of the subscript i will indicate no more than this: every use of ‘denotes’ is coextensive with every other. If, on the other hand, ‘denotes’ is


10:18am page 237

Reference and Paradox / 237 context-sensitive, then the subscript i will reappear only if, for some reason or other, subsequent uses of ‘denotes’ inherit the extension that the context i determined for my first use of ‘denotes’. So at the outset of the discourse we have: pi six the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213. Now, in order to determine the denotation of P, we have to determine what the expressions on the board denotei . So the subscript i will continue to appear in the representation of your reasoning: It’s clear what the first two phrases denotei . But what about the third? Let’s call your third phrase P. Suppose P denotesi the number k. Now, P denotesi k if and only if the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. So it follows that the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. But then k ¼ p þ 6 þ k, which is absurd. So P is pathological—it appears to denotei a number but it doesn’t, on pain of contradiction. Nothing so far forces a different extension on ‘denotes’; quite the reverse, in fact. Let us pause here. As you conduct your reasoning, something is operating in the background—what we may call a denotation schema. A denotation schema is an exact analogue of the perhaps more familiar truth schema. An instance of the truth schema is: ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. An instance of the denotation schema is: ‘32 ’ denotes 9 if and only if 32 ¼ 9. The instance of the schema you have used is this: P denotesi k if and only if the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. Call this the i-schema. When you assess P by the i-schema, a contradiction results. Now us return to the discourse. You continue:


10:18am page 238

238 / Keith Simmons And now, since P does not denotei a number, the only expressions on the board that do denotei numbers are the first two. But then the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213 is p þ 6. It’s clear that the first two occurrences of ‘denotes’ receive the subscript i, since they rely on your result that P does not denotei . And for just the same reason, the occurrence of ‘denote’ in the token P* receives the subscript i as well. The occurrences of ‘denotes’ in this present stage of the discourse inherit their contextual subscripts from the previous stage. Notice that in a strict sense, P* is a repetition of P—it is composed of the very same words, with the very same meaning, and the very same extensions. Now let’s move to your final use of ‘denotes’. You continue: In the previous sentence, there is a token of the same type as P, call it P*. And P* does denote a number, namely p þ 6. Should we attach the subscript i to this final use of ‘denotes’? The answer is no. You have reached a true conclusion here through valid reasoning. According to your assessment here, P* denotes. But P* does not denotei — plug P* into the i-schema, and you’ll get a contradiction, just as you did with P. So here a shift in extension is forced upon us—P* denotesr , let us say, where ‘denotesi ’ and ‘denotesr ’ have different extensions. P* is in the extension of ‘denotesr ’, but it is not in the extension of ‘denotesi ’. What produces this shift in extension? The change in context—specifically, the shift to a context which is reflective with respect to P. When you assess P*, and declare that it denotes, you assess it in a context in which it is part of the common ground that P is pathological. The schema by which you assess P*— the r-schema—provides an assessment of P* in the light of P’s pathologicality. The relevant instance of the r-schema is this: P* denotesr k if and only if the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board in room 213 is k. The right-hand side of the biconditional is true for k ¼ p þ 6, given that P is pathological, and doesn’t denotei . And so it follows that P* denotesr p þ 6, as you say. In a nutshell, then, we explain your different assessments of P and P* this way: you assess P by the unreflective i-schema, and you assess P* by the reflective r-schema. There is no intrinsic difference between P and P*—the difference lies in the schema by which they are evaluated.


10:18am page 239

Reference and Paradox / 239 Notice that P also denotesr p þ 6, just like P*. (Plug P into the r-schema, and that’s the result you’ll get.) So P fails to denote, and P does denote. But there is no contradiction here: P fails to denotei , but it does denoter . Compare: sometimes an utterance of ‘France is hexagonal’ is true enough, and sometimes it isn’t. It depends on the conversational score, in particular on the standards of precision that are in force. In a loosely analogous way, whether or not P denotes depends on the standard of assessment: do we apply the unreflective i-schema or the reflective r-schema? The revisiting discourse is analysed in just the same way. When we revisit P, we do so in a context that is reflective with respect to P. Having concluded that P does not denotei , and is pathological, we reassess P by the r-schema and find that P does denoter . In both discourses, the extension of ‘denotes’ undergoes a change. ‘Denotes’ is a context-sensitive term that may shift its extension according to context.

5. Singularities We’ve seen that P is excluded from the extension of ‘denotesi ’, but not from the extension of ‘denotesr ’. What else is excluded from the extension of ‘denotesi ’? And what is the relation between the extension of ‘denotesi ’ and the extension of ‘denotesr ’? A possible response here appeals to a hierarchy. The claim might be that when we move from an unreflective context to a reflective one, we move to an essentially richer language. The predicate ‘denotesi ’ is the denotation predicate of the unreflective context; the predicate ‘denotesr ’ is the more comprehensive denotation predicate of the semantically richer language of the reflective context. On such a hierarchical account, the extension of ‘denotesi ’ is properly contained in the extension of ‘denotesr ’. As far as there is an orthodoxy regarding the definability paradoxes, some kind of hierarchical account is it. (For example, van Heijenoort writes: ‘‘Today [Richard’s] paradox is generally considered solved by the distinction of language levels.’’8) But I think we should resist the hierarchy. There are, I would argue, a number of problems with the hierarchical account.9 Let me just mention here the most blatant: the hierarchical account offers too regimented an account of natural language. Surely English does not contain 8 See van Heijenoort (1967: 142).

9 For more on this, see Simmons (1993).


10:18am page 240

240 / Keith Simmons infinitely many distinct denotation predicates, but just one. And surely the stratification of English into a hierarchy of distinct languages is highly artificial. With Tarski, we may doubt ‘‘whether the language of everyday life, after being ‘rationalized’ in this way, would still preserve its naturalness and whether it would not rather take on the characteristic features of the formalized languages’’.10 My proposal is in a strong sense anti-hierarchical. The leading idea is that in pathological denoting phrases like P, there are minimal restrictions on occurrences of ‘denotes’. At this point, a pragmatic principle of interpretation comes into play: the principle of Minimality. According to Minimality, restrictions on occurrences of ‘denotes’ are kept to a minimum: we are to restrict the application of ‘denotes’ only when there is reason to do so. Suppose you innocently say: The phrase ‘the square of 2’ denotes 4. Here, your use of ‘denotes’ is quite unproblematic. Should P be excluded from its extension? Minimality says no—because there is no need to exclude it. We have seen that in a suitably reflective context, P does denote a number (specifically, P denotesr p þ 6). Now the context of your utterance here is quite unconnected to my production of P. But Minimality says that your unconnected context should be treated as if it were reflective with respect to P. In your unconnected, neutral context of utterance, P can be counted among the phrases that denote—and so by Minimality, it is so counted. If there’s no need to exclude P, then include it. If we adopt Minimality we respect a basic intuition about predicates. Intuitively, we take a predicate to apply to everything with the property that the predicate picks out. In general, if an individual has the property picked out by the predicate w, then that individual is in the extension of w. The more restrictions we place on occurrences of ‘denotes’, the more we are at odds with this intuition. We do expect any solution to a genuine paradox to require some revision of our intuitions. But the more a solution conflicts with our intuitions, the less plausible that solution will be. For example, the hierarchical stratification of the denotation predicate involves massive restrictions on occurrences of ‘denotes’. On a standard Tarskian line, the referring expression ‘the square of 2’ is of level 0; the denoting phrase ‘‘the number denoted by ‘the square of 2’ ’’ is of level 1; and so on, through the levels. A use of ‘denotes’ in an utterance of level 1 has in its 10 Tarski (1983: 267).


10:18am page 241

Reference and Paradox / 241 extension all referring expressions of level 0, and no others. So all sentences of level 1 and beyond are excluded from the extension of such a use of ‘denotes’. Go¨del remarks of Russell’s type theory that ‘‘each concept is significant only . . . for an infinitely small portion of all objects’’.11 A similar complaint can be made about a standard hierarchical account of denotation: an ordinary use of ‘denotes’ will apply to only a fraction of all the denoting expressions. Minimality keeps surprise to a minimum: our uses of ‘denotes’ apply to almost all denoting phrases. We are sometimes forced to restrict ‘denotes’—we must, for example, limit the extension of ‘denotesi ’ by excluding P. Still, according to Minimality, we exclude only those denoting expressions that cannot be included. So my proposal identifies what I call singularities of the concept denotes. For example, P is a singularity of ‘denotesi ’. Notice that P is a singularity only in a context-relative way—P is not a singularity of ‘denotesr ’ or your neutral use of ‘denotes’. So in my view we should not stratify the concept of denotation; rather we should identify its singularities. Go¨del once made the following tantalizing remark: It might even turn out that it is possible to assume every concept to be significant everywhere except for certain ‘singular points’ or ‘limiting points’, so that the paradoxes would appear as something analogous to dividing by zero. Such a system would be most satisfying in the following respect: our logical intuitions would then remain correct up to certain minor revisions, i.e. they could then be considered to give an essentially correct, only somewhat ‘blurred’, picture of the real state of affairs.12

I take my singularity proposal to be very much in the spirit of Go¨del’s remarks. We retain a single denotation predicate which undergoes minimal changes in its extension according to context. There is no wholesale revision of the notion of denotation; no division of ‘denotes’ into infinitely many distinct predicates; no splitting of everyday English into an infinite hierarchy of languages.

6. A Glimpse of the Formal Theory The main task of the formal theory is to identify the singularities of a given occurrence of ‘denotes’.13 And this is carried out by way of certain kinds of trees—denotation trees. We will come to those in a moment. 11 Go¨del (1944: 149). 12 Go¨del (1944: 150). 13 Once we have a formal theory that identifies singularities of a given use of ‘denotes’, we can offer suitably restricted denotation schemas; for example,


10:18am page 242

242 / Keith Simmons But first consider P again. Suppose we represented the token P as an ordered pair , where the first element is the type of P, and the second indicates the appropriate representation of ‘denotes’ in P (namely, ‘denotesi ’). Then something is missing. This representation does not distinguish P from P*, yet the former denoting expression is pathological and the latter isn’t. There is something more to consider: the schema by which the token is given denotation conditions. In the second segment of the discourse, P is evaluated by the i-schema; in the third segment, P* is evaluated by the r-schema, a schema that is reflective with respect to P. So we capture the denotation discourse more perspicuously if we represent P by the ordered triple , where the third element indicates that the schema by which P is assessed is the i-schema, and P* by the triple , indicating that P* is assessed by the r-schema. We may of course evaluate P and P* by other schemas. But it is the evaluation of P by the i-schema—the schema associated with P’s context of utterance—that leads to the conclusion that P is pathological. And it is the evaluation of P* by the r-schema—the schema associated with P*’s context of utterance—that leads to the conclusion that P* has a determinate referent. So if we are after an analysis of the denotation discourse, the representation of P is privileged over other representations of P, and is likewise a privileged representation of P*. We will call these representations the primary representations of P and P*. Let’s now construct what we will call the primary denotation tree for P. The top node is the primary representation of P: . The third element of the triple indicates that we are after the denotationi of P. Now P makes reference to certain denoting expressions—the ones on the board. To determine a denotationi for P, we must first determine the denotation of these expressions—more specifically, we are after what these expressions denotei , since the occurrence of ‘denotes’ in P is given by ‘denotesi ’, as the second element of the primary representation indicates. We can draw a diagram to capture this: type(A)

type(B)

If ‘e’ is not a singularity of ‘denotesi ’, then ‘e’ denotesi n iff e ¼ n, where ‘e’ and ‘n’ are denoting expressions. (So in response to JC Beall’s commentary, I endorse the option presented in Sect. 6.5 of the next chapter.)


10:18am page 243

Reference and Paradox / 243 Here A and B stand for the first two expressions on the board. Since they contain no context-sensitive terms, we represent them via their types. The representation of P at the second tier reflects the fact that we are after what P denotesi —so the third member of the triple is i. Now the primary representation of P appears again at the second tier. And to determine the denotationi of P, we must again determine the denotations of the expressions on the board. And so we are led to a third tier, and a fourth, and so on: type(A)

type(B) type(A)

type(B) type(A)

type(B)

No branches extend from A and B, since they do not make any references to other denoting phrases. But P is caught in a circle, and the tree extends indefinitely. This is the primary denotation tree for P. This tree has an infinite branch, and P repeats on this branch. The repetition indicates that P is pathological, and a singularity of ‘denotesi ’. The attempt to determine a denotationi for P breaks down. (The treatment of the Berry phrase follows the same general pattern. The primary denotation tree for the Berry phrase contains an infinite branch, indicating the pathology of the Berry phrase. The Berry phrase is identified as a singularity of the occurrence of ‘denotes’ or ‘nameable’ in the phrase itself.) While P is identified as pathological, it is a different story with P*. The primary denotation tree for P* looks like this: type(A)

type(B) type(A)

type(B) type(A)

type(B)

At the top is the primary representation of P*. The tree reflects the way in which we determine a denotationr for P*. The occurrence of ‘denotes’ in P* is


10:18am page 244

244 / Keith Simmons given by ‘denotesi ’. So to determine what P* denotesr , we must first determine the denotationi of the phrases to which P* makes reference—and this is indicated by the second tier of the tree. Now the tree has an infinite branch too, but notice that the primary representation of P* does not repeat on this branch. The primary representation of P does repeat, but the primary representation of P* does not. In the formal account, this indicates that while P is pathological, P* is not. Intuitively, P* stands above the circle in which P is caught. Formally, we can take things a little further by pruning this tree. We prune the tree by terminating any infinite branch at the first occurrence of a nonrepeating node. Here is the pruned tree: type(A)

type(B)

The pruned tree indicates that the denotationr of P* depends only on the denotation of A and B. And that’s just what we found: the denotationr of P* is p þ 6. Here then is a glimpse of the formal treatment of the repeating discourse. The treatment of the revisiting discourse should be obvious. When you revisit P at the third stage of the discourse, you bring to bear the reflective r-schema. So at the third stage of the revisiting discourse, we should represent P by the triple , indicating that we are after the denotationr of P. This is not the primary representation of P, but what we will call a secondary representation of P, since the third element stands for a context other than P’s own context of utterance. Starting out with this secondary representation, we can construct the corresponding secondary denotation tree for P. It is easy to see that this secondary tree for P is identical to the primary tree for P*. And as before this tree may be pruned, indicating that P, like P*, denotesr p þ 6.

7. The Object Language and the Language of the Theory Here, then, is a glimpse of the formal theory. Let me now make some more general remarks about it. The theory is a theory about a natural language, English, with particular focus on the term ‘denotes’. So the object language is


10:18am page 245

Reference and Paradox / 245 a portion of English including the term ‘denotes’. The singularity theory is a theory of a context-sensitive term, but no context-sensitive term will appear in the language of the theory. So there is a separation between the object language and the language of the theory. So we should ask: what is the relation between the two? For some theories of paradox, the relation is that of object language to metalanguage. Consider, for example, Kripke’s theory of truth (in Kripke 1975). The object language is a certain fragment of English, containing its own truth predicate. This language can express its own concept of truth, in the sense that it contains a predicate whose extension comprises exactly the true sentences of the language. But there are certain ordinary semantic concepts that the object language cannot express—for example, untrue. Now this concept can be expressed in the semantically richer language of the theory. The language of the theory is, in Tarski’s sense, a metalanguage for the object language. The object language is fully translatable into the language of the theory, and the language of the theory can say more besides. This shows the limitations of Kripke’s theory. If the theory is a theory of an object language that cannot express an ordinary semantic concept like ‘untrue’, then we do not really have a theory of truth for English. Natural languages, says Tarski, are universal: ‘‘if we can speak meaningfully about anything at all, we can also speak about it in colloquial language’’.14 In particular, says Tarski, natural languages are semantically universal, in the sense that they can express all of their own semantic concepts—not just truth, but untruth as well. The need to ascend to a hierarchy to express ordinary semantic concepts shows that the scope of Kripke’s theory is restricted. I would also argue that the same kind of ascent is forced upon other theories of truth, such as the revision theory, or those of Feferman and McGee. When the language of the theory is a metalanguage, the scope of the theory is restricted.15 In contrast, the language of the singularity theory is not a metalanguage for the intended object language—namely, the fragment of English containing ‘denotes’. The singularity theory does not attempt to provide a model of this target language. Rather, its job is to identify singularities, by describing the semantic and pragmatic behaviour of the denotation predicate. Here, the object language cannot be translated into the language of the theory: the object language is too rich for that. For one thing, ‘denotes’ is a context-sensitive 14 Tarski (1983: 164).

15 For more along these lines, see Simmons (1993, chs. 3–4).


10:18am page 246

246 / Keith Simmons term, and the theory contains no context-sensitive term. For another, the scope of any use of ‘denotes’ is far too wide to be captured by any term of the theory. An ordinary use of ‘denotes’ applies to every denoting phrase which is not identified as a singularity. And that includes all such denoting phrases in the language of the theory itself, and indeed in all other languages, actual and possible.16 Since the scope of each use of ‘denotes’ is as close to global as it can be, it seems to me that the singularity theory goes a long way to accommodate Tarski’s intuitions about semantic universality.

8. Consequences for Deflationism I turn now to the consequences for one kind of deflationism about reference—the disquotational account. According to a disquotational account of denotation or reference, there is no more to denotation that is given by the instances of the following disquotational schema: ‘e’ denotes n if and only e ¼ n, where ‘e’ and ‘n’ are denoting expressions. This leads naturally to the following disquotational definition of denotation for a language L: x denotes n iff or or or or

x ¼ ‘e1 ’ & e1 ¼ n x ¼ ‘e2 ’ & e2 ¼ n ... x ¼ ‘ek ’ & ek ¼ n ...

where ‘e1 ’, ‘e2 ’, . . . , ‘ek ’, . . . are the denoting expressions of L. Suppose we try to maintain both disquotationalism and the singularity account. In particular, consider the disquotational definition for ‘denotesr ’. If we put x ¼ P and n ¼ p þ 6, we obtain: P denotesr p þ 6 if and only if the sum of the numbers denotedi by expressions on the board is p þ 6. 16 Notice that if we regard the language of the theory as a classical, regimented language, it will not contain its own denotation predicate—for that, we would need a richer metalanguage for the language of the theory. Thus there will be denoting phrases involving this denotation predicate that cannot be expressed in the language of the theory. But as long as these phrases are not identified as singularities, they will be in the extension of an ordinary use of ‘denotes’.


10:18am page 247

Reference and Paradox / 247 This is a true biconditional. But what about the occurrence of ‘denotesi ’ on the right? This cannot be treated disquotationally. If we plug P into the disquotational definition of ‘denotesi ’, and suppose that P denotesi some number k, we reach the absurdity that k ¼ p þ 6 þ k. So we cannot provide a disquotational account of the occurrence of ‘denotesi ’ in P. If we accept the singularity account, we cannot accept disquotationalism. There are genuine denoting expressions containing uses of ‘denotes’ which the disquotationalist cannot handle—in particular, the use of ‘denotes’ in P cannot be treated disquotationally. And P cannot be dismissed as merely pathological—it is a genuine denoting phrase. In short, denotation cannot be disquoted away.

9. A New Paradox of Definability Finally, I’d like to turn to a new paradox of definability and see how the singularity theory handles it. It is a standard idea that the paradoxes of definability turn on self-reference—the phrase P makes reference to itself, and the Berry phrase includes itself in its scope. Every definability paradox with which I am familiar involves self-reference. But I think we can formulate paradoxes of definability without self-reference. Let E1 , E2 , ... be a list of denoting expressions—it may be finite or infinite. The list might be ‘42 ’, ‘the successor of 2’, ‘England’; or it might be ‘one’, ‘three’, ‘five’, ... ‘thirty-one’, ... . As our examples show, some of these expressions may denote positive integers (i.e. 1 or 2 or 3 or ... ). Let the expression ‘max (E1 , E2 , ...)’ denote the largest positive integer denoted by an expression on the list. If denumerably many distinct positive integers are denoted by expressions on the list (so that there is no largest positive integer denoted), ‘max (E1 , E2 , ...)’ denotes w, the first infinite ordinal; and if no expression on the list denotes a positive integer, ‘max (E1 , E2 , ...)’ denotes 0. So, for example, max(‘42 ’, ‘the successor of 2’, ‘England’) ¼ 16, max(‘London’, ‘Chapel Hill’, ‘Tel Aviv’) ¼ 0, and max(‘one’, ‘three’, ‘five’, ... ‘thirty-one’, ... ) ¼ w. Now consider the following infinite list of denoting expressions: (D1 ) 1 þ max (D2 , D3 , ..., Dn , ... ). (D2 ) 1 þ max (D3 , D4 , ..., Dn , ... ).


10:19am page 248

248 / Keith Simmons .. . (Dn ) 1 þ max (Dnþ1 , ... , Dnþi , ...). (D .. nþ1 ) 1 þ max (Dnþ2 , ... , Dnþi , ...). . Notice that there’s no self-reference or circularity here. Each phrase makes reference only to phrases further down the list. Suppose towards a contradiction that for some arbitrary n, Dn denotes a positive integer, say p. Now Dn is given by: (Dn ) 1 þ max (Dnþ1 , ... , Dnþi , ...). Since Dn denotes p, max (Dnþ1 , ..., Dnþi , ...) ¼ p 1. So there is an expression Dk among Dnþ1 , ..., Dnþi , ... which denotes p 1.17 Dk is given by: (Dk ) 1 þ max (Dkþ1 , ..., Dkþi , ... ). Since Dk denotes p 1, max (Dkþ1 , ..., Dkþi , ... ) ¼ p 2. So there is an expression Dl among Dkþ1 , ..., Dkþi , ... which denotes p 2. And so on. Continuing in this way (for p 3 more steps), we obtain an expression Dz which denotes 1. Dz is given by: (Dz ) 1 þ max (Dzþ1 , ... , Dzþi , ... ). Since Dz denotes 1, max (Dzþ1 , ... , Dzþi , ...) ¼ 0. By the definition of ‘max’, none of Dzþ1 , ..., Dzþi , ... denote a positive integer. In particular, (i) Dzþ1 does not denote a positive integer. Now Dzþ1 is given by: (Dzþ1 ) 1 þ max (Dzþ2 , ..., Dzþi , ...). Since none of Dzþ2 , ..., Dzþi , ... denote a positive integer, max (Dzþ2 , ..., Dzþi , ... ) ¼ 0. But then Dzþ1 denotes 1 þ 0. That is, (ii) Dzþ1 denotes a positive integer, namely 1. From (i) and (ii), we obtain a contradiction. 17 There can be only one such expression. Suppose, towards a contradiction, that Dm and Dn each denote p 1, where we may assume without loss of generality that m < n. Then Dm is given by: (Dm ) 1 þ max (Dmþ1 , ...Dn , ...). Since Dm denotes p 1, max (Dmþ1 , ...Dn ,... ) ¼ p 2. But since Dn denotes p 1, max (Dmþ1 , ...Dn ,... ) p 1. So p 2 p 1, and we have a contradiction.


10:19am page 249

Reference and Paradox / 249 By our reductio argument, we have shown that no Dn denotes a positive integer, for any n. Every Dn is pathological. So for all n, max (Dn , ..., Dnþi , ... ) ¼ 0. In particular, then, max (D2 , ..., Dn , ...) ¼ 0; max (D3 , ..., Dn , ... ) ¼ 0; and so on. But now reconsider D1 . Since 1 þ max (D2 , ..., Dn , ...) ¼ 1, D1 denotes 1. Similarly, D2 denotes 1, and in general Dn denotes 1. To sum up: no Dn denotes a positive integer, and every Dn denotes a positive integer (namely 1). We are landed in paradox.18 This paradox of definability is obviously more complicated than the simple one generated by P on the board. But the treatment of it is essentially the same. The discourse here has the same overall structure: first, denoting phrases are displayed; second, we reason to the conclusion that they are pathological and fail to denote; and third, we reason past pathology, and find that the phrases do denote. When we first assess D1 , D2 , and the rest as pathological, we assess them by an unreflective denotation schema, analogous to the i-schema in the case of P. We find that all the Dn ’s are pathological and fail to denote. And with the availability of this new information, the common ground shifts, and we move to a reflective context. We now assess D1 , D2 , ... by a new reflective schema, analogous to the r-schema. Just as we reason first that P does not denote and then conclude that it does, so we find first that D1 , and all the others, fail to denote, and then go on to conclude that they do. There is no contradiction here. Rather there is a shift in the denotation schemas by which we assess D1 , D2 , ..., triggered by the shift to a reflective context. Let I be the initial context in which the Dn ’s are first produced. And let R be the reflective context in which we assess the Dn ’s on the basis of their pathology. Then the primary tree for D1 looks like this:

This tree clearly contains infinite branches, and the formal theory will deliver the result that D1 is pathological, and a singularity of denotesI . And similarly for D2 , D3 , .... In our reasoning, we revisit D1 and reassess it via the reflective R-schema. This is captured by the following secondary tree for D1 : 18 This paradox is a companion to Yablo’s paradox about truth; see Yablo (1993).


10:19am page 250

250 / Keith Simmons

Notice that the second tier is composed of primary representations of D2 , D3 , . . . , each of which head an unfounded primary tree. Setting aside the details of the formal theory, the idea is that this tree indicates that the denotationR of D1 is to be determined in the light of the pathology of D2 , D3 , . . . : This is just what we do at the reflective stage of our reasoning. Having determined that D2 , D3 , . . . fail to denote, we calculate that max (D2 , D3 , . . . ) ¼ 0, and hence that 1 þ max (D2 , D3 , . . . ) ¼ 1, concluding that D1 denotes 1.

10. Concluding Remarks I have focused here on denotation. But I think we can take the same kind of approach to the other fundamental semantic relations—between a predicate and its extension, and a sentence and its truth value. Parallel to our denotation discourse, there are discourses related to Russell’s paradox and the Liar, and there too, I believe, we can provide a singularity account. But that, obviously, is a topic for another day.

REFERENCES C h a f e , W. (1976), ‘Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics, and Point of View’, in C. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic (New York: Academic Press). F e f e r m a n , S. (1984), ‘Towards Useful Type-Free Theories, I’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 49: 75–111. G l a n z b e r g , M. (2001), ‘The Liar in Context’, Philosophical Studies, 103: 217–51. G o¨ d e l , K. (1944), ‘Russell’s Mathematical Logic’, in Schilpp (1944: 123–53). G r o s z , B., and C. Sidner (1986), ‘Attention, Intention, and the Structure of Discourse’, Computational Linguistics, 12: 175–204. H e i m , I. (1988), The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases (New York: Garland).


10:19am page 251

Reference and Paradox / 251 I s a r d , S. (1975), ‘Changing the Context’, in Keenan (1975). K a m p , H. (1981), ‘A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation’, in J. Groenendijk et al. (eds.), Truth, Interpretation and Information (Dordrecht: Foris). K e e n a n , E. (ed.) (1975), Formal Semantics of Natural Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). K o¨ n i g , J. (1905), ‘On the Foundations of Set Theory and the Continuum Problem’, in van Heijenoort (1967: 145–9). K r i p k e , S. (1975), ‘Outline of a Theory of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 72: 690–716. L e w i s , D. (1983a), ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’, in Lewis (1983: 233–49); first pub. in Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8: 339–59. —— (1983b), Philosophical Papers, vol. i (Oxford: Oxford University Press). M c G e e , V. (1990), Truth, Vagueness, and Paradox (Indianapolis: Hackett). P e a n o , G. (1906), ‘Super theorema de Cantor-Bernstein et additione’, Revista de Mathematica, 8: 136–57; repr. in Opere scelte (Rome: Edizione Cremonese, 1957), vol. i. P o i n c a r e´ , H. (1906), ‘Les Mathe´matiques et la logique’, Revue de Me´taphysique et de Morale, 14: 294–317. —— (1909), ‘La Logique de l’infini’, Revue de Me´taphysique et de Morale, 17; repr. in Dernie`res Penseés (Paris: Flammarion, 1913); Eng. trans. in Poincare´ (1963: 45–64). —— (1963), Mathematics and Science: Last Essays (New York: Dover). R e i n h a r t , T. (1981), ‘Pragmatics and Linguistics: An Analysis of Sentence Topics’, Philosophica 27/1: 53–94. R i c h a r d , Jules (1905), ‘Les principes des mathe´matiques et le proble`me des ensembles’, Revue Geńe´rale des Sciences Pures et Appliqueés, 16: 541; also in Acta Mathematica, 30 (1906), 295–6; Eng. trans. in van Heijenoort (1967: 143–4). —— (1907), ‘Sur un paradoxe de la theórie des ensembles et sur l’axiome Zermelo’, L’Enseignement Mathe´matique, 9: 94–8. R u s s e l l , B. (1908), ‘Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types’, American Journal of Mathematics, 30: 222–62; repr. in van Heijenoort (1967: 150–82). S c h i l p p , P. A. (ed.) (1944), The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court). S i m m o n s , K. (1993), Universality and the Liar: An Essay on Truth and the Diagonal Argument (New York: Cambridge University Press). —— (1994), ‘A Paradox of Definability: Richard’s and Poincare´’s Ways Out’, History and Philosophy of Logic, 15: 33–44. S t a l n a k e r , R. C. (1999a), Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and in Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press). —— (1999b), ‘Indicative Conditionals’, in Stalnaker (1999a: 63–77); first pub. in Philosophia, 5 (1975), 269–86.


10:19am page 252

252 / Keith Simmons T a r s k i , A. (1983), ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, in Tarski, Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, ed. John Corcoran, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis: Hackett). v a n H e i j e n o o r t , J e a n (ed.) (1967), From Frege to Go¨del: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). Y a b l o , S. (1993), ‘Paradox without Self-Reference’, Analysis, 53: 251–2.


10:19am page 253

12 On the Singularity Theory of Denotation JC Beall

1. Introduction What do denotation paradoxes teach us about English? According to Keith Simmons (Chapter 11 in this volume) they teach us that ‘denotes’ is contextually sensitive, that its extension may change from context to context. As with ‘I’ or ‘here’, the meaning-constitutive principle governing ‘denotes’ is parametric; it has a parameter for context. By recognizing the parametric character of ‘denotes’ we thereby resolve the denotation paradoxes—or so Simmons argues. Parametric responses to paradox are by now common, due in no small part to Tarski [6]. Tarski did not try to solve the paradoxes; he tried to avoid inconsistency; and he did so by positing a parametric character of truth—‘is true’ is indexed to different languages. Subsequent writers [1, 2] have not so much replaced Tarski’s parameter as they have relocated it: while Tarski suggested that the parameter is a language, others have taken the parameter to be a context. Simmons’s singularity theory falls within the latter group. Positing hidden parameters, of course, is not a strategy peculiar to semantic paradox; some philosophers [5] have argued that soritical paradox (paradoxes arising from vague predicates) call for hidden parameters. Indeed, the common parametric response to vague predicates is a contextualist one: vague predicates are contextually sensitive. Having a unified solution to both the semantic and soritical paradoxes is attractive, and as such Simmons’s


10:19am page 254

254 / JC Beall solution, if it is independently satisfactory, may well lend itself to a longsought unified approach to paradox. The question is whether Simmons’s solution is satisfactory. In this paper I raise a general problem for Simmons’s position. The problem, in effect, may be cast as a dilemma: Simmons’s solution is either inconsistent or unwarranted.

2. Simmons’s Example Simmons’s example may be formulated thus:1 p p p 6 p the sum of numbers denoted by ticked expressions in Section 2. Simmons identifies two patterns of reasoning about the ticked expressions, the repeat and revisit patterns, each having two (or so) stages.

2.1 The Repeat Pattern The repeat pattern is this: (1) ‘p’ denotes p, and ‘6’ denotes 6. What about the third ticked expression (call it ‘P’)? Suppose P denotes the number k. Now, P denotes k iff the sum of the numbers denoted by ticked expressions in Section 2 is k. So, the sum of the numbers denoted by ticked expressions in Section 2 is k. But, then, k ¼ p þ 6 þ k, which is impossible. So, P is non-denoting. (2) Given that P is non-denoting, the only denoting ticked expressions in Section 2 are ‘p’ and ‘6’, in which case the sum of numbers denoted by ticked expressions in Section 2 is p þ 6. But, now, we see that a token of P’s type—call the token ‘P*’—is a denoting expression.

2.2 The Revisit Pattern An example of the revisit pattern replaces (2) above by 1 This isn’t quite Simmons’s example; it hides what he identifies as the first change of context (where one discovers that circularity is involved). Nothing hinges on this.


10:19am page 255

The Singularity Theory of Denotation / 255 (2’) Given that P is non-denoting, the only denoting ticked expressions in Section 2 are ‘p’ and ‘6’. As the third ticked expression makes reference only to denoting ticked expressions, we have it that it refers only to ‘p’ and ‘6’, the denotations of which sum to p þ 6, which is the denotation of P.

2.3 Analyzing the Patterns Each of the two patterns, according to Simmons, is natural and intuitively valid; indeed, Simmons takes both to be data that any theory of denotation must explain. The key feature of each pattern is twofold: We ‘‘reason past pathology’’ (as Simmons says). We conclude that two tokens of the same (expression) type differ wrt denotation: one denotes while the other doesn’t. Simmons’s driving question, then, is: Given two tokens of the same type, how can one fail to refer and the other succeed? According to Simmons, ‘‘the explanation must be a pragmatic one, at least in the sense that the notion of context will play a crucial role’’ (p. 233 above). In particular, Simmons takes ‘denotes’ to be contextually sensitive, shifting its extension from context to context.

2.4 Simmons’s Solution With respect to the ticked expressions in section 2, the crucial change of context is from (1) to (2); in (1) ‘denotes’ is evaluated according to one denotation principle while (2) requires a different denotation principle. Specifically, where i marks the ‘‘initial context’’ and r the ‘‘reflective context’’ (in the given case, these are in effect (1) and (2), respectively), ‘denotesi ’ in the ticked expression is indexed at i and, given various pragmatic principles, the expression is governed by the corresponding i-principle: (Di ) e denotesi x iff e ¼ x. When in context i we discover that P is nondenotingi we retain this information in our move to the next context—or, more accurately, this new information forces a change in context. We move to context r in which, while ‘denotes’ in the ticked expression retains its ‘‘initial’’ subscript, the ticked expression is now governed by the r-principle:


10:19am page 256

256 / JC Beall (Dr ) e denotesr x iff e ¼ x In this context, we do not get the apparent contradiction. Instead, we conclude that while P does not denotei , it does denoter (as does the ‘‘new’’ token P*).

3. What is a Context? A crucial question for any such response is: What is a context? While he doesn’t say a lot to answer this question Simmons does endorse Stalnaker’s (similarly Lewis’s) idea that a context should be identified with the body of information that is presumed to be available to the participants in the speech situation—the ‘‘common ground’’, to use a phrase from Grice, or the shared presuppositions of the participants. As new utterances are produced, and new information is made available, the context changes. To keep track of these context-changes, then, we need a running record of the information provided in the course of the conversation. (pp. 233–4 above)

What is important for Simmons’s purposes is that a change in the ‘‘common ground’’ changes the context and vice versa.2 A shift in context occurs if the set of presuppositions (common ground) changes; and a change of context can affect content, especially when ‘‘singularities’’ are involved.

4. Common Knowledge? I am inclined to think that contexts, so understood, have to contain general principles governing our reasoning concerning certain terms—including terms like ‘denotes’. But, then, if a contextual solution is pursued (with contexts so understood), then we ought to have principles in contexts that quantify over contexts. But this leads to familiar paradox, and so Simmons (like any other contextualist, as far as I know) requires that such quantification over contexts—or, at least, the general principles governing ‘denotes’— 2 There is a nagging question here. Simmons (and others) talk about two things—the ‘‘common ground’’ (set of available presuppositions) and the ‘‘speech situation’’ to which the ‘‘common ground’’ is relative. The question is: How is a given speech situation to be individuated? I will ignore this, although I think that it is something that Simmons needs to fill out.


10:19am page 257

The Singularity Theory of Denotation / 257 remain outside of contexts. By my lights, this makes a mystery out of contexts; they certainly aren’t the ‘‘common ground’’ they’re said to be. But I won’t dwell on this further. Instead, I will focus on an apparent dilemma confronting Simmons’s position.

5. Contextual Collapse? The problem arises by concentrating on the platitudes governing the (allegedly) contextually sensitive ‘denotes’, specifically, the various Dk principles. Simmons’s chief conclusion concerning his term P is twofold: (C1) P does not denotei p þ 6. (C2) P does denoter p þ 6. The reasoning used towards these claims, as Simmons emphasizes, essentially invokes the corresponding i- and r-denotation schemas (Section 2.4). Perhaps more accurately, the reasoning towards C1 and C2 essentially invokes the P-instances of the given schemas:3 (DPi ) P denotesi p þ 6 iff [P] ¼ p þ 6. (DPr ) P denotesr p þ 6 iff [P] ¼ p þ 6. But, now, with DPi and DPr displayed together, an obvious problem emerges. I will put the problem in terms of a dilemma.

5.1 Dilemma: Denotation Principles Either we have DPi and DPr or not. Suppose the latter. Then there is no apparent justification for either C1 or C2, in which case Simmons’s main claims are unwarranted.4 Suppose the former. Then by transitivity of ‘iff ’ we immediately get a collapse of the various contexts: (C3) P denotesi p þ 6 iff P denotesr p þ 6.

3 I use ‘P’ as Simmons does, and so use ‘[P]’ as an abbreviation for P (or, what comes to the same, a disquotation device). 4 I won’t go on to argue for this horn. Suffice to say that Simmons’s only explicit justification for C1 and C2 invokes DPi and DPr ; and I cannot think of another way of supporting C1 and C2 without the given denotation principles (or some version of them, as I’ll discuss below).


10:19am page 258

258 / JC Beall But C3 , together with C1 and C2 , quickly yields a contradiction. The upshot is that Simmons’s position is either unwarranted or inconsistent.

6. Options As I see it, there are various options open to Simmons. I will briefly mention each option, concentrating mostly on the last (namely, restriction), as it is likely to be most attractive to Simmons’s classical bent. The key question to bear in mind is whether Simmons’s parametric approach to denotation is worth the cost of the given option.

6.1 Reject Detachment The problem (or, at least, the inconsistency) arises only if ‘iff ’ is underwritten by a detachable conditional. One option is to rely on a non-detachable conditional. There are certainly non-detachable conditionals in English;5 however, there is also an apparently detachable conditional—namely, entailment. Of course, whether entailment is expressed by any conditional in English is a controversial issue, and so the case remains open. Still, irrespective of how such debates go, it is clear that at least Simmons himself takes the various biconditionals to be underwritten by a detachable conditional; for Simmons relies on modus ponens at various steps involving the given Dk -principles.

6.2 Reject Transitivity Another closely related assumption behind the apparent problem is that ‘iff ’ in the Di is transitive. Hence, rejecting the given transitivity is an option. One worry is whether this move will immediately require non-transitive consequence; it will, especially if consequence is defined in terms of the target (non-transitive) conditional.

6.3 Contextual Identity One might posit parametric features beyond denotation; in particular, one might take identity to be parametric. For example, the problem at hand does not arise if each of the Dk is formulated 5 In fact, I think that the material ‘‘conditional’’ is one such, and McGee [4] and Lycan [3] have (allegedly) identified others.


10:19am page 259

The Singularity Theory of Denotation / 259 e denotesk x iff e ¼k x. The idea is that ‘¼’ itself is contextually sensitive. While I think that this is interesting and may well afford solutions (or dissolutions) of other philosophical problems,6 there remains a glaring question: What does ‘‘contextual identity’’ amount to? Presumably, the only way to get identity to be contextually sensitive is to ‘‘contextualize’’ some (all?) of the elements involved in defining identity. I think that it is interesting to speculate about what a contextual approach to predication might look like; however, this is not the place. In any event, one thing is clear: that ‘‘contextualizing’’ identity may call for rethinking much of mathematics.

6.4 Contextual Singular Terms Instead of treating ‘¼’ as parametric one might avoid the noted collapse by taking every singular term to be parametric; that is, one might suggest ‘¼’ is always flanked by parametric terms. The meaning-constitutive principles governing (contextually sensitive) ‘denotes’ ought to be understood thus: P denotesi (p þ 6)i iff [Pi ] ¼ (p þ 6)i . P denotesr (p þ 6)r iff [Pr ] ¼ (p þ 6)r . So given, the denotation principles do not yield the troubling collapse (or resulting inconsistency). I am not sure whether such a theory—that posits a parametric feature of every singular term—is viable. To be sure, some singular terms (indexicals, etc.) are already parametric; however, they are also standardly taken to be ‘‘special’’ singular terms (precisely in virtue of being parametric). One immediate question arises: What of ‘‘cross-context identity’’?7 Presumably, in order to avoid the troubling collapse, the current proposal will have to rule out cross-context identity, rule out having xi ¼ xj for distinct contexts i and j. Otherwise, there is no apparent (and non-ad hoc) reason to rule out the cross-context identities at issue in the given denotation principles. The trouble is that without further explanation it remains implausible to think that each context-shift involves a shift in agents—that 6 One such problem is the statue–hunk puzzle, where the question is whether our statue is ‘‘identical’’ to the hunk of marble that constitutes it. Let ‘David’ name our statue and ‘Hunkel’ our hunk. If identity is contextual, then a plausible response (piggy-backing on contextual denotation) is that in some contexts David ¼i Hunkel while in others, not. Maybe. 7 Recall the once-hot debate about cross-world identity, arising from taking possible worlds semantics seriously (too seriously?).


10:19am page 260

260 / JC Beall during different stages of a conversation the participants themselves are not constant throughout the stages.

6.5 Restrict the Denotation Principles The most likely reply, I think, is to impose some sort of restriction on the various denotation principles. The most natural move is to invoke Simmons’s notion of ‘‘singularities’’ and go with conditionalized versions of the denotation principles: (CDPi ) If P is not a singularity of ‘denotesi ’, then P denotesi p þ6 iff [P] ¼ p þ 6. (CDPr ) If P is not a singularity of ‘denotesr ’, then P denotesr p þ6 iff [P] ¼ p þ 6. Such restriction seems to avoid the problematic collapse (and, hence, the inconsistency horn of the dilemma); however, the restriction likewise seems to raise further problems for Simmons’s overall position—landing him squarely on the unwarranted horn discussed above.

7. A Problem with the Restriction Route The suggestion, as above, is that the fundamental meaning-constitutive principles of (our contextually sensitive) ‘denotes’ are restricted as per CDPi and CDPi . Assume that we have independent reason to accept that P is not a singularity of ‘denotesr ’.8 Then by CDPi we have it that P denotesr p þ 6 iff [P] ¼ p þ 6. Since [P] ¼ p þ 6, we may conclude C2 . No problem there; C2 is easily justified by the restricted Dr principle. The question (and the chief problem) concerns C1 . Recall that Simmons’s chief conclusion is the conjunction of C2 and C1 . But what is the import of Simmons’s chief claim C1 —that P does not denotei p þ 6? Notice that CDPi gives us no clue here—no clue as to the import (the consequences) of C1 . That is the problem. According to Simmons we ought to conclude that P does not denotei p þ 6. What are the consequences of that conclusion? Normally, 8 Presumably, this independent evidence comes from Simmons’s formal theory, which aims to specify singularities of ‘denotes’.


10:19am page 261

The Singularity Theory of Denotation / 261 one would think that if (for some expression) e does not denote x, then e 6¼ x. But that will not follow here. There is no warrant for saying as much; the only apparent warrant for such a conclusion invokes the meaning-constitutive principle governing ‘denotesi ’, but that principle affords warrant only if we can detach its (biconditional) consequent; but we cannot do that if P is a singularity of ‘denotei ’. The upshot is that Simmons’s chief claim C1 is without content (since we don’t know the consequences of the claim) or the claim is inconsistent with the given fact [P] ¼ p þ 6.

8. Closing Remarks In this paper I have argued that Simmons’s parametric (contextual) theory of denotation is either inconsistent or unwarranted. I have also waved at different avenues that Simmons might pursue in an effort to avoid the inconsistency—for example, a ‘‘deviant’’ logic of conditionals, or a parametric identity relation, and so on. Along one (or more) of those lines, Simmons’s theory may well turn out to be a viable approach to denotation.9

REFERENCES [1] B a r w i s e , J o n , and J o h n E t c h e m e n d y (1987), The Liar: An Essay in Truth and Circularity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [2] B u r g e , T. (1979), ‘Semantical Paradox’, Journal of Philosophy, 76: 169–98. [3] L y c a n , W i l l i a m G. (2001), Real Conditionals (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [4] M c G e e , V a n n (1985), ‘A Counterexample to Modus Ponens’, Journal of Philosophy, 82: 462–71. [5] S o a m e s , S c o t t , (1999), Understanding Truth (New York: Oxford University Press). [6] T a r s k i , A l f r e d (1956), Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938, trans. J. H. Woodgerx (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

9 I am grateful to Graham Priest, Hartry Field, Michael Glanzberg, and Keith Simmons for discussion.


12:30pm

page 262

13 The Semantic Paradoxes and the Paradoxes of Vagueness Hartry Field

Both in dealing with the semantic paradoxes and in dealing with vagueness and indeterminacy, there is some temptation to weaken classical logic: in particular, to restrict the law of excluded middle. The reasons for doing this are somewhat different in the two cases. In the case of the semantic paradoxes, a weakening of classical logic (presumably involving a restriction of excluded middle) is required if we are to preserve the naive theory of truth without inconsistency. In the case of vagueness and indeterminancy there is no worry about inconsistency; but a central intuition is that we must reject the factual status of certain sentences, and it hard to see how we can do that while claiming that the law of excluded middle applies to those sentences. So despite the different routes, we have a similar conclusion in the two cases. There is also some temptation to connect up the two cases, by viewing the semantic paradoxes as due to something akin to vagueness or indeterminacy in semantic concepts like ‘true’. The thought is that the notion of truth is introduced by a schema that might initially appear to settle its extension uniquely: the schema (T) True (hpi) if and only if p Thanks to Steve Yablo for very useful comments at the conference, and to Graham Priest for a helpful critique of my discussion of revenge problems that led to a substantial elaboration. The line on vagueness that I take here grew out of a sequence of unsatisfactory attempts to elaborate on the classical logic account offered in ch. 10 of [5]. I’m indebted to more people than I can name for their comments and criticisms of those earlier attempts, but in addition to those mentioned in note 19, I’d like to single out Joshua Schechter for detailed and helpful comments at several stages along the way.


12:30pm

page 263

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 263 (where ‘p’ is to be replaced by a sentence and ‘hpi’ by a structural-descriptive name of that sentence). But in fact, this schema settles the extension uniquely only as applied to ‘‘grounded’’ sentences; whether a given ‘‘ungrounded’’ sentence is in the extension of ‘true’ will be either underdetermined or overdetermined (determined in contrary ways). And this looks rather like what happens in cases of vagueness and indeterminacy: our practices with a vague term like ‘bald’, or a term like ‘heaviness’ (which in the mouths of many is indeterminate between standing for mass and standing for weight), don’t appear to uniquely settle the reference or extension of the term. (There isn’t such a clear distinction between underdetermination and overdetermination in these cases: e.g. it may seem underdetermined whether Harry is bald in that Harry isn’t a paradigm case of either baldness or non-baldness, but it may seem overdetermined in that Sorites reasoning may be used to argue that he is bald and also to argue that he is not bald. Similarly, a theorist who makes no distinction between mass and weight hasn’t decided which one ‘heaviness’ stands for, so it may seem underdetermined; but he may attribute to ‘‘heaviness’’ both features true only of mass and features true only of weight, so it may seem overdetermined.) In this paper I will argue that an adequate treatment of each of the two phenomena (the semantic paradoxes and vagueness–indeterminacy) requires a nonclassical logic with certain features—features that are roughly the same for each of the two phenomena. This suggests that there might be a common logical framework, and I will propose a framework that seems adequate for treating both. The core logic for the unified framework is sketched in Section 5 (which is rather technical), though much of the discussion before and after (e.g. the discussion of rejection in Section 3 and the discussion of defectiveness in later sections) is highly relevant to the unified treatment. Sections 1, 2, 7, and 8 are primarily concerned with the semantic paradoxes, and Sections 3, 4, 6, and 9 deal primarily with vagueness and indeterminacy (especially in the case of 3 and 4), but there are close interconnections throughout.

1. The Semantic Paradoxes and Attempts to Resolve them in Classical Logic In this section and the next I will discuss the naive theory of truth and some of the semantic paradoxes which threaten to undermine it. As I’ve noted, the naive theory of truth includes all instances of the schema (T) above. Perhaps more centrally, it includes the principle that ‘True(hpi)’ and ‘p’ are always


12:30pm

page 264

264 / Hartry Field intersubstitutable. (Of course I’m restricting to languages without quotation marks, intentional contexts, and so forth; also without ambiguity, and where there are no relevant shifts of context. Although it may be unnecessary, we can exclude denotationless terms as well.) In classical logic, the schema implies the intersubstitutivity and conversely; whether either direction of the implication holds in a nonclassical logic depends on the details of that logic, though I think that there is reason to prefer logics that are ‘‘classical enough’’ for both directions of the implication to hold. In the context of a very minimal syntactic theory that allows for selfreference, the naive theory of truth is inconsistent in classical logic: we can construct a sentence Q0 (‘‘the Liar’’) that is provably equivalent to :TrueðhQ0 iÞ, so in classical logic we can derive the negation of an instance of (T). It is totally unpromising to blame the problem on the syntactic theory: among other reasons, there are very similar paradoxes in the naive theory of satisfaction which don’t require syntactic premises. The real choice is, do we restrict classical logic or restrict the truth schema (and hence its classical equivalent, the intersubstitutivity of ‘True (hpi)’ with ‘p’). The attractions of keeping classical logic sacrosanct are powerful, so let’s look first at the prospects of a satisfactory weakening of the naive theory of truth within classical logic. By a satisfactory weakening, I mean one that serves the purposes that the notion of truth is supposed to serve, e.g. as a device of making and using generalizations that would be difficult or impossible to make without it. I think it is pretty clear that any weakening of the naive theory of truth will adversely affect the ability of ‘True’ to serve these purposes: the intersubstitutivity of ‘True (hpi)’ with ‘p’ is very central to the purposes the truth predicate serves. Still, if there were a sufficiently powerful but consistent classical-logic substitute for the naive theory, we might be able to learn to live with it. In fact, though, I think that restoring consistency requires massive revisions in ordinary principles about truth, revisions that would be very hard to live with. I won’t try to fully establish this here, but will make a few observations that give some evidence for it. To begin with an obvious point, the problem in classical logic isn’t simply that we can’t assert all instances of schema (T), it is that there are instances (such as the one involving Q0 ) that we can disprove; and in classical logic, that’s equivalent to proving the disjunction of (1) p ^ :True(hpi) and


12:30pm

page 265

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 265 (2) True (hpi) ^ :p for certain specific p. Now, it would seem manifestly unsatisfactory to have a theory that proves an instance of (1): how can we assert p and then in the same breath assert that what we’ve just asserted isn’t true? But it also seems manifestly unsatisfactory to have a theory that proves an instance of (2): once we’ve asserted True(hpi), we’re surely licensed to conclude p, so going on to assert :p just seems inconsistent. We seem to have, then, that it would be manifestly absurd to have a theory that either proves an instance of (1) or proves an instance of (2). Of course, a classical theory doesn’t have to do either: it must prove the disjunction (given that it meets the minimal requirements on allowing self-reference),1 but it can remain silent on which disjunct to assert. But remaining silent doesn’t seem a satisfactory way to resolve a problem: if you have committed yourself to a disjunction of thoroughly unsatisfactory alternatives, it would seem you’re already in trouble, even if you refuse to settle on which of these unsatisfactory alternatives to embrace.2 I will not further discuss the option of biting the bullet in favor of (2), or the option of accepting the disjunction of (1) and (2) while remaining artfully silent about which disjunct to accept.3 But I’ll say a bit more about the option of biting the bullet in favor of (1). A superficially appealing way to bite the bullet for option (1) is to say that schema (T) should be weakened to the following: (T ) If True(hpi) or True(h:pi), then True(hpi) if and only if p. (Proponents of this often introduce the term ‘expresses a proposition’, and say that hpi’s expressing a proposition suffices for the consequent of (T ) to hold and that the antecedent of (T ) suffices for hpi to express a proposition.) It is easily seen that (T ) is equivalent to the simpler schema 1 As mentioned above, we wouldn’t need even these minimal requirements if we focused on satisfaction rather than truth, and used the heterologicality paradox. 2 Note that the situation is far worse than for supervaluationist accounts of vagueness. Such accounts allow commitment to disjunctions where we think it would be a mistake to commit to either disjunct. But there the only problem with choosing one disjunct over the other is that the choice seems quite arbitrary; the disjuncts are not thoroughly unacceptable, as they seem to be in the case of the paradoxes. 3 My own dissatisfaction with the ‘‘artful silence’’ option is not entirely due to the general consideration just raised, but also to the fact that a consistent view of this type must exclude so many natural principles that are crucial for the purposes that the truth predicate serves. See [11] and [18] for some important limitations on such theories.


12:30pm

page 266

266 / Hartry Field (T ) If True(hpi) then p.4 Obviously these equivalent schemas can’t be anything like complete theories of truth: for they are compatible with nothing being true, or with no sentence that begins with the letter ‘B’ being true, or innumerably many similar absurdities. To get a satisfactory theory of truth that included one of these schemas, one would have to add a substantial body of partial converses of (T ); and one would presumably also want principles such as (TPMP) True (hpi) ^ True (hp qi) True (hqi), or better, the generalized form of this (that whenever a conditional and its antecedent are true, so is the consequent: that is, that modus ponens is truthpreserving).5 But whatever the details of the supplementation, theories based on (T ) or its equivalent (T ) are prima facie unappealing because they require a great many instances of (1). Obviously the Liar sentence Q0 is one example: since we can prove that Q0 :True(hQ0 i), (T ) yields both Q0 and :TrueðhQ0 iÞ. But in addition, Montague [19] pointed out that (T ) plus (TPMP) plus the very minimal assumption that all theorems of quantification theory are true yields a proof of the untruth of some instances of (T ): that is, there is a sentence M (a slight variant of Q0 ) such that we can prove :True(hIf True(hMi) then Mi).6 4 (T ) implies (T ): Suppose True(hpi); then by (T ), True(hpi) p, which with True(hpi) yields p; so we have True(hpi) p. (T ) implies (T ): This requires two instances of (T ), both (i) True(hpi) p and (ii) True(h:pi) :p. Suppose True(hpi); then by (i), p; so True(hpi) p. Alternatively, suppose True(h:pi); then by (ii), :p, and by (i), :True(hpi); so again True(hpi) p. So True(hpi) _ True(h:pi) (True(hpi) p). 5 Equivalently (given a minimal assumption about how elimination of double-negation leaves truth unaffected), True(hp _ qi) ^ False(hpi) True(hqi), or the generalized form of that; where ‘False(hpi)’ means ‘True(h:pi)’. 6 Let R be the conjunction of the axioms of Robinson arithmetic (which is adequate to construct self-referential sentences). Standard techniques of self-reference allow the construction of a sentence N that is provably equivalent, in Robinson arithmetic, to True(hR :Ni); M will be R :N. Since this is provable in Robinson arithmetic, then R [N True(hR :Ni)] is a theorem of quantification theory, hence so is its quantificational consequence [True(hR :Ni) (R :N)] (R :N); so the claim that that is True is part of the truth theory, and that together with (TPMP) yields True[hTrue(hR :Ni) (R :N)i] True(hR :Ni). So if our truth theory proves the negation of the consequent, it proves the negation of the antecedent, which is


12:30pm

page 267

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 267 It seems highly unsatisfactory to put forward a theory of truth that includes (T ), and use it to conclude that some instances of (T ) (including specific instances that you can identify) aren’t true. It is sometimes thought that one can improve this situation by postulating a hierarchy of ever more inclusive truth predicates Trues , and for each one adopting (T s), i.e. the analog of (T ) but with ‘Trues ’ in place of ‘True’. (The subscripts are notations for ordinals; the idea is that there will be truth predicates for each member of an initial segment of the ordinals, with no largest s for which there is a truth predicate. There is no notion of truths for variable s.) For any ordinal s for which we have such a predicate, we will be able to derive :Trues (hIf Trues (hMs i) then Ms i) for a certain sentence Ms that contains ‘Trues ’; but we will also be able to assert Truesþ1 (hIf Trues (hMs i) then Ms i), and this is sometimes thought to ameliorate the situation. But even if it does, the cost is high. I can’t discuss this fully, but will confine myself to a single example. Suppose I tentatively put forward a ‘‘theory of truth’’—more accurately, a theory of the various truths s—that includes all instances of (T s) for each of the truth predicates, together with general principles such as (TPMPs ) for each of the truth predicates, and various partial consequences of each of the (T s). Someone then tells me that my theory has an implausible consequence; I can’t quite follow all the details of his complicated reasoning, but he’s a very competent logician and the general strategy he describes for deducing the implausible consequence seems as if it should work, so I come to think he’s probably right. Since the consequence still seems implausible, it is natural to conjecture that my theory of truth is wrong—or at least, to consider the possibility that it is wrong and discuss the consequences of that. It is natural to do this even if I have no idea where it might be wrong. But I can’t conjecture this, or discuss the consequences of it, since I have no sufficiently inclusive truth predicate. (‘Wrong’ means ‘not true’.)7 the desired negation of the attribution of truth to an instance of (T ). It remains only to show that a proof theory with (T ) and arithmetic does prove :True(hR :Ni), but that’s easy: from (T ) we get True(hR :Ni) (R :N), which given arithmetic yields True(hR :Ni) :N; but since N is provably equivalent to True(hR :Ni), this yields :True(hR :Ni). 7 If the theory were finitely axiomatized I could avoid the use of a truth predicate, but it isn’t: that’s guaranteed by the need of a separate instance of (T s) for arbitrarily high s (or rather, for arbitrarily high s such that ‘trues ’ is defined).


12:30pm

page 268

268 / Hartry Field And a more specific conjecture, that my theory isn’t trues for some specific s, won’t do the trick. For one thing, I already know for each of my truth predicates trues that not all of the assertions of my theory are trues ; after all, it was because I knew that certain instances of (T s) couldn’t be trues that I was led to introduce the notion of truthsþ1 . Might I get around that problem by finding a way of specifying for each sentence A of my theory of truth a sA such that A will be ‘‘truesA if it is true at all’’ (if you’ll pardon the use of an unsubscripted truth predicate)? I doubt that one can find a way to specify such a sA for each A: the fact that many principles of a decent truth theory contain quantifiers that range over arbitrary sentences and hence sentences that include arbitrarily high truths predicates gives serious reasons for doubt. But even if one can do that—indeed, even if one can specify a function f mapping each sentence A of the theory into the corresponding sA —it wouldn’t fully get around the problem. For it could well be that for each s, I would be confident that all members of {Aj f (A) ¼ s} are trues ; a worry that there is a s such that not all members of {Aj f (A) ¼ s} are trues does not entail a worry for any specific s. It is the more general worry, that there is a s such that not all members of {Ajf (A) ¼ s} are trues , that my story motivates; but that more general worry is unintelligible according to the hierarchical theory, for in treating quantification over the ordinal subscripts as intelligible it violates the principles of the hierarchy. There is much more that could be said about these matters, but I hope I’ve said enough to make it attractive to explore an option that weakens classical logic.

2. Semantic Paradoxes: A Nonclassical Approach The most famous nonclassical resolution of the paradoxes, due to Kripke [14], employs a logic K3 that can be read off the strong Kleene truth tables. More exactly, suppose we assign each sentence A a semantic value kAk of either 1, 0, or 12, with the assignment governed by the following rules: kA ^ Bk is min{kAk, kBk} kA _ Bk is max{kAk, kBk} k:Ak is 1 kAk kA Bk is k:A _ Bk, hence max{1 kAk, kBk}.


12:30pm

page 269

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 269 (Think of 1 as the ‘‘best’’ value, 0 as the ‘‘worst’’, and 12 as ‘‘intermediate’’. It may seem more philosophically natural to avoid assigning the value 12, and to instead regard certain sentences as simply having no value assigned to them; but obviously these two styles of formulation are intertranslatable, and the formulation that uses the value 12 allows for a more compact presentation at several points.) Assuming everything to have a name, as I will for simplicity,8 we also set k8xAk ¼ min{kA(x=c)k} and k9xAk ¼ max{kA(x=c)k}. Then Kripke shows that if we start with the language of arithmetic or some other language adequate to syntax, and any arithmetically standard model M for it that is evaluated by these rules, then we can extend the model by designating a subset of M as the extension of ‘True’ (leaving the ontology and the extension of the other predicates alone) in such a way that for every sentence A, kTrue(hAi)k will be the same as kAk (and where only objects that satisfy ‘Sentence’ satisfy ‘True’). More generally, if sentences B and C are alike except that some occurrences of A in one of them are replaced by True (hAi) in the other, then kBk will be the same as kCk. One way to look at this is as showing that we can keep the intersubstitutivity of True (hAi) with A in a revised logic K3 . In K3 we call an inference valid if under every assignment to atomic sentences, if the premises have semantic value 1 then so does the conclusion. And we call a statement valid if it has semantic value 1 under every assignment to atomic sentences. Note that instances of the law of excluded middle (A _ :A) come out invalid: they can have value 12. (Indeed, no statement in this language is valid, though many of the familiar classical rules are valid.) Kripke’s result shows that in the logic so obtained,9 we can consistently assume that for every sentence A and every pair of sentences B and C that are alike except that some occurrences of A in one of them are replaced by True (hAi) in the other, the inference from B to C and from C to B are valid. This is one of the two components of the naive theory of truth, and is not consistently obtainable in classical logic. It is not entirely clear that this use of nonclassical logic is what Kripke is recommending in his discussion of the strong Kleene version of his theory of truth: some of his remarks suggest it, but others suggest a classical-logic 8 Alternatively, we could extend the assignment of semantic values to pairs of formulas and functions assigning objects to variables. 9 Indeed, even in a slightly expanded logic K3þ that includes disjunction elimination as a metarule; whether the meta-rule is explicitly built into the logic makes a difference when one considers adding new validities involving new logical vocabulary.


12:31pm

page 270

270 / Hartry Field theory later formalized by Feferman ([3], pp. 273–4). The classical-logic Kripke–Feferman theory postulates truth-value gaps: it says of certain sentences, such as the Liar, that they are neither true nor false. (‘False’ is taken to mean ‘has a true negation’, so the claim is that neither they nor their negations are true.) As a consistent classical theory, it gives up on the equivalence between ‘True(hpi)’ and ‘p’. (The Kripke–Feferman theory is one of the ones that commits itself to disjunct (1) in the previous section.) The Kripke theory in its nonclassical version has no commitment to truth-value gaps: indeed, since the whole point of the theory is to maintain the equivalence between ‘True(hpi)’ and ‘p’, the assertion of :[True(hpi) _ :(True(h:pi)] would be equivalent to the assertion of :[p _ :p]; that entails both p and :p in the logic, and in this logic as well as in classical that entails everything. So it is very important in the Kripke theory (on its nonclassical reading) not to commit to truth-value gaps. It will give certain sentences the value 12, but that is not to be read as ‘‘neither true nor false’’. I think the nonclassical reading of Kripke is the more interesting one, and I will confine my discussion to it. I think there are two main problems with the Kripke theory (on this reading). Perhaps the more serious of the problems is that the logic is simply too weak: as Feferman once remarked, ‘‘nothing like sustained ordinary reasoning can be carried out in [the] logic’’ ([3], p. 264). One symptom of this is that not even the law A A is valid: since A B is equivalent to :A _ B, this follows from the invalidity of excluded middle. And note that the intersubstitutivity of True (hAi) with A guarantees that True (hAi) A and its converse are each equivalent to A A; since the latter isn’t part of the logic in the Kripke theory, neither half of the biconditional True (hAi) A is validated in Kripke models. So one consequence of the first problem for the Kripke theory is that it does not yield the full naive theory of truth. The other problem for the Kripke theory, the ‘‘revenge problem’’, has been more widely discussed, but I think much of that discussion has been vitiated by a confusion between the nonclassical version of Kripke’s theory and the classical Kripke–Feferman theory: much of it has been based on falsely supposing that the Kripke theory is committed to truth-value gaps. The only real revenge problem for the nonclassical Kripke theory has to do with the fact that the ‘‘defectiveness’’ of sentences like Q0 is inexpressible in the theory, and there is a worry that if we were to expand the theory to include a ‘‘defectiveness predicate’’ the paradoxes would return. I will be proposing a


12:31pm

page 271

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 271 theory that has much more expressive power than the Kripke theory, and which avoids the revenge problem by having the means to express the defectiveness of paradoxical sentences like Q0 without this leading to inconsistency. Returning to the first of the two problems, a natural idea for how to avoid it is to add a new conditional ! to the Kleene logic, which does obey the law A ! A. There have been many proposals about how to do this; unfortunately, most of them do not enable one to consistently maintain the intersubstitutivity of True (hAi) with A (or even the truth schema True (hAi) $ A which that implies given the law A ! A). In fact, I know of only two workable proposals for how to do this, both by myself; and one of them ([6]) is not very attractive. (There is also a proposal in Brady [1], which is not an extension of Kleene logic but only of a weaker logic FDE, which is a basic relevance logic.) These theories not only contain A ! A, they also contain a substitutivity rule that allows the inference from A $ B to C $ D when C and D are alike except that one contains B in some places where the other contains A; thus the logic is ‘‘classical enough’’ for the two components of the classical theory of truth to be equivalent. I will say a little bit about the more attractive of the two theories ([8]). As with Kripke’s construction, we start out with a base language that doesn’t include ‘True’, or the new ‘!’, and with a classical model for this base language whose arithmetical part is standard. The semantics of the theory— which I’ll call the Restricted Semantics, since I will generalize it in Section 5— is given by a transfinite sequence of Kripke-constructions. At each stage of the transfinite sequence (‘‘maxi-stage’’), we begin with a certain assignment of values in {0, 12 , 1} to sentences whose main connective is the ‘!’. Given such an assignment of values to the conditionals, Kripke’s method of obtaining a minimal fixed point enables us (in a sequence of ‘‘mini-stages within the maxi-stage’’) to obtain a value for every sentence of the language, in such a way as to respect the Kleene valuation rules and the principle that True (hAi) always has the same value as A. It remains only to say how the assignment of values to conditionals that starts each maxi-stage is determined. At the 0th stage it’s simple: we just give each conditional value 12. At each successor stage, we let A ! B have value 1 if the value of A at the prior stage is less than or equal to the value of B; otherwise we give it the value 0. At limit stages, we see if there is a point prior to the limit such that after that point (and before the limit), the value of A is always less than or equal to that of B; if so, A ! B gets value 1 at the limit. Similarly, if there is a point prior to the limit such that


12:31pm

page 272

272 / Hartry Field after that point (and before the limit), the value of A is always greater than that of B, then A ! B gets value 0 at the limit. And if neither condition obtains, A ! B gets value 12 at the limit. That completes the specification of how each maxi-stage begins; to repeat, this specification serves as the input to a Kripke construction that yields values at that stage for every sentence.10 In typical cases of sentences that are paradoxical on other theories, the values oscillate wildly from one (maxi-)stage to the next. But we can define the ‘‘ultimate value’’ of a sentence to be 1 if there is a stage past which it is always 1; 0 if there is a stage past which it is always 0; and otherwise 12. It turns out that there are ordinals D (‘‘acceptable ordinals’’) such that for any nonzero b, the value of every sentence at stage D b is the same as its ultimate value. (This is the ‘‘Fundamental Theorem’’ of [8].) Since the Kleene valuation rules are satisfied at each stage, this shows (among other important things) that the ultimate values obey the Kleene rules for connectives other than !. As remarked, this construction validates naive truth theory, both in truth schema and intersubstitutivity form. (It validates it in a strong sense: it not only shows naive truth theory to be consistent, it shows it to be ‘‘consistent with any arithmetically standard starting model’’—conservative, in one sense of that phrase. For a fuller discussion see [8], n. 27.) One question that arises is the relation between the ! and the : The ! is not truth-functional,11 but one can construct a table of the possible ultimate values of A ! B given the ultimate values of A and of B: A!B

B¼1

B ¼ 12

B¼0

A¼1 A ¼ 12 A¼0

1 1 1

1 2,0 1, 12

1 2,0

1

1

0

It is evident from this table that A ! B is in some ways weaker and in some ways stronger than A B. However, from the assumption that excluded middle holds for A and for B, we can derive (A B) $ (A ! B) (and (A B) (A ! B)). Moreover, from the assumption that excluded middle holds for each atomic predicate in a set, we get full classical logic for all 10 Obviously there is a similarity to the revision theory of Gupta and Belnap [12]; but they use a revision rule for the truth predicate instead of for the conditional, and get a classical logic theory (one of the ones that refuses to commit between (1) and (2) ). 11 At least not in these values; but see [7] or [9] for an enriched set of semantic values in which it is truth-functional.


12:31pm

page 273

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 273 sentences built up out of just those predicates. Thus the logic is a generalization of classical, and reduces to classical when appropriate instances of excluded middle are assumed. One way to look at the matter is that the logic without excluded middle is the basic logic, but in domains like number theory or set theory or physics where we want excluded middle, we can simply assume all the instances of it in that domain as nonlogical premises; this will make the logic of those domains effectively classical. It is only for truth and related notions that we get into obvious trouble from assuming excluded middle: there excluded middle gives inconsistency, given the naive theory of truth. I think this is a much more attractive resolution of the paradoxes than any of the classical ones. One of its most attractive features has to do with a widely held view that any resolution of the paradoxes simply breeds new paradoxes: ‘‘revenge problems’’. I claim that there are no revenge problems in this logic. More particularly, you can state in this logic the way in which certain sentences of the logic are ‘‘defective’’; because you can do so, and because there is a consistency proof of naive truth theory in the logic, the notion (or notions) of defectiveness cannot generate any new paradoxes. I will discuss this in Sections 7 and 8. I will make one remark now, which is that like the nonclassical version of the Kripke theory, this is not a theory that posits truth-value gaps. In particular, we can’t assert of the Liar sentence that it isn’t either true or false. Nor can we assert that it is either true or false. Situations like this, where we can’t assert either a claim or its negation, may seem superficially like the situation that I complained about in the case of certain classical resolutions of the paradox, where we are committed to a disjunction in which each disjunct has bad consequences, but try to avoid those bad consequence by refusing to decide which of the two disjuncts to assert. But in fact the nonclassical situation isn’t like that at all. It is true that in the nonclassical examples we would have a problem if we asserted A and we would have a problem if we asserted :A (where A is a classically paradoxical sentence). But what made that so problematic in the classical case was that there we were committed to the claim A _ :A. We’re not committed to that in the nonclassical case, so our refusal to commit to either the classically paradoxical A or to its negation is not a defect in the account. Similarly, we’re not committed to the claim that either A lacks truth value or doesn’t lack truth value, so the refusal to commit to A’s lacking truth value or commit to its having truth value is no defect.


12:31pm

page 274

274 / Hartry Field

3. Vagueness and Indeterminacy Before discussing the revenge problem, let’s move away from the semantic paradoxes to other quasi-paradoxes. Many members of the right-to-life movement think that there is a precise nanosecond in which a given life begins, though we may not know when it is. Most of us think that this view is absurd, but Timothy Williamson [23] has in effect offered an interesting argument that the right-to-lifers are correct on this point. The initial argument goes as follows. Select a precise moment about a year before Jerry Falwell’s birth, and call it ‘time 0’. For any natural number N, let ‘time N’ mean ‘N nanoseconds after time 0’. By the law of excluded middle, we get each instance of the following schema: (3P) (Falwell’s life had begun by time N) _ :(Falwell’s life had begun by time N). From a finite number of these plus the fact that Falwell’s life hadn’t begun by time 0 plus the fact that it had begun by time 1018 , plus the fact that for any N and M with N < M, if Falwell’s life had begun by time N then it had begun by time M, a minimal amount of arithmetic and logic yields that (F) There is a unique N0 such that Falwell’s life had begun by time N0 and not by time N0 1. But then it seems that there is a fact of the matter as to which nanosecond his life began, namely, that between time N0 1 and time N0 (inclusive of the latter bound but not the former). That is the initial argument. And the most obvious way around it is to question the use of excluded middle. There have, of course, been attempts to get around the right-to-lifer’s conclusion without giving up classical logic: e.g. by introducing a notion of determinate truth and determinate falsehood such that sentences of form ‘Falwell’s life began in the (semi-closed) interval (N 1, N]’ are neither determinately true nor determinately false. But Williamson has given extensions of the initial argument that close off most of these attempts: the basic strategy is to argue that even if such sentences are conceded to be neither determinately true nor determinately false, in whatever sense of determinateness one favors, it’s hard to see why this should give any sense of nonfactuality to the question of when his life began, given the commitment to (F). Even if I concede that there’s no ‘‘determinate’’ truth here, in whatever sense


12:31pm

page 275

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 275 I may give that phrase, why can’t I wonder what the unique N0 is, or wonder whether it is even or odd? Why can’t I be very worried about the possibility that the unique N0 occurred before I performed a certain act, or very much hope that N0 is odd? And even if I take the question of whether it is odd to be beyond the scope of human knowledge, why can’t I imagine an omniscient god who (by hypothesis of his omniscience) knows the answer; or a Martian who, though not knowing everything, knows this? And so forth. But if I do wonder these things or have worries or hopes like this or concede the possibility of beings with such knowledge, all pretense that I am regarding the question as nonfactual seems hollow. In the past I’ve tried to find a way around this kind of argument, in part by a nonstandard theory of propositional attitudes within classical logic, but I’ve come to see this task as pretty hopeless. It now seems to me that rejecting some of the instances (3P) of excluded middle is the only viable option (short of giving in to the right-tolifers on this issue). But will the no-excluded-middle option work any better? Let’s first get clear on an issue (which could have been raised in connection with the semantic paradoxes too) of what it is to ‘‘reject’’ certain instances of excluded middle. We don’t reject all of them, only some; what exactly is this difference in attitude we have between those that we reject and those that we don’t? First of all, ‘‘reject’’ can’t mean ‘‘deny’’, that is, ‘‘assert the negation of’’. Suppose we deny an instance of (3P), that is, assert (3N) :[(Falwell’s life had begun by time N) _ :(Falwell’s life had begun by time N)]. The expression in brackets is a disjunction, and surely on any reasonable logic a disjunction is weaker than either of its disjuncts. So denying the disjunction has got to entail denying each disjunct, and so asserting (3N) clearly commits us to asserting both of the following: (4a) :(Falwell’s life had begun by time N). (4b) ::(Falwell’s life had begun by time N). But (4b) is the negation of (4a), so (3N) has led to a classical contradiction. And as noted before, the conjunction of a sentence with its negation is also a contradiction in the Kleene logic K3 described previously, in the sense that there too it implies everything. Now, that isn’t the end of the matter: instead of using K3 we could follow Graham Priest [20] and opt for a ‘‘paraconsistent logic’’ on which classical


12:31pm

page 276

276 / Hartry Field contradictions don’t entail everything, and therefore aren’t so bad as in classical logic. I wouldn’t dismiss that view out of hand. But there are problems with using it in the present context. For one thing, since the paraconsistentist accepts (4a), and (3P) is a disjunction with (4a) as one disjunct, the paraconsistentist will accept (3P) as well as (3N): (3P) follows from (4a) on any reasonable logic, including all the standard paraconsistent logics. But then we can argue from (3P) to Williamson’s conclusion that there is a unique nanosecond in which Falwell’s life began, in precisely the same way as before, so the conclusion has not been blocked. The conclusion has been denied—from (3N) we can conclude that there is not a unique nanosecond during which his life began12—but it has also been asserted. This classical inconsistency is not in itself a problem, it is just a further instance of paraconsistentist doctrine that classical inconsistency is no defect; but it is disappointing that we are left in a position of thinking that the right-to-lifers are no less correct to assert that there is a fact of the matter as to the nanosecond in which Falwell was born than we are to deny that there is a fact of the matter. So rejection must be interpreted in some other way than as denial. A common claim is that to reject A is to regard it as not true. The problem with this is that on the most straightforward reading of ‘true’—and the one I took great pains to maintain in the earlier sections on the semantic paradoxes— the claim that A is true is equivalent to A itself; so asserting that A is not true is equivalent to asserting :A, and this account of rejection reduces to the previous one. Perhaps rejection is just nonacceptance? No, that’s far too weak. Compare my attitude toward (5) Falwell’s life began in an even-numbered nanosecond with my attitude toward (6) Attila’s maternal grandmother weighed less than 125 pounds on the day she died. (5) seems intuitively ‘‘nonfactual’’, and I reject both it and its negation in the strongest terms. That is not at all the case with (6): I have no reason to doubt that this question is perfectly factual. I don’t accept (6) or its negation, for lack of evidence; but I don’t reject them either, for given the ‘‘factuality’’ of (6) and 12 Indeed, we can conclude both (i) that there are multiple nanoseconds during which his life began, rather than one, and (ii) that there is no nanosecond during which his life began.


12:31pm

page 277

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 277 its negation I could only reject one by accepting the other. Rejection is more than mere nonacceptance.13 The same point arises for the acceptance and rejection of instances of excluded middle. The point would be easier to illustrate here with examples that have less contextual variation than does ‘life’, and where the higherorder indeterminacy is less prevalent; but let’s stick to the life case anyway. Suppose I am certain that on my concept of life, if it is determinate that a person’s conception occurred during a certain minute then it is indeterminate whether their life began during that minute, but determinate that their life didn’t begin before that minute. Then if I knew enough about Falwell to be sure that his conception occurred during some particular precisely delimited minute, and N were the nanosecond marking the end of that minute, then I would reject the corresponding instance of (3P). If however I have no very clear idea how old Falwell is, so that for all I know nanosecond N might be before his conception or after his birth, I will be uncertain about the corresponding instance of (3P): I will neither accept it nor reject it. (The same point can arise even if I do have detailed knowledge of the times of his conception and birth and the various intermediate stages: suppose that I’m undecided whether there is a God who injects vital fluid into each human body at some precise time, but think that if there is no such God then N would correspond to a borderline case of Falwell’s life having begun.) So for instances of excluded middle too, we have that rejection is stronger than mere nonacceptance.14 Should the failure of all these attempts to explain the notion of rejection required by the opponent of excluded middle lead us to suppose that there is 13 Rejecting A is also not to be identified with believing it impossible that one could have enough evidence to accept A. Why not? That depends on the notion of possibility in question. (a) On any interestingly strong notion of possibility, belief in the impossibility of such evidence does not suffice for rejection: there are intuitively factual ‘yes or no’ questions (e.g. about the precise goings-on in the interior of the sun or in a black hole or beyond the event horizon) for which there is no possible evidence, but because I take them to be factual I could only reject one answer by accepting the other. (b) On a very weak notion of possibility (e.g. bare logical possibility), we have the opposite problem: even for claims that seem ‘‘nonfactual’’, like (5), there is a bare logical possibility that there is such a thing as ‘‘living force’’ and that someone will invent a ‘‘living force detector’’ that could be used to ascertain whether the claim is true. 14 The point arises as well in connection with potentially ‘‘ungrounded’’ sentences that may not be actually ‘‘ungrounded’’. If sentence A is of form ‘‘No sentence written in location D is true’’, and I know that exactly one sentence is written in location D but am unsure whether it is ‘1 þ 1 ¼ 3’ or A itself, then I am not in a position to accept or reject either the sentence A or the sentence A _ :A.


12:31pm

page 278

278 / Hartry Field no way to make sense of the no-excluded-middle position? No, for in fact there is an alternative way to explain the concept of rejection (and it doesn’t require a prior notion of indeterminacy). The key is to recognize that the refusal to accept all instances of excluded middle forces a revision in our other epistemic attitudes. A standard idealization of the epistemic attitudes of an adherent of classical logic is the Bayesian one, which (in its crudest form at least) involves attributing to each rational agent a degree of belief function that obeys the laws of classical probability; these laws entail that theorems of classical logic get degree of belief 1. Obviously this is inappropriate if rational agents needn’t accept all instances of excluded middle. But allowing degrees of belief less than 1 to some instances of excluded middle forces other violations of classical probability theory. In particular, if we keep the laws P(A _ B) þ P(A ^ B) ¼ P(A) þ P(B) and P(A ^ :A) ¼ 0, then we must accept P(A _ :A) ¼ P(A) þ P(:A). In that case, assigning degree of belief less than 1 to instances of excluded middle requires that we weaken the law (7) P(A) þ P(:A) ¼ 1 to (7w ) P(A) þ P(:A) 1. The relevance of this to acceptance and rejection is that accepting A seems intimately related to having a high degree of belief in it; say, a degree of belief at or over a certain threshold T > 12.15 So let us think of rejection as the dual notion: it is related in the same way to having a low degree of belief, one at or lower than the co-threshold 1 T. In the context of classical probability theory where (7) is assumed, this just amounts to acceptance of the negation. But with (7) replaced by (7w ), rejection in this sense is weaker than acceptance 15 We can take T to be 1, but only if we are very generous about attributing degree of belief 1. If (as I prefer) we take T to be less than 1, some would argue that the lottery paradox prevents a strict identification of acceptance with degree of belief over the threshold; I doubt that it does, but to avoid having to argue the matter I have avoided any claim of strict identification.


12:31pm

page 279

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 279 of the negation. (It remains stronger than failure to accept: sentences believed to degrees between 1 T and T will be neither accepted nor rejected.) I take it that in a case where a sentence A is clearly indeterminate (e.g. case (5), for anyone certain that there is no such thing as ‘‘vital fluid’’), the degree of belief in A and in :A should both be 0. Some may feel it more natural to say that the degree of belief in ‘‘Falwell’s life began in an even-numbered nanosecond’’ should be not the single point 0, but the closed interval [0,1]. That view is easy to accommodate: represent the degree of belief in A not by the point P(A), but by the closed interval R(A) ¼df [P(A), 1 P(:A)].16 This is merely a matter of terminology: the functions P and R are interdefinable, and it is a matter of taste which one is taken to represent ‘‘degrees of belief ’’. (In terms of R, acceptance and rejection of A go by the lower bound of R(A).) The value of introducing probabilistic notions is that they give us a natural way to represent the gradations in attitudes that people can have about the ‘‘factuality’’ of certain questions—at least, they do when higher-order indeterminacy is not at issue. To regard the question of whether A is the case as ‘‘certainly factual’’ is for the following equivalent conditions on one’s degree of belief to obtain: P(A) þ P(:A) ¼ 1; P(A _ :A) ¼ 1; R(A) is point-valued; R(A _ :A) ¼ {1}. To regard it as ‘‘certainly nonfactual’’ is for the following equivalent conditions to hold: P(A) þ P(:A) ¼ 0; P(A _ :A) ¼ 0; R(A) ¼ [0, 1]; R(A _ :A) ¼ [0, 1]. In general, the degree to which one believes A determinate is represented (in the P-formulation) by P(A) þ P(:A); i.e. P(A _ :A); i.e. 1 w, where w is the breadth of the interval R(A); i.e. the lower bound of R(A _ :A). In the P-formulation, belief revision on empirical evidence goes just as on the 16 Note that R(A _ :A) will always be an interval with upper bound 1; its lower bound will be 1 w, where w is the width of the interval R(A).


12:31pm

page 280

280 / Hartry Field classical theory, by conditionalizing; this allows the ‘‘degree of certainty of the determinacy of A’’ to go up or down with evidence (as long as it isn’t 1 or 0 to start with). The idea can be used not only for examples like the Falwell example, but for potentially paradoxical sentences as well. Consider a sentence S that says that no sentence written in a certain location is true, and suppose that we know that exactly one sentence is written in that location; our degree of belief that the sentence in that location is ‘2 þ 2 ¼ 4’ is p, our degree of belief that it is ‘2 þ 2 ¼ 5’ is q, and our degree of belief that the sentence written there is S itself is 1 p q, which I’ll call r. I submit that our degree of belief in S should be q, our degree of belief in :S should be p, and our degree of belief in S _ :S should be p þ q, i.e. 1 r. The key point in motivating this assignment is that relative to the assumption that the sentence written there is S, then S and :S each imply the contradiction S ^ :S, and so S _ :S implies this contradiction as well; given this, it seems clear that if we were certain that the sentence written there were S, then we should have degree of belief 0 in S, in :S, and in S _ :S. As we increase our degree of certainty that the sentence written there is S, our tendency to reject the three sentences S, :S, and S _ :S should become stronger. Of course, the idea that we can attribute to an agent a determinate P-function (or R-function) is a considerable idealization. Even in the case of classical P-functions, where we don’t allow P(A) þ P(:A) to be less than 1, the issue of whether a person’s degree of belief is greater than say 0.7 often seems indeterminate. How are we to make sense of the indeterminacy here? It should be no surprise that on my view, we make sense of this by giving up the presupposition of excluded middle for certain claims of form ‘‘X’s probability function PX is such that PX (A) > 0:7’’.17 (It isn’t that we need to develop the theory of probability itself in a nonclassical language; where excluded middle is to be questioned, rather, is in the attribution of a given perfectly classical probability function to a given agent X. If you like, this gives failures of excluded middle for ‘‘claims about PX ’’, though not for claims about individual probability functions specified independently of the agent 17 A common suggestion ([17]) is that we should represent the epistemic state of an agent X not by a single probability function but by a nonempty set SX of them. That is in some ways a step in the right direction, but it too involves unwanted precision; and while that could be somewhat ameliorated by going to nonempty sets of nonempty sets of probability functions, or iterating this even further, I think that ultimately there is no satisfactory resolution short of recognizing that excluded middle fails for some attributions.


12:31pm

page 281

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 281 X.) We can take the same position for nonclassical P-functions or R- functions too. I’m inclined to think that there is a strong connection between this indeterminacy in the degree of belief function and ‘‘higher-order indeterminacy’’: in cases where X attributes higher-order indeterminacy to A, some assertions about the value of PX (A _ :A) (or RX (A _ :A)) will be ones for which excluded middle can’t be assumed. In any case, the indeterminacy in attributions of probability doesn’t essentially change the picture offered in the preceding paragraph: to whatever extent that we can say that X’s degree of belief function attributes value 1 to A _ :A, to precisely that extent we can say that X regards A as certainly factual. So far I have not said anything about introducing a notion of determinacy into the language. I have argued that even without doing so, we can represent a ‘‘dispute about the factuality of A’’ as a disagreement in attitude: a disagreement about what sort of degrees of belief to adopt. An ‘‘advocate of the factuality of A’’ will have a cognitive state in which P(A _ :A) is high (i.e. in which R(A) is close to point-valued). An ‘‘opponent of the factuality of A’’ will have a cognitive state in which P(A _ :A) is low (i.e. R(A) occupies most of the unit interval). I think it important to see that we can do all this without bringing the notion of determinacy into the language: it makes clear that there is more substance to a dispute about factuality than a mere debate about how a term like ‘factual’ or ‘determinate’ is to be used. Still, what we have so far falls short of what we might desire, in that so far we have no means to literally assert the nonfactuality of the question of whether A: having a low degree of belief in A _ :A is a way of rejecting the factuality of A, but not of denying it. It would be very awkward if we couldn’t do better than this: debates about the factuality of questions would be crippled were we unable to treat the claim of determinacy or factuality as itself propositional. What we need, then, is an operator G, such that GA means intuitively that A is a determinate (or factual) claim, i.e. that the question of whether A is the case is a determinate (or factual) question. Actually it’s simpler to take as basic an operator D, where DA means that it is determinately the case that A. The claim GA (that it is determinate whether A) is the claim that DA _ D:A. The point of the operator is that though :(A _ :A) is a contradiction, :(DA _ D:A) is not to be contradictory. ‘‘Determinately operators’’ are more familiar in the context of attempts to treat vagueness and indeterminacy within classical logic, and their use there in representing nonfactuality is subject to a persuasive criticism. The criticism is


12:31pm

page 282

282 / Hartry Field that whatever meaning one gives to the D operator, it is hard to see how :(DA _ D:A) can represent the nonfactuality of the question of whether A: for any claims to nonfactuality are undermined by the acceptance of A _ :A. But when we have given up the acceptance of A _ :A, the criticism doesn’t apply. People can have degrees of belief about determinateness, so their degree of belief function should extend to the language containing D. If we had only first-order indeterminacy to worry about, and could stick to the idealization of a determinate degree of belief function PX for our agent X, some constraints on how PX extends to the D-language would be obvious: since PX (A) þ PX (:A) represents the degree to which the agent regards A factual, which is PX (DA _ D:A), which in turn is PX (DA) þ PX (D:A), we must suppose that PX (DA) ¼ PX (A) for any A.18 That is, we must regard the lower bound of RX (DA) as the same as the lower bound of RX (A). Indeed, with higher-order indeterminacy excluded, RX (DA) should just be a point: PX (:DA) will be simply 1 PX (A). So the fact that DA is strictly stronger than A comes out in that PX (:DA) can be greater than PX (:A) but not less than it, i.e. in that the upper bound of RX (DA) can be lower than that of RX (A) but not greater than it. It is, however, important to allow for higherorder indeterminacy, and there may be some question how best to do so. A proper representation of higher-order indeterminacy presumably should allow excluded middle to fail for sentences of form DA, so we want to allow that PX (DA) þ PX (:DA) falls short of 1, i.e. that RX (DA) not be point-valued. I’m inclined to think that we ought to keep the demand that the lower bound of RX (DA) is always the same as that of RX (A); this would leave the upper bound unfixed.19 (As noted before, the situation is complicated by the fact that there is indeterminacy in the attribution of P-functions or R-functions to the agent, so we can’t assume excluded middle for all claims about PX and RX . I don’t believe that this requires modification of what I’ve said, but the matter deserves more thought than I have been able to give it.) I think that what I’ve said clarifies important aspects of the conceptual role of the determinately operator. Indeed, until recently I thought that not a 18 More generally, we could argue that for any A and B, P(DA ^ B) ¼ P(A ^ B). 19 There are intuitions that go contrary to this: sometimes we seem prepared to assert A but not to assert ‘‘It is determinately the case that A’’. I’m somewhat inclined to think that this is so only in examples where A contains terms that are context-dependent as well as indeterminate, and that it is so because we give to ‘determinately A’ a meaning like ‘under all reasonable contextual alterations of the use of these terms, A would come out true’; and this seems to me a use of ‘determinately’ different from the one primarily relevant to the theory of indeterminacy. But I confess to a lack of complete certainty on these points; for instance, another possibility


12:31pm

page 283

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 283 whole lot more could be said to clarify that operator. I now realize that that former opinion was far too pessimistic: in fact, I’m tempted to say that the determinately operator can be defined in terms of a more basic operator, a conditional ‘!’. As we’ll see in the next section, such a conditional plays a very central role in the theory of vagueness; in Section 5 I will then make a case that the conditional required is ‘‘essentially the same as’’ the one used in connection with the semantic paradoxes. Starting in Section 6, I will explain how the conditional can be used to define a very good candidate for the determinately operator. The definition of ‘determinately’ in terms of the conditional would not make the probabilistic laws governing the determinately operator irrelevant: for they would indirectly constrain our degrees of belief in sentences involving the conditional. The conditional, however, can be given a very rich set of deductive relationships; it is these deductive relationships on it, together with the probabilistic constraints on the determinately operator defined from it, together with that definition, which would jointly clarify the conditional and the determinately operator together. The picture just sketched may eventually need to be complicated slightly: while we can certainly define a very good candidate for the intuitive determinately operator D in terms of the conditional, the defined operator D may not match the intuitive operator in every respect. But even if this turns out to be so, the intuitive operator and the defined operator will share enough properties for D to provide a very good model of D; in particular, the intuitive laws governing D, including the laws of its interaction with the conditional, will be very close to the laws provable for D. In short: I’m tempted by the view that we have a strict definition of D in terms of ‘!’, but even if not, what we do have will give rich structural connections between the two that, when combined with the probabilistic account above, do a great deal to settle the meaning of D.

4. The Conditional Again What kind of logic do we want to use for vagueness? For reasons mentioned already, it should not include the law of excluded middle. I will now assume would be to allow that in some contexts the upper bound of R(A) plays a role in governing the assertion of A. (I’d like to thank Richard Dietz, Stephen Schiffer, and Timothy Williamson for discussions of the complications of any extension of talk of probability to a language with a determinately operator, when higher-order vagueness is allowed. In particular, Dietz pointed out a substantial problem in an earlier attempt of mine, in a classical-logic context.)


12:31pm

page 284

284 / Hartry Field that the logic should be like the Kleene logic K3 (or K3þ : see note 9) as regards the basic connectives :, ^ and _. This assumption is both plausible and widely accepted, and seems to have the best hope of providing a unification of the logic of vagueness with the appropriate logic for the semantic paradoxes. The standard semantics for the logic K3 (or indeed, K3þ ) is the strong Kleene valuation tables, mentioned previously, on which each sentence receives one and only one of the values 1, 0, and 12. These should not be read ‘true’, ‘false’, and ‘neither true nor false’: then assigning value 12 would be postulating a truth-value gap, which we cannot do for reasons given in Section 2. A somewhat better reading would be ‘determinately true’, ‘determinately false’, and ‘neither determinately true nor determinately false’. That isn’t quite right either: among other things, since it is assumed that each sentence has one of the three values, this reading would commit us to the claim that excluded middle holds for attributions of determinate truth and determinate falsehood,20 thereby ruling out higher-order indeterminacy. (This argument assumes that the semantics is given in a classical metalanguage; an alternative is to keep to the readings ‘determinately true’, ‘determinately false’, and ‘neither of those’, but refrain from assuming of every sentence that it has one of the three values. More on this later.) In Sections 5 and 8 I will say a bit more about these issues of how to interpret the semantics. But for now, the readings ‘determinately true’, ‘determinately false’, and ‘neither determinately true nor determinately false’ will be close enough to serve our purposes. In the nonclassical treatment of the semantic paradoxes in Section 2, we saw that there was a strong need to supplement the Kleene logic with a new conditional: a conditional A ! B not defined in the classical way, as :A _ B. For whatever the merits of that definition in a context where we have excluded middle, it fails miserably when excluded middle is abandoned: it doesn’t even obey such elementary laws as A ! A, and because of this it is very hard to reason with. Indeed, the failure of the connective :A _ B (which I’ll call the Kleene conditional, and abbreviate A B) as a definition of A ! B is perhaps even more striking in connection with vagueness than it is in connection with the semantic paradoxes. For consider the following claims: 20 The commitment to one of the three values is DT _ DF _ (:DT ^ :DF), which is equivalent to (DT _ DF _ :DT) ^ (DT _ DF _ :DF); since DF entails :DT and DT entails :DF, this entails (DT _ :DT) ^ (DF _ :DF).


12:31pm

page 285

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 285 (A) There are nearly 1,000 red balls in Urn 1. (B) There are nearly 1,000 black balls in Urn 1. In fact, let us suppose, there are exactly 947 red balls and exactly 953 black balls in Urn 1. Let us imagine a context where both 947 and 953 seem to be in the borderline region of ‘nearly 1,000’, so that we’d be inclined to regard A and B as each having value 12. But since the number of black balls is closer to 1,000 than is the number of red balls, we’d surely want to give ‘‘If there are nearly 1,000 red balls in Urn 1 then there are nearly 1,000 black balls in Urn 1’’ semantic value 1. But if we use the connective ‘’ to define ‘if . . . then’, we don’t get this result: ‘A B’ will come out with value 12. So we very much need another conditional. The point is not a new one: nearly all advocates of nonclassical logics of vagueness have proposed using a conditional other than ‘’. The most popular expansion of Kleene logic is Łukasiewicz continuum-valued logic, aka ‘‘fuzzy logic’’. For the semantics of this conditional we need to further partition the values other than 0 and 1: instead of just 12, we allow arbitrary real numbers between 0 and 1. The value of A ^ B is then the minimum of the values of A and B, while the value of A _ B is the maximum; and the value of :A is 1 minus the value of A. Clearly, as far as these connectives go the valuation rules are a generalization of the Kleene rules: the Kleene rules result by restricting attention to the three values 0, 12, and 1. Moreover, taking 1 as the sole designated value, the class of valid inferences in these connectives is unaffected. The point of the new semantics (as far as logic as opposed to pragmatics goes) is that it enables us to give rules for a new connective !; the valuation rule is that the value of A ! B is 1 if the value of A is less than or equal to that of B, and otherwise is 1 minus the extent by which the value of A exceeds that of B. The Łukasiewicz semantics works reasonably well for dealing with vagueness, but I have never seen a compelling argument for it. And it does have some intuitive defects: for instance, the linear ordering of values is unintuitive, and leads to the claim that sentences such as It is either the case that if Tim is thin then John is old, or that if John is old then Tim is thin are logical truths. Moreover, using the Łukasiewicz logic would doom all hope of a combined treatment of vagueness and the semantic paradoxes which preserves the naive theory of truth, for the naive theory cannot be


12:31pm

page 286

286 / Hartry Field preserved in the Łukasiewicz logic ([22], [13]). But despite these doubts about the Łukasiewicz logic, we do need a new conditional. (Whether the one proposed in connection with the semantic paradoxes would do for this purpose is something I will consider in the next section.) The issue of the conditional is also relevant to an influential argument of Kit Fine’s [10]. Fine argued that classical-logic accounts of vagueness are far superior to nonclassical-logic accounts based on the Kleene semantics, in that the Kleene-based accounts cannot handle ‘‘penumbral connections’’ between distinct vague terms. Fine’s point is this. Suppose that the claim that an object b is red and the claim that b is small both get value 12. It is unsurprising that the conjunction and disjunction of the two claims should get value 12; and that is what the Kleene tables say. But how about the claim that b is red and the claim that b is pink, when b is a borderline case of each? Fine thinks that their conjunction ought to get value 0, and that if b is clearly in the red-to-pink region their disjunction should get value 1 even though the disjuncts get the value 12. I don’t find these intuitions as compelling as Fine does, but there is a more neutral way to put his point: we ought to be able to say, somehow, that ‘red’ and ‘pink’ are contraries; and we ought to be able to say, somehow, that an object is red-to-pink, using only the terms ‘red’, ‘pink’, and logical devices. But the obvious proposals for how to do these things won’t work. For example, we can’t say that something is red-to-pink by saying that it is red or pink, since that gets value 12 when the object is on the border between red and pink; and no other logical function in Kleene logic will do any better. Put this way, Fine’s objection against the use of the unadorned Kleene logic is compelling. But once we add a new conditional to the logic, it is much less obvious that there is any problem with penumbral connections. For now we can easily explain the idea that ‘red’ and ‘pink’ are contraries: it consists in the fact that &8x[x is red ! x is not pink],21 where & indicates some kind of conceptual necessity; the claim is that what follows the & is guaranteed by a conceptual constraint on the simultaneous values that are allowed for ‘red(x)’ and ‘pink(x)’.22 And we can explain the idea of an object being in the red-to21 If ! were not contraposable, we’d have to add &8x[x is pink ! x is not red]; but both the Łukasiewicz conditional and the conditional introduced in Section 2 are contraposable (as will be the more general conditional introduced in Section 5). 22 In the case of the Łukasiewicz semantics, the appropriate constraint would be that the values assigned to ‘red(o)’ and to ‘pink(o)’ never add to more than 1. In the case of the Restricted


12:31pm

page 287

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 287 pink region: ‘‘red-to-pink(x)’’ just means ‘‘x is not red ! x is pink’’.23 We can, if we like, even introduce a ‘‘pseudo-disjunction’’ t and ‘‘pseudo-conjunction’’ u: A t B iff (:A) ! B: A u B iff :(A ! :B): So to call something red-to-pink(x) is to say that it is red t pink, and the contrariness of the two consists in the fact that nothing can be red u pink. The logic of u and t will be slightly odd (just what it is will depend on the logic of !, obviously),24 but perhaps it is close enough to the ordinary ^ and _ to explain whatever intuitive force there is in Fine’s own way of presenting the penumbral connection problem. As we’ll see in Section 6, an appropriate conditional can also be used in clarifying the notion of determinateness, and the related notion of defectiveness. But just what sort of conditional is appropriate?

5. Generalizing the Previous Conditional Before deciding what the semantics of a conditional appropriate to vagueness and indeterminacy should be, I need to say something about the role I expect the semantics to play. There are two approaches to giving a semantic account of a language with vague terms. Semantics I suggested for the paradoxes, the appropriate constraint would have to be that the values assigned to ‘red(o)’ and to ‘pink(o)’ at any sufficiently large stage never add to more than 1. The more general semantics to be introduced in the next section will drop the applicability of stages to sentences like ‘red(o)’ and ‘pink(o)’, but will contain a more general sort of variation of extension; and the constraint will be analogous, that the values assigned to ‘red(o)’ and to ‘pink(o)’ at any ‘‘world’’ (at least, any ‘‘world’’ near ‘‘the actual one’’) never add to more than 1. 23 In Łukasiewicz semantics, an object will thus satisfy ‘red-to-pink’ iff the values assigned to ‘red(o)’ and to ‘pink(o)’ add to exactly 1; in the semantics suggested for the paradoxes or its generalization in the next section, the condition is that the values assigned to ‘red(o)’ and to ‘pink(o)’ add to exactly 1 at any sufficiently large stage, or at any world near the actual one. 24 It may be useful to display the appropriate ‘‘possible value tables’’ for t and u that we get if we use the semantics outlined in Section 2: t A¼1 A ¼ 12 A¼0

B¼1

B ¼ 12

B¼0

1 1 1

1 1, 12 1 2,0

1 2,0

1 0

u A¼1 A ¼ 12 A¼0

B¼1

B ¼ 12

B¼0

1 1, 12 0

1, 12 1 2,0 0

0 0 0


12:31pm

page 288

288 / Hartry Field One is to use a perfectly precise metalanguage. This approach has one great advantage and one disadvantage. The great advantage is that we are all used to reasoning classically, and there are no real controversies about how to do it; the semantics will thus be easy to use and have a clear and unambiguous content. The disadvantage is that there is no hope of precisely capturing the content of the sentences of a vague language in a precise metalanguage: the precise metalanguage inevitably draws artificial lines. (This is why higherorder vagueness looks like such a problem when we think about it in terms of a precise metalanguage.) The only way one could conceivably give a semantic theory for a language with vague terms that accurately reflects the content of its sentences is to drop the assumption of excluded middle in the metalanguage. The metalanguage could still be like the metalanguage used before, in assigning semantic values in the set {0, 12 , 1} to sentences; but we could not assume the law of excluded middle for attributions of such values. A semantic theory that avoids excluded middle in the metalanguage may be what we should ultimately aspire to, but it does throw away the great advantage of a semantics in a classical metalanguage, and I think that for the here and now it is more useful to give our semantics in a classical metalanguage. A result of doing this is that we cannot expect our semantics to be totally faithful to the language it seeks to represent.25 What then should our standards on a semantics in a classical metalanguage be? There is a very modest conception of semantics, which Dummett ([2]) calls ‘‘semantics as a purely algebraic tool’’, where the only point of a semantics is to yield an extensionally adequate notion of logical consequence. If that were the limits on our ambition for a semantics, then it is not obvious that the Restricted Semantics offered in Section 2 in connection with the semantic paradoxes couldn’t be simply carried over to the case of vagueness and indeterminacy. In describing the construction there, I stipulated that we were to start out with a perfectly precise base language: one where each atomic predicate gets a 2-valued extension that it keeps at each stage of the 25 For independent reasons, the clarification of the meaning of logical connectives can’t proceed wholly by means of a formal semantics: any formal semantics will itself use logical connectives, often the very ones being ‘‘explained’’, and often in ways that would make the ‘‘explanations’’ grossly circular (e.g. ‘‘ ‘not A’ is true if and only if A is not true’’, ‘‘ ‘A and B’ is true if and only if A is true and B is true’’, etc.). In my view, part of what clarifies all these notions, the conditional of this section included, is its connection to degrees of belief: see the discussion at the end of Section 3.


12:31pm

page 289

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 289 construction. I then proposed adding the term ‘True’, and I took its semantics to have two features that might be taken as typical of indeterminacy: first, ‘True’ gets only a ‘‘3-valued extension’’ (‘‘positive extension’’, ‘‘negative extension’’, and ‘‘remainder’’) at each stage, and second, this 3-valued extension varies from stage to stage. (Its varying from stage to stage is connected with the higher-order indeterminacy of ‘True’.) And so a natural thought is that we might simply allow that predicates like ‘red’ and ‘bald’ could be treated like ‘True’: we could simply assign to ‘Red’ or ‘Bald’, at each stage a, a 3-valued extension, with this extension allowed to vary from one stage to the next. There is, actually, a technical constraint we’d want to impose on the way that the 3-valued extension can vary, in order to ensure that we could still add ‘True’ to the language in accord with the naive truth theory. But the required constraint is fairly evident from the proof of the technical result mentioned in Section 2.26 With this constraint imposed, we would validate the naive theory of truth even when there are vague predicates in the language; and do so in such a way that the same logic of ! that works when we add ‘True’ to a precise language works when we add to it a language allowing vagueness. This is all fine if we accept the view that the only role of the semantics is to serve as an ‘‘algebraic tool’’ for getting a consequence relation, but I think it is reasonable to demand more. True, it is inevitable that a classical semantics for a nonclassical language won’t reflect the semantics totally faithfully, but we’d like it to represent it as faithfully as possible, and the semantics just suggested seems to me to fall short of reasonable expectations. In particular, it isn’t at all clear what the assignment of 3-valued extensions to stages ‘‘means’’ in the case of vague predicates. It does seem natural (at least when one models the semantics in a classical metalanguage, which is what’s under consideration here) to think of models that have varying 3-valued extensions. What is not so natural, though, is the well-ordering of these 3-valued extensions into stages. We certainly don’t have the clear rules constraining the transfinite sequence of 3-valued extensions of ordinary vague predicates that we have in the case of 26 A sufficient constraint on the valuation of the atomic predicates other than ‘True’, for a consistent addition of ‘True’ to be possible, is that for each n-ary predicate p and each n-tuple of objects o1 ,... , on , the sequence of members of {1, 12 , 0} assigned to p(o1 , ..., on ) satisfies the following two conditions: (i) it eventually cycles, in the sense that there are a and b, the latter nonzero, such that for any two stages g1 , g2 a, the values of p(o1 ,... , on ) at these stages is the same if g1 and g2 differ by a right-multiple of b; (ii) unless the ‘‘cycle length’’ (the smallest such b) is 1, then the value of p(o1 ,... , on ) is 12 at all sufficiently high right multiples of b. As long as this regularity condition is assumed for the base language, the Fundamental Theorem of [8] goes through with no real change. (And it tells us that the regularity condition holds for ‘True’ as well.)


12:31pm

page 290

290 / Hartry Field ‘True’. We might be tempted to just require that the 3-valued extension stays the same from stage to stage; but if we do that, the model will have no representation at all of higher-order vagueness, and that doesn’t seem satisfactory. What I think is needed is a more substantial generalization of the Restricted Semantics used for the paradoxes; I’ll call it the Generalized Semantics. A natural idea for a semantics of vagueness in a classical metalanguage is to employ an infinite set W of 3-valued worlds, or just worlds for short, with one of them @ singled out as privileged. (I prefer to think of them not as alternative possibilities, but as alternative methods for assigning semantic values to actual and possible sentences, given the way the world actually is in precise respects; @ represents ‘‘the actual assignment’’.) We need to equip W with a certain structure; I propose that to each w 2 W we assign a (possibly empty) directed family -Fw of nonempty subsets of W, which I call w-neighborhoods. To say that -Fw is directed means (*) (8w 2 W)ð8U1 , U2 2 -Fw Þð9U3 2 -Fw ÞðU3 U1 \ U2 Þ. I will add a few further conditions on the -Fw as we proceed. Think of each w-neighborhood as containing the ‘‘worlds’’ that meet a certain standard of closeness to w. I’m allowing that the standards of closeness for different w-neighborhoods may be incomparable, so that two w-neighborhoods for the same w can have members other than w in common without one being a subset of the other. (If you don’t want to allow for incomparability, you could replace (*) with the simpler requirement that the members of -Fw are linearly ordered by ; this would simplify the resulting theory a bit without drastically changing its character.) It would be natural from the motivation to assume that for any w, w is a member of each U in -Fw . But for reasons that might only be relevant to the semantic paradoxes, I want to allow for the existence of abnormal worlds that do not meet this condition; all I assume in general is that @ is normal. I should also say that in my intended applications, {@} 62 -F@ (indeed, it should probably be the case that for all w, {w} 62 -Fw ); so each member of -F@ includes a point other than @. The validities that follow do not depend on this, but if {@} were a member of -F@ we would get new validities that would rule out higher-order indeterminacy and prevent the application of the theory to the semantic paradoxes. A model for a vague language L will consist of a domain V and for each w 2 W an assignment to each n-place atomic predicate of a ‘‘3-valued exten-


12:31pm

page 291

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 291 sion’’ in V n . (That is, to each (n þ 1)-tuple whose first element is an n-place predicate and whose other elements are in V, we assign at each w 2 W a member of {0, 12 , 1}.) I will later add a constraint on the assignment of these 3-valued extensions to atomic predicates. The valuation rules for the Kleene connectives and quantifiers at a given world are just the usual Kleene rules; no reference to other worlds is required. For ‘!’ I propose the following: jA ! Bjw is 1, if ð9U 2 -Fw Þ(8u 2 U)ðjAju jBju Þ; 0, if ð9U 2 -Fw Þ(8u 2 U)ðjAju > jBju Þ; 1 2 otherwise: (The stipulation that the members of -Fw are all nonempty is needed to keep the value of jA ! Bjw unique.) If w is abnormal, -Fw has members that don’t contain w; we could without alteration restrict the quantification in the 1 and 0 clauses to such members, given the directedness condition. I call an inference universally valid if in any model and any world w in it, whenever all the premises have value 1 at w, so does the conclusion. I call an inference strongly valid if in any model, whenever all the premises have value 1 at all normal worlds, so does the conclusion. And I call an inference valid if in any model, whenever all the premises have value 1 at @, so does the conclusion. Validity, strong validity, and universal validity for a sentence are just validity, strong validity, and universal validity for the 0-premise argument whose conclusion is that sentence. Validity is the notion that will be of direct interest, but information about the other two helps in proving results about validity; besides, it illuminates the semantics to see what is universally valid, what is merely strongly valid, and what is just valid. The above stipulations effectively generalize what was done before in the case of the semantic paradoxes, though this may not be completely obvious. There, the space W was, in effect, a closed initial segment [0, D] of the ordinals, where D was one of the ‘‘acceptable ordinals’’ proved to exist in the Fundamental Theorem of [8];27 @ was D. For any ordinal a in W, the -Fa used in specifying the semantic values of conditionals at a had as its members all (nonempty) intervals of form [b, a). So no member of W was normal, not even D; however, I used a slightly different definition of validity, so the notion of validity didn’t trivialize. How then can I say that the account here 27 To quell a possible worry, I remark that it is possible to choose the acceptable ordinal ‘‘in advance’’. (Certainly the initial ordinal for any cardinal greater than that of the power set of the domain V will be acceptable; I suspect that there are acceptable ordinals of much lower cardinality.)


12:31pm

page 292

292 / Hartry Field ‘‘effectively generalizes’’ the one there? Because the Fundamental Theorem shows that if we redefine -FD to include intervals of form [b, D] (making D normal), while leaving the other -Fa as before, then the values of conditionals are unchanged; this allows us to redefine validity in accord with the general account above, and the redefined one and the original are equivalent in extension. In short: the Restricted Semantics sketched in Section 3 could be rewritten so as to be a special case of the one just outlined. Returning to the general case, let’s get some results about which sentences and inferences are valid, strongly valid, and universally valid. Even without imposing any additional constraints, we can easily prove the following: 1. The universal validities include every inference that is valid in the Kleene logic K3 . In addition, the following inferences involving the conditional are universally valid: ‘A!A ‘ ::A ! A ‘ A ! A _ B and ‘ B ! A _ B ‘ A ^ B ! A and ‘ A ^ B ! B ‘ A ^ (B _ C) ! (A ^ B) _ (A ^ C) ‘ (A ! :B) ! (B ! :A) ‘ (A ! :A) $ :(> ! A) ‘ :(A ! B) ! (B ! A) (A ! B) ^ (A ! C) ‘ A ! (B ^ C) (A ! C) ^ (B ! C) ‘ (A _ B) ! C ‘ 8xA ! At (with the usual restrictions on legitimate substitution) ‘ 8x(A _ Bx) ! A _ 8xBx, when x is not free in A. 2. In addition, the following are strongly valid: A, A ! B ‘ B ‘ :(A ! B) ! (A _ :B). 3. If A ‘ C and B ‘ C are both valid, so is A _ B ‘ C; and analogously for strong validity and universal validity. (This means that we validate K3þ , not just K3 .) The proofs of all of 1–3 are completely straightforward; indeed, the only ones that even require the directedness condition are the two universal validities with conjunctions of conditionals as premises.


12:31pm

page 293

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 293 We can do better if we add two additional constraints on the families -Fw . First let’s define U1 is w-interior to U2 to mean: U1 , U2 2 -Fw ^ U1 U2 ^ (8x 2 U1 ) (9 X 2 -Fx )(X U2 ). The first constraint is (i) For any normal world w, every member of -Fw has w-interior subsets. The second constraint is a generalization of directedness. If › is a cardinal number, call a family -F of subsets of W ›-directed if for any collection S of subsets of -F that has cardinality no greater than ›, there is a U 2 -F such that U is contained in each member of S. (Directedness as defined before is 2-directedness; and is equivalent to n-directedness, for any finite n 2.) Then letting kVk be the cardinality of the domain V, we stipulate (ii) For any world w, -Fw is kVk-directed. We can now prove the following additional strong validities: A ! B ‘ (C ! A) ! (C ! B) A ! B ‘ (B ! C) ! (A ! C) 8x(Ax ! Bx) ‘ 8xAx ! 8xBx 8x(:Ax ! Ax) ‘ :8xAx ! 8xAx.28 Finally, let us now add the previously promised constraint on the assignment of 3-valued extensions to atomic predicates. Actually I’ll impose the constraint originally only for what I’ll call ‘‘standard’’ predicates, by which I’ll mean, all but special predicates like ‘True’. There’s no need to be very precise here, because the idea is that for any ‘‘nonstandard’’ predicates we introduce, we’ll prove that the constraint holds for them too, though this will not be part 28 Proofs: (I) A ! B ‘ (C ! A) ! (C ! B): Suppose that w is normal and that jA ! Bjw ¼ 1. Then there is a U in -Fw throughout which jAj jBj. By (i), there’s a U 0 that is w-interior to U. Suppose now that j(C ! A) ! (C ! B)jw < 1. Then there’s a p 2 U 0 such that jC ! Ajp > jC ! Bjp . So either jC ! Ajp ¼ 1 or jC ! Bjp ¼ 0. But both lead to contradiction. For instance, in the first case, there’s a p-region X throughout which jCj jAj; by directedness, there’s a p-region Y X \ U 0 ; so throughout Y, jCj jAj jBj, so jC ! Bjp ¼ 1, giving the desired contradiction. The second case is analogous. (II) A ! B ‘ (B ! C) ! (A ! C): Analogous to (I). (Indeed, (II) follows from (I), given the laws already established.) (III) 8x(Ax ! Bx) ‘ 8xAx ! 8xBx: Suppose that w is normal and that j8x(Ax ! Bx)jw ¼ 1. Then for all t, jAt ! Btjw ¼ 1. So for each t, there is a w-region Ut such that jAtj jBtj throughout Ut . By (ii), there is a w-region U such that for each t, jAtj jBtj throughout U, and hence such that j8xAxj j8xBxj throughout U. (Recall that every element of V is assumed to have a name.) So j8xAx ! 8xBxjw ¼ 1. (IV) 8x(:Ax ! Ax) ‘ :8xAx ! 8xAx: Analogous to (III).


12:31pm

page 294

294 / Hartry Field of the initial stipulation governing their 3-valued extensions. So let p be a standard n-place predicate; we assume (**) for each choice of n objects o1 , ::: , on in V, if hp, o1 , ::: , on i is assigned an integral value (0 or 1) at @, then there is an @-neighborhood throughout which hp, o1 , ::: , on i is assigned that same value. We can now prove a general lemma: that for any sentence A all of whose predicates are standard, If A takes on an integral value at @ then there is a @-neighborhood throughout which A takes on that same value. The proof is by induction on complexity; the only noteworthy cases are the conditional and the quantifier. For the conditional, the noteworthy fact is that the proof for A ! B goes not by the induction hypothesis, but rather by (i). (If jA ! Bj@ ¼ 1 then there is an @-neighborhood U throughout which jAj jBj; letting U’ be @-interior to U, it is clear that jA ! Bjp ¼ 1 for any p in U’. Similarly for 0.) For the quantifier case, we again use (ii). Given this lemma, we get two more validities (for sentences all of whose atomic predicates are standard): B ‘ A ! B. A, :B ‘ :(A ! B). The proof of the first is totally trivial (given the lemma), and the proof of the second almost so (it uses the directedness condition). The validities here established for the Generalized Semantics include almost all the ones that I derived in [8] for the Restricted Semantics (plus two additional ones that I neglected to consider there); the only one derived there that we don’t have here is the relatively minor one :[(C ! A) ! (C ! B)] ‘ :(A ! B). Actually we would get that too if we made the additional supposition that there is an @-neighborhood in which all worlds are normal; that assumption seems fairly plausible in applications of the logic to ordinary cases of vagueness, though it does not hold in the Restricted Semantics (where the validity in question holds for a different reason). It seems then that the logic validated by the Generalized Semantics is the main core of what’s validated by the Restricted Semantics, and I propose it as the unified logic for vagueness and the paradoxes. (There


12:31pm

page 295

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 295 may be ways to expand it slightly, e.g. to get the above-mentioned law :[(C ! A) ! (C ! B)] ‘ :(A ! B).29) One thing that needs to be shown, if this is really to be a successful unification of the logic of vagueness with the logic of the paradoxes, is that the naive theory of truth is not merely ‘‘consistent with any classical starting model (that is adequate to syntax)’’, as proved in [8], but ‘‘consistent with any generalized model for the logic of vagueness (that is adequate to syntax)’’. More precisely, let L be any language without ‘True’, but which may contain vague terms and the ‘!’; we also suppose that L contains arithmetic, so that syntax can be done within it. Let M be any generalized model of the sort just described for a language without ‘True’ (where M is built from a set W of worlds with distinguished world @, an assignment to each of an -Fw , a domain V, and an assignment of 3-valued extensions in V n to each n-place predicate that is subject to (**) ); the only restriction is that the extension of arithmetical predicates be the same at each world and take on only the values 0 and 1, and that the resulting 2-valued model be a standard model of arithmetic. The claim then is that given any such generalized model M, we can extend it to a model M on the same structure that satisfies naive truth theory; by ‘extend it’ I mean that each predicate other than ‘True’ has the same extension in M as in M. This can in fact be shown, by a straightforward generalization of the proof given in [8]; and (**) turns out to hold for ‘True’ as well, so that even the final two validities established above hold in the full language.30 Without 29 One natural expansion—which wouldn’t yield that law, but might yield others—is suggested by the fact that in the Restricted Semantics there is a ‘‘uniformness’’ to the structure imposed on the worlds; that is, there is a way to compare the size of a1 -neighborhoods to those of a2 -neighborhoods even when a1 6¼ a2 , namely the ordinal that must be added to the lower bound of the interval to get the upper bound. The idea seems natural in the vagueness case too. So in the general case, we might want to add to the structure an equivalence relation on the set < of pairs hw, Ui for which U 2 -Fw , with hw1 , U1 i hw2 , U2 i having the intuitive meaning that U1 is a w1 -neighborhood and U2 is a w2 -neighborhood and U1 is like U2 in size, shape, and orientation from its ‘‘base point’’ (w1 or w2 as the case may be). Axioms, besides those of being an equivalence relation and that if hw1 , U1 i hw2 , U2 i then U1 is a w1 -neighborhood and U2 is a w2 -neighborhood, should certainly include (a) and probably (b): (a) hw, U1 i hw, U2 i U1 ¼ U2 . (b) (8w1 , w2 )[F-w1 6¼ 1 ^ -Fw2 6¼ 1 (9U1 , U2 )[hw1 , U1 i hw2 , U2 i ^ (8X U1 ) (9Y U2 ) (hw1 , Xi hw2 , Yi) ^ (8Y U2 )(9X U1 )(hw1 , Xi hw2 , Yi)]. Just what additional strength this would bring to the logic I’m not sure. 30 An alternative way to think of the procedure, which illustrates more clearly the sense in which the proposed account is a unification, is as going from the initial M to a new model M


12:31pm

page 296

296 / Hartry Field going through the details, let me just say that predicates other than ‘True’ are assigned the same 3-valued extension at every stage of the construction: there is no longer a need to vary them from stage to stage to get reasonable results about higher-order vagueness, since that is already handled by the multiple ‘‘worlds’’ in the initial stage. We thus avoid the artificiality that (early in this section) we saw would be required were we to use the Restricted Semantics for vagueness.

6. Defectiveness and Determinateness Whether or not one accepts the unification just proposed between vagueness/ indeterminacy and the semantic paradoxes, we’ve seen that in each case there are strong grounds for giving up the law of excluded middle: for certain sentences A, we should not assert that A _ :A. But we should not assert that :(A _ :A) either: that lands us in contradiction. How then do we assert the ‘‘defectiveness’’ of A? Not by simply asserting that we are not in a position to assert A _ :A: that’s too weak, since our inability to assert Attila’s maternal grandfather was bald on the day he died _ : (Attila’s maternal grandfather was bald on the day he died) is due not to conviction that its disjuncts are defective but to ignorance as to whether they are defective. (He might have been clearly bald or clearly nonbald.) Nor can we assert defectiveness by asserting that no possible evidence could lead anyone to assert A _ :A; examples about the interiors of black holes in indeterministic universes, or events outside of the event horizon of any regions that can support conscious beings, can easily be constructed to show this. I’ve suggested that our treating A as certainly with the same domain V, but a new set W of worlds. On this account, W is W [0, D], where D is a large ordinal (a sufficiently large power of !), and the new @ is h@, Di. For hw, ai in W , -Fhw, ai consists of precisely the subsets of form U [b, a) where in the original model U 2 -Fw and where b < a, except in the case where a is D, in which case the subsets have form U [b, a]. Predicates other than ‘True’ get the same value at any hw, ai that they got in the original model at w; the value of ‘True’ at any hw, ai is determined by a Kripke construction of the minimal fixed point given the values of the sentences with no occurrences of ‘True’ outside the scope of conditionals. The model M (in the formulation in the main text) is simply the submodel of M consisting of worlds of form hw, Di. This alternative requires the modest additional assumption that for each w 2 W, -Fw is kDkdirected, not merely kVk-directed. It may not really be an additional assumption, as I suspect that we can take D to have cardinality kVk; but at the moment I don’t know how to prove that.


12:31pm

page 297

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 297 defective consists (to a first approximation anyway) in our believing A _ :A to degree 0 (or to degree [0,1], if we use R-degrees instead of P-degrees; that’s the same as R-believing A to degree [0,1]). Similarly, our treating A as probably defective consists (to a first approximation) in our believing A _ :A to a low degree. So perhaps we could assert the ‘‘defectiveness’’ of A by saying that we ought to believe A _ :A to degree less than some amount (the amount fixed by the confidence of our assertion of defectiveness).31 But it’s natural to think that we should be able to assert the defectiveness in a more direct way, without bringing ourselves or other believers into the story. Can we do so? One possibility is simply to introduce an undefined operator DA into the language, give some laws (e.g. probabilistic laws) for how it works, and define a defectiveness predicate BAD(x) by :G(True(x)), i.e. :D(True(x)) ^ :D:True(x). But one worry is that we don’t really understand such an operator. In addition, in the semantic paradox case it raises a serious issue of ‘‘Liar’s revenge’’: there is reason to worry that it might give rise to new paradoxes, e.g. for sentences that assert of themselves that they are not determinately true. It turns out that in the logic suggested in Section 2 and the generalization of it suggested in Section 5, there is a good case to be made that the only defectiveness predicates we really need are already definable in the language, using the new conditional. Obviously that would remove the worry about the intelligibility of the operator, if one grants that the conditional itself is intelligible. Moreover, it would mean that no revenge problem can arise: the construction sketched in Section 2 (and later generalized) shows that we can validate naive truth theory for that language (using a certain nonclassical logic), and that means that we can validate it even for sentences about defectiveness and truth together, so that there is no revenge problem. A first stab at defining a determinately operator D might be this: D? A ¼df > ! A (or equivalently, :A ! ?) where > is some logical truth (say B ! B, for some arbitrarily chosen B), and ? is some absurdity. In the ‘‘worlds’’ semantics of Section 5, the value of this 31 It’s worth noting that we don’t presently have a satisfactory account of the laws of ‘‘probability’’ (rational degree of belief) for the logic: we do have a satisfactory probability theory for the Kleene logic, but it is not obvious how to extend it to the logic that includes the !. (In what follows I will suggest a possible definition of D in terms of !; that together with my earlier remark on the desired probability for sentences of form DA would give a constraint on how the probability theory is extended to the language with !, but would fall far short of settling it.)


12:31pm

page 298

298 / Hartry Field at a given world w is 1 if there is a neighborhood of w throughout which A has value 1; 0 if there is a neighborhood of w throughout which A has value less than 1 (it needn’t be all 0 or all 12, it could be a mixture of the two); and 12 if there is neither of these sorts of neighborhood. The only clear problem with this as a definition of determinately is that if the world w is abnormal, the neighborhood needn’t include w, so D? A could have a higher value than A at w. But the situation can be remedied by a familiar trick: define D as DA ¼df (> ! A) ^ A (or equivalently, (:A ! ?) ^ A). (I use a different typeface than for D so as not to prejudge whether D adequately defines the notion we need.) Inferentially, the proposed definition of D obeys the obvious laws. Because the semantics validates the rule (8) B ‘ A ! B, we get the validity of the D-introduction rule A ‘ DA. Modus ponens guarantees the validity of D? A ‘ A, but ‘ D? A ! A is not valid (since @ might have abnormal worlds in all its neighborhoods); but now that we’ve shifted from D? to D, we get the universal validity of ‘ DA ! A (strong D-elimination). The definition is also quite natural in connection with the Restricted Semantics used for the paradoxes in Section 2: e.g. if A has value less than 1 at a stage, DA has value 0 at the next stage. Indeed, the merits of this definition of determinateness come out especially clearly in its consequences for the semantic paradoxes, in particular as regards the ‘‘revenge problem’’. It is to this that I now turn.

7. Revenge (1) A simple illustration of how the determinately operator D works is afforded by the Liar sentence Q0 , which asserts its own untruth. It’s clear that on the semantics of Section 2, it must have value 12 at every stage; so the value of DQ0 and of D:Q0 are both 0 at every stage after stage 0, and so BAD(hQ0 i) has


12:31pm

page 299

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 299 ultimate value 1. (‘BAD’ is defined from D in the same way that ‘BAD’ is defined from D—see the previous section.) Once we have a determinately operator D, it’s natural to consider a ‘‘weakened’’ Liar sentence Q1 , that says of itself that it is not determinately true.32 But the construction outlined in Section 2 shows that this must be consistently evaluable in the language. Indeed, it isn’t hard to see that its value is 12 at all even ordinals and 1 at all odd ordinals. DQ1 gets value 12 at all even ordinals and 0 at all odd ordinals; :DQ1 thus has the same value as Q1 , as desired. :D:Q1 gets ultimate value 1, as we might expect: so we can assert that Q1 is not determinately untrue. As for the claim that Q1 is determinately true, its ultimate value is 12, so we can’t assert DQ1 _ :DQ1 (and indeed, can reject it). So excluded middle can’t be assumed (and indeed, can be rejected) even for claims of determinateness: that is, we have a kind of second-order indeterminacy. But we can assert that Q1 isn’t determinately determinately true. So we can assert that Q1 is BAD2 , where BAD2 (x) means that :DD(True(x)) ^:DD:True(x). If we rename the earlier predicate BAD as BAD1 , then badness1 entails badness2 , but not conversely. We can now consider a ‘‘still weaker’’ Liar sentence, that says of itself that it is not determinately determinately true, and so forth. Indeed, we can iterate the determinately operator a fair way through the transfinite: for as long as our system of ordinal notations lasts.33 For each s for which there is a notation, we can then consider the s-Liar Qs , which says of itself that it is not Ds -true (Ds being the s-fold iteration of D). We will never be able to assert Ds Qs _ :Ds Qs , whatever the s, showing that indeterminacy of arbitrarily high levels34 is allowed; but we can assert that Qs is not determinately untrue, and not determinatelysþ1 true. (There will be a notation for s þ 1 whenever there is one for s.) Defining the predicates BADs in analogy to the above, we get that each is more inclusive than the previous, and for each Liar sentence, there will be a s for which the Liar sentence can be asserted to be BADs . This hierarchy of defectiveness predicates has something of the flavor of the hierarchy of truth predicates that we have in the classical case. But it is different in important ways. For one thing, it affects a much more peripheral 32 ‘Weakened’ is in quotes since though Q1 attributes a weaker property than Q0 does, it attributes it to a different sentence. 33 At limit stages we need to form infinite conjunctions; but we can do that, for limits simple enough to have a notation in some reasonable system, by using the truth predicate. 34 ‘Arbitrarily high levels’ means ‘for as large ordinals as there are notations’; for higher ordinals than that, talk of levels of indeterminacy makes no clear sense.


12:31pm

page 300

300 / Hartry Field notion: the relevant notion of defectiveness (or paradoxicalness) plays only a marginal role in the lives of most of us, whereas the notion of truth is ubiquitous. I don’t think it is that hard to learn to live with the idea that we do not have a unified notion of defectiveness* that captures all ‘‘levels of defectiveness’’. A second difference is that we can reasonably hope that whatever the s, our overall theory has the virtue of nondefectivenesss ; this is in sharp contrast to the hierarchical classical truth theories, where for each s there are sentences of our overall theory that we assert while asserting not to be trues . So I don’t think that settling for the hierarchy of defectiveness predicates would be debilitating. (Indeed, it is especially undebilitating if we allow schematic reasoning about levels of determinateness: see [4], [15], and pages 141–3 of [5] for discussions of schematic reasoning in other contexts.35) So far I’ve been talking about determinately operators and defectiveness predicates that are actually definable in the language. But it might be thought that these definitions do not adequately capture the intuitive notions of determinateness and defectiveness—or to put it in a way that avoids the supposition that there are unique such notions, it might be supposed that there are intuitive notions of determinateness and defectiveness that are not adequately captured by these definitions. (I don’t myself know of any clear reason to suppose that there are intuitive notions that the definitions fail to capture, but I see no reason to be dogmatic about the issue.) So we might want to add a new primitive determinately operator, governed by axioms, from which a corresponding defectiveness predicate could be defined. By using the axioms that we know are true of the defined operator D as a guide to the choice of axioms for the primitive operator D, one can have a reasonable hope of achieving a consistent theory of determinateness slightly different from that given by D or any of its iterations. The most natural idea would be to model such a D quite closely on D. In that case, we would expect that iterations of the operator are nontrivial: more particularly, that for each value of s, the Ds -Liar can’t be asserted not to be Ds -true but can be asserted not to be Dsþ1 -true. I don’t say that it would be hopeless to add to the language a ‘‘maximum strength’’ determinately operator D that iterates only trivially, in that D D is equivalent to (intersubstitutable with) D ; that would give rise to a unified 35 Allowing this is effectively the same as allowing universal quantification over the s, but not allowing such universal quantifications to be embeddable in other contexts like negations. But whereas a restriction on embedding seems grossly ad hoc, the use of schematic reasoning has a natural rationale.


12:31pm

page 301

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 301 defectiveness predicate BAD (x). But I have doubts as to whether we really understand this. In any case, if we do add such an operator, we must be careful that the combination of laws we postulate for it does not breed paradox, and the paradox-free ways of introducing such a D are not altogether attractive. Option 1. Suppose we want both the inferential rules D A A and A D A (perhaps strengthening the first to D A ! A); if so, and we also keep the rule of disjunction-elimination as a general logical law, then we must reject excluded middle for a sentence Q that asserts that it is not D -true.36 But if being forced to reject excluded middle shows a kind of indeterminacy, then any determinateness operator or defectiveness predicate subject to the rules D A A and A D A thus embodies a kind of indeterminacy (in a background logic like K3þ that allows for reasoning by disjunctionelimination). And this kind of indeterminacy (if that is the right way to think of it37) isn’t expressible by :D : to assert :D True (hQ i) would be tantamount to asserting Q and thus lead to paradox. Thus D wouldn’t seem to be the most powerful determinateness operator after all, in which case the introduction of the notion would be self-defeating. Option 2. That problem could be avoided by giving up the rule A D A; we can then keep D A ! A, disjunction-elimination, and excluded middle for sentences beginning with D , for D True(x) becomes very much like the unadorned truth predicate in classical theories with (T ). The problem with classical theories containing (T ) was that in them we have to assert certain claims and then deny that they are true, which seems decidedly odd. Under Option 2 we don’t have precisely that problem (indeed, whenever we can assert A, we can assert that it is true), but we have something uncomfortably close to it: we assert of specific sentences A of 36 The assumption of D Q leads directly to paradox, as does the assumption of :D Q ; so by disjunction-elimination, the assumption of D Q _ :D Q leads to contradiction; but that assumption is the instance of excluded middle in question. 37 It may not be, for the italicized supposition is in fact dubious. The reason: because of higherorder indeterminacy, excluded middle must fail for claims of defectiveness, so the degree of belief that a claim is defective and the degree of belief that it is nondefective need not sum to 1. I’ve equated the degree of belief in A’s nondefectiveness with the degree of belief in A _ :A; that means that I can’t in general equate the degree of belief in A’s defectiveness with 1 minus the degree of belief in A _ :A, but can only say that the degree of belief in A’s defectiveness is no greater than 1 minus the degree of belief in A _ :A. So though we may reject Q _ :Q , indeed believe it to degree 0, it does not follow that the degree of belief in the defectiveness of Q need be high.


12:31pm

page 302

302 / Hartry Field our own theory that they are not D -true, which raises the obvious question ‘‘If you think those specific A aren’t D -true, why did you assert them?’’ For this reason, I think that Option 2 should be avoided. Option 1 may not be beyond defense. Defending it would require refusing to accept that the ‘‘D -liar’’ Q is either defective or nondefective; indeed, it would require having degree of belief 0 in this disjunction. So we would believe the equivalent disjunction Q _ :Q to degree 0, and would not be able to explain our doing so in terms of a belief that its disjuncts were defective. (Or in any sense ‘‘quasi-defective’’: for the point of D has been stipulated to be that there is no further such notion.) The rationale for this would be that to assert Q _ :Q requires more than that Q be nondefective, it requires that it be assertable that it is nondefective; so the inability to assert the nondefectiveness of Q is enough to explain our inability to assert Q _ :Q without commitment as to whether Q actually is nondefective. As I say, this may be defensible; but it is better, I think, to regard the operator D as not fully intelligible and to simply make do with a hierarchy of determinateness operators.

8. Revenge (2) But don’t we already have a unified defectiveness predicate, namely, ‘has ultimate semantic value 12’? And a predicate corresponding to a unified determinateness operator, namely, ‘has ultimate semantic value 1’? These predicates needn’t even be added to the language: they are already there, at least if (i) the base language from which we started the construction in Section 2 included the language of set theory and (ii) the model M0 for the base language from which the construction started is definable in the base language;38 for then the set-theoretic construction of Section 2 can be turned into an explicit definition of these predicates in terms of the vocabulary of the base language. And since we have assumed excluded middle for the base language, the definitions show that excluded middle must hold for attributions of semantic value based on these definitions. Can’t we then reinstitute a paradox, based on sentences that attribute to themselves a semantic value of less than 1? 38 Condition (ii) will be met for any starting model that is at all natural (provided that condition (i) is met).


12:31pm

page 303

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 303 No we can’t, and the construction of Section 2 shows that we can’t: our construction yields the consistency of the claim True(hkAk 6¼ 1i) $ kAk 6¼ 1, and of all other instances of (T) in the language. (Indeed, it shows that we can add all such claims to the base theory, without disrupting any given model of that theory.) But it may seem puzzling how paradox has been avoided. Why isn’t the sentence that attributes to itself a value less than 1 paradoxical? The answer to this has more to do with the limitations of explicit definition than it does with the notions of truth and determinacy. Let L be a language that includes the language of classical set theory. L may contain terms for which excluded middle is not valid, but let us assume that the set-theoretic portion of L is classical: excluded middle (and other classical axioms and rules) all hold for it. Tarski’s undefinability theorem shows that if we insist on explicitly defining a predicate, say ‘is a sentence of L that has ultimate semantic value 1’, in classical set theory, then the defined predicate can’t correspond to any normal notion of truth: it gives the intuitively wrong results even for the classical part of L. More fully, there will be a sentence A of classical set theory, not containing ‘True’, such that we can prove that either A ^ :( k A k¼ 1) or ( k A k¼ 1) ^ :A. (With minimal additional assumptions, ones that are met by our definition of semantic value, we can indeed specify a sentence B such that one disjunct fails when A is taken to be B and the other fails when A is taken to be :B.39) Thus the notion of ultimate semantic value we’ve defined in classical set theory doesn’t fully correspond to the intuitive notion of truth even for sentences that are in no way indeterminate or paradoxical. (The reason is that in order to give a definition of semantic value we have to pretend that the quantifiers of the language range only over the members of a given set, namely, the domain of the starting model, rather than over absolutely everything. What we’ve defined should really be called ‘ultimate semantic value relative to the particular starting model M0 ’.) That’s why in constructing a theory of truth we need to add ‘True’ as an undefined predicate. Since ‘having ultimate value 1 relative to M0 ’ doesn’t quite correspond to being true, even for sentences that are in no way indeterminate or paradoxical, it also doesn’t quite correspond to being determinately true; for as 39 The required assumptions are that every sentence of classical set theory gets one of the values 0 and 1, and that k :A k is 1 when k A k is 0 and 0 when k A k is 1.


12:31pm

page 304

304 / Hartry Field applied to sentences of this sort, truth and determinate truth coincide. And that is why sentences that assert that their own ultimate value is less than 1 (relative to M0 ) are not genuinely paradoxical: no one who clearly thought through the limitations of Tarski’s theorem should have expected ‘having semantic value 1 relative to M0 ’ to precisely correspond to any intuitive notion of determinate truth. (In particular, it is clear from Tarski’s theorem that one of the rules ( k A kM0 ¼ 1) A and A ( k A kM0 ¼ 1) must fail even for sentences of set theory that don’t contain notions like truth or determinateness—indeed, both rules must fail—so the notions of truth and determinateness are in no way to blame. Without such rules, the argument for inconsistency collapses.) I’ve argued that we can’t within classical set theory define any notion of determinate truth that fully corresponds to the intuitive notion (if there is a unique intuitive notion). This is unsurprising; for even if there is a unique intuitive notion, it doesn’t obey excluded middle and so couldn’t possibly be defined within a classical language. In any case, any explicit definition of ‘has semantic value 1’ in a classical metalanguage is bound to make this notion demonstrably fail to correspond to any reasonable notion of determinateness, for the reasons just reviewed. But that raises the question: what is the point of explicitly defining semantic value within classical set theory? I addressed this question in the context of vagueness at the beginning of Section 5, but it is worth going through a parallel discussion here. One very important function of explicitly defining ‘has semantic value 1 (relative to starting model M)’ within classical set theory is that doing so enables us to increase our confidence that we have the principles of the nonclassical logic right. For we have an immense amount of experience with classical set theory, enough to make us very confident of its !-consistency, and hence of the correctness of its claims of consistency. The semantics I’ve provided for truth theory, despite its distortions, gives a proof within classical set theory of the consistency of naive truth theory in a nonclassical logic, so we know that that logic is indeed consistent. Indeed, the particular form of the proof shows that the resulting theory is far more than just consistent, it is ‘‘consistent with any arithmetically standard starting model’’; ‘‘conservative’’,


12:31pm

page 305

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 305 in one sense of that phrase. That implies that it is !-consistent; it also implies that inconsistency can’t be generated by combining it with a consistent ‘True’-free theory, e.g. a consistent theory about the history of the Paris Commune. The explicit definition of semantic value (relative to a starting model) thus serves a very important logical purpose, even if (as we’ve seen must be the case) there is no way to turn it into an absolute definition of semantic value that completely corresponds to any intuitive notion that relates to the full universe. I don’t mean to suggest that the only function of the semantics is to give a consistency proof for naive truth theory in the logic. After all, it is certainly not the sole demand on a logic that it make naive truth theory consistent; the logic should also be intuitive, and there is no doubt that finding a notion of semantic value in terms of which the valid inferences can be characterized can play a substantial role in making the logic intuitive. If one starts the construction from a model M0 that is sufficiently natural (e.g. it is just like the real universe except for not containing sets of inaccessible rank), then the defined notion of having semantic value 1 relative to M0 is very close to what we’d want of an intuitive notion of determinate truth (e.g. in the parenthetical example, it gives intuitive results as applied to any sentence all of whose quantifiers are restricted to exclude sets of inaccessible rank); so inferences that preserve value 1 will be valid in a fairly natural sense. In my view, this fact does a great deal to help make the logic intuitive. It is hard to see how we could do much better in defining determinate truth for this logic in a classical metalanguage, given that the notion of determinate truth (if there is a unique such notion) is nonclassical. This does raise an interesting question: mightn’t we develop a nonclassical set theory or property theory without excluded middle, and within it define a semantic value relation which is appropriate to the full universe (rather than just to the domain of a classical starting model), but which is otherwise closely analogous to the definition of the model-relative notion of semantic value given earlier? And mightn’t this both validate the same logic, and be such that the defined notion ‘has real semantic value 1’ completely corresponds to ‘‘the intuitive notion of determinate truth’’? The first part of this can definitely be done: naive property theory (property theory with unrestricted comprehension) is consistent in the same extension of Kleene logic used for the semantic paradoxes: see [9]. (As I briefly discuss there, there is some difficulty in extending this is to naive set theory (i.e. adding an extensionality principle), though I don’t completely rule out that this can be done.) But as


12:31pm

page 306

306 / Hartry Field for the program of using such a theory (whether the nonextensional one or the contemplated extensional one) for a semantics closely modeled on the one given here,40 I’m skeptical: the notion of having real semantic value 1 would seem to have to be a unified determinateness predicate much like the D True(x) of the previous section; and while this might not raise difficulties about validating the full logic advocated in this paper as regards sentences not containing that predicate, it would cause difficulties about validating the application of some of the rules to sentences that do contain that predicate.41 (A similar reservation arises for the idea of simply taking a notion of having real semantic value 1 as an undefined primitive and using it in a semantics; the semantics might be OK for the language without the addition, but not for the expanded language.) How worrisome is this? Not very. As I already observed in note 25 and as countless others have observed before me, a semantic theory expressed in a given logic can explain or justify that logic only in a very minimal sense: the ‘‘explanation’’ or ‘‘justification’’ it gives of its logical principles will not only employ those very logical principles, it will usually do so in a grossly circular fashion. Logic must stand on its own; the role of a formal semantics for it (in so far as it goes beyond being a ‘‘merely algebraic tool’’ for consistency proofs), especially a nonhomophonic one (see note 40), is as a heuristic. We who use a language L governed by the logic I’m recommending get a pretty good though not perfect heuristic for that logic without expanding the language beyond L, and indeed by using merely the classical subpart of L. If we insist upon a heuristic that avoids the problem of the classical one then we probably do need to expand L a bit; perhaps this would be done by adding a relation of ‘‘real semantic value’’ that is not in L but is governed by the same logic as L. If the use of the logic of L had to depend on the semantics that might be 40 As opposed, e.g., to a ‘‘homophonic semantics’’ based on claims like True(hA ! Bi) $ [True(hAi) ! True(hBi)] or True(hDAi) $ D(True(hAi)); and also as opposed to a conceptual role semantics of some sort. 41 An alternative to modeling the notion of having semantic value 1 on a unified determinateness predicate would be to suppose it hierarchical: i.e. suppose that though the inference from ‘hAi has semantic value 1’ to ‘hhAi has semantic value 1i has semantic value 1’ is valid, still the second is stronger in that the conditional with the first as antecedent and the second as consequent is not valid. But this too would cause difficulties about validating the application of some of the rules to sentences that contain the predicate ‘has semantic value’.


12:31pm

page 307

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 307 worrisome, but it doesn’t. Indeed, we don’t even need to regard the heuristic as completely intelligible: cf. frictionless planes. Unlike the notions of truth and determinateness, the notion of semantic value is a technical notion of formal semantics (sometimes a technical notion for giving consistency proofs, sometimes a technical notion for heuristic ‘‘explanations’’ of logical principles, sometimes both). The notion of truth, on the other hand, is certainly not a mere technical notion: as is well known ([21], ch. 1; [16]), the role of a truth predicate is to serve as a device for conjoining and disjoining sufficiently regular sets of sentences not otherwise easily conjoined and disjoined, and this role (which has great importance in everyday life) has little or nothing to do with formal semantics. To serve this role, what is needed of a notion of truth is that it adhere as closely as possible to the naive theory of truth, and the truth theory in this paper adheres to that completely. Settling for only a model-relative notion of truth would be a huge defeat, in a way that settling for only a model-relative notion of semantic value is not. The role of the notion of determinateness is also not especially technical: we would like to be able to assert the defectiveness of certain sentences in the language, such as Liar sentences and certain sentences that crucially employ vague terms, and the determinateness predicate allows us to do so. (It isn’t something we need to add on to the language; we’ve seen that we get it for free once we have a conditional suitable for reasoning in absence of excluded middle and for expressing the naive theory of truth.) We’ve also seen that a single notion of determinateness can be iterated to express the defectiveness even of sentences (e.g. extended Liar sentences) that involve the notion of determinateness. Unfortunately we can’t get a single unified notion of defectiveness, but must rest content with an increasing hierarchy; but I’ve argued that to be less problematic than a hierarchy of truth predicates would be. There’s no need to go beyond the language L except perhaps for introducing a heuristic for the logic we employ; and we don’t even need to do so for that, if we are satisfied by the heuristic given by the classical semantics.

9. Conclusion The logic I’ve proposed for dealing with the paradoxes seems quite satisfactory, but there could well be others that are equally satisfactory, or better. (I think the good ones are all likely to be ‘‘similar in spirit’’, in that they will be


12:31pm

page 308

308 / Hartry Field obtained from the Kleene logic K3þ by adding a new conditional, in a way consistent with the naive theory of truth.) I’d like to believe that the good ones can all be unified with an adequate logic of vagueness, by a unified semantics something like the one suggested in Section 5 for the logic of paradoxes proposed here. For we’ve seen some rather general considerations that suggest the naturalness of unification: .

.

.

.

.

The semantic paradoxes seem to arise from the fact that the standard means for explaining ‘True’ (namely, the truth schema) fails to uniquely determine the application of the term to certain sentences (the ‘‘ungrounded’’ ones); and this seems to be just the sort of thing that gives rise to other sorts of vagueness and indeterminacy. For both the semantic paradoxes and for vagueness, it seems important to give up certain instances of the law of excluded middle. In the case of the paradoxes, this is required if we are to consistently maintain the naive theory of truth; in the case of vagueness, we must do so to resist the view that for every meaningful question there is a fact of the matter as to its answer. For both cases, giving up excluded middle doesn’t involve denying it, but rather, rejecting it, in a sense that requires explanation. (I believe that the account of rejection offered in Section 3, in terms of degrees of belief, is adequate to both cases. In the case of the semantic paradoxes that don’t turn on empirical premises, there is little need to invoke degrees of belief other than 0 and 1; which is why the discussion of degrees of belief ended up playing little role in my discussion of the semantic paradoxes.) In both cases we need a reasonable conditional, not definable within Kleene logic. This is needed to allow for natural reasoning. It is also needed for more particular purposes: in the case of the semantic paradoxes, it is needed if we are to maintain the standard truth schema; in the case of vagueness, it is needed to allow the representation of penumbral connections between vague concepts, and also needed for expressing such obvious truths as that if 947 is nearly 1,000 then so is 953. In both cases we need to be able to express not only a notion of truth (obeying the naive truth schema) but also a notion of determinate truth; so we need a determinately operator D. In both cases it is fairly natural to try to define it from the conditional. And in both cases it is natural to expect arbitrarily high orders of indeterminacy, at least in the following sense: no matter how far we iterate D—even into the transfinite, using


12:31pm

page 309

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 309 the truth predicate—we never get excluded middle back. In other words, for any s, we will never have Ds A _ :Ds A as a general law. Do we get arbitrarily high orders of indeterminacy in the stronger sense, that for each s there are sentences A and possible circumstances under which we can assert :Dsþ1 A but cannot assert :Ds A? As we’ve seen, we get that in the case of the semantic paradoxes, so it is consistent with the generalized semantics. I doubt, though, that we want it in the case of vagueness or ordinary indeterminacy, and I doubt that any choices of the generalized models of Section 5 that are natural to employ in these cases will yield the result. It seems to me that the best way to represent higher-order vagueness in a classical model is simply to make it the case that no matter how far you reiterate the determinately operator D, you never bring back excluded middle. As I noted early in Section 5, a model for vagueness in a classical metalanguage is inevitably somewhat distorting. The most obvious distortion is that it assigns each sentence exactly one of the semantic values 1, 12, or 0. It is thus natural to think that when a sentence A gets value 12, then even when the semantics does not justify the assertion of :DA, then the semantics is really treating the sentence as indeterminate; in which case the semantics is drawing a sharp line between those sentences it treats determinate and those it doesn’t. If so, then the semantics does, in a sense, rule out higher-order vagueness, despite the fact that excluded middle can fail for sentences of form DA (and indeed, for sentences of form Ds A for arbitrarily high s). But this problem (which is an analog for vagueness of the version of the revenge problem discussed in the previous section) seems simply to be the inevitable result of using a classical metalanguage to do the semantics. As noted in both Sections 5 and 8, the only way we could hope to get a formal semantics that portrays a nonclassical language without distortion is to give that semantics in a nonclassical metalanguage. Whether even the use of a nonclassical metalanguage would enable us to develop a semantics (of a basically truth-theoretic sort) that is both more informative than a merely homophonic semantics and in no way distorting is a matter on which I take no stand. (I have expressed some skepticism as to whether such a semantics is needed: it certainly isn’t needed for an understanding of the language.) In any case, it would be hard to give the semantics in this way prior to getting a grasp on what the logic to be used in the semantic theory (and in the object


12:31pm

page 310

310 / Hartry Field language) ought to be; that’s why in this paper, in exploring what the logic ought to be, I have restricted myself to the use of a classical metalanguage.

REFERENCES [1] B r a d y , R o s s T. (1989), ‘The Non-triviality of Dialectical Set Theory’, in Graham Priest, Richard Routley, and Jean Norman (eds.), Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent (Munich: Philosophia Verlag). [2] D u m m e t t , M i c h a e l (1978), ‘The Justification of Deduction’, in Dummett (ed.), Truth and Other Enigmas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). [3] F e f e r m a n , S o l o m o n (1984), ‘Toward Useful Type-Free Theories, I’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 49: 75–111. [4] —— (1991), ‘Reflecting on Incompleteness’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 56: 1–49. [5] F i e l d , H a r t r y (2001), Truth and the Absence of Fact (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [6] —— (2002), ‘Saving the Truth Schema from Paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 31: 1–27. [7] —— (2003), ‘Is the Liar Sentence both True and False?’, in JC Beall and Brad Armour-Garb (ed.), Deflationism and Paradox (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [8] —— (2003), ‘A Revenge-Immune Solution to the Semantic Paradoxes’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 32: 139–77. [9] —— (forthcoming), ‘The Consistency of the Naive Theory of Properties’, Philosophical Quarterly, 54. [10] F i n e , K i t (1975), ‘Vagueness, Truth and Logic’, Synthese, 30: 265–300. [11] F r i e d m a n , H a r v e y , and M i c h a e l S h e a r d (1987), ‘An Axiomatic Approach to Self-Referential Truth’, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 33: 1–21. [12] G u p t a , A n i l , and N u e l B e l n a p (1993), The Revision Theory of Truth (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press). [13] H a j e k , P e t r , J e f f P a r i s , and J o h n S h e p h e r d s o n (2000), ‘The Liar Paradox and Fuzzy Logic’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 65: 339–46. [14] K r i p k e , S a u l (1975), ‘Outline of a Theory of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 72: 690–716. [15] L a v i n e , S h a u g h a n (1994), Understanding the Infinite (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). [16] L e e d s , S t e p h e n (1978), ‘Theories of Reference and Truth’, Erkenntnis, 13: 111–29.


12:31pm

page 311

Semantic Paradoxes and Vagueness Paradoxes / 311 [17] L e v i , I s a a c (1974), ‘On Indeterminate Probabilities’, Journal of Philosophy, 71: 391–418. [18] M c G e e , V a n n (1985), ‘How Truthlike can a Predicate Be? A Negative Result’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 14: 399–410. [19] M o n t a g u e , R i c h a r d (1963), ‘Syntactic Treatments of Modality, with Corollaries on Reflexion Principles and Finite Axiomatizability’, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16: 153–67. [20] P r i e s t , G r a h a m (1987), In Contradiction (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff). [21] Q u i n e , W. V. O. (1970), Philosophy of Logic (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall). [22] R e s t a l l , G r e g (1992), ‘Arithmetic and Truth in Lukasiewicz’s Infinitely Valued Logic’, Logique et Analyse, 139–40: 303–12. [23] W i l l i a m s o n , T i m o t h y (1994), Vagueness (London: Routledge).


9:36pm page 312

14 New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory S. Yablo

A theory is semantically closed if it contains, for each sentence A of the language in which it is framed, all biconditionals of the form T[A] A.1 Tarski showed that no consistent first-order theory with a good grip on its language’s syntax could be semantically closed. This is because a theory with a good grip on its language’s syntax will (by the diagonal lemma) contain for each formula w(x) a biconditional E w[E], hence in particular a biconditional L :T[L]. A theory with L :T[L] cannot in consistency also contain T[L] L. But that is what semantic closure requires. There is no denying Tarski’s result, but one can try to steer around it. The ways of steering around it correspond to a number of things that Tarski did not show. .

He did not show that a theory with a poor grip on its language’s syntax could not be consistent and semantically closed. One way to avoid Tarski’s result is to insist that all reference to sentences be by means of quotation names.2 There is nothing to prevent a consistent theory from containing all biconditionals of the form T0 A0 A, which on the stated hypothesis is all the T-biconditionals there are. (See Gupta 1982.)

1 Every sentence is assumed to have at least one name in the language. ‘[A]’ is schematic over names of A. 2 I am oversimplifying, since paradoxes can also be fashioned out of syntactic predicates. See Gupta (1982) for details.


9:36pm page 313

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 313 .

.

.

.

He did not show that a consistent, syntactically resourceful theory could not be weakly closed in the sense of containing, not perhaps all T-biconditionals, but at least one such biconditional for each A. A second way to avoid Tarski’s result is to construct the T-biconditional for L using a different name from the one the theory uses to affirm that L :T[L]. (See Skyrms 1984.) Tarski did not show that a consistent, syntactically resourceful theory could not be partly closed in the sense of containing, not perhaps all T-biconditionals for every sentence A, but all for sentences A of a particularly well-behaved type. A third way to avoid Tarski’s result is to require T-biconditionals for ‘‘nice’’ sentences only, settling for approximations thereto when A is not nice. (See Feferman 1984.) He did not show that a consistent, syntactically resourceful theory could not be quasi-closed in the sense of containing all sentences of the form T[A] # A, where # expresses a type of equivalence other than the type expressed by . A fourth way to avoid Tarski’s result is to add a nonclassical conditional ! to the language and include in your theory all instances of (T[A] ! A) ^ (A ! T[A]), that is, T[A] $ A. (See Brady 1989.) Tarski did not show that a semantically closed theory could not be consistent by the lights of a suitably chosen non-classical logic. A fifth way to avoid Tarski’s result is to concede classical inconsistency but maintain that this or that classical rule is in the present context invalid. (See Priest 1979.)

All of these strategies have been tried. But the last two have been tried the least. Field’s approach combines elements of both. He adds a non-classical connective ! while at the same time de-classicalizing the logic of the other connectives (by rejecting excluded middle). This makes for a remarkably powerful package, as you can see from the list now provided of its Top Ten Excellent Features 1. Verifies all sentences of the form T[A] $ A:3 2. Makes T[A] and A substitutable ‘‘salva valutate’’. 3. Provides an explicit model, hence . . . 4. No possibility of hidden paradoxes. 5. High degree of revenge-immunity, even though . . . 3 Here and throughout, C $ D ¼df (C ! D) ^ (D ! C).


9:36pm page 314

314 / S. Yablo 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Vengeance-threatening notions are expressible. ! has a natural semantics. ! has a -like logic. ! ‘‘becomes’’ in bivalent contexts. Only theory to inspire a Top Ten list.4

These features will come in for further explanation below, but let me say now what is meant by feature 2. T[A] and A are substitutable ‘‘salva valutate’’ iff for all sentential contexts w(:::), !-contexts not excluded, w(T[A]) agrees with w(A) on whatever semantic values there happen to be. Well, what semantic values do there happen to be? Field uses a three-valued scheme in which sentences are assigned either 1 (determinate truth, or something like it), 0 (determinate falsity), or 12 (indeterminate). Values are generated by a transfinite series Pa of Kripkean fixed points, each the Kripkeclosure (see below) of a ‘‘seed’’ valuation Sa that assigns values only to conditionals, defined here as statements whose main connective is !. Each Pb gives clues to the proper interpretation of !, clues that guide the construction of Sbþ1 , which forms the basis for Pbþ1 . This results in the back-and-forth process shown in Figure 14.1.5 Three things need to be explained in this figure. (a) How is Sa built up into a P ? (b) How is Sa calculated on the basis of earlier Pb s? And (c) how does the process determine semantic values for sentences? The answer to (a) comes from Kripke. The answer to (c) comes from Herzberger and Gupta. The answer to (b) is new with Field and the key to his construction. To begin with (a), we can think of valuations (e.g. Sa and Pa ) as sets of ordered pairs < A, v >, where A is a sentence and v is a truth-value, either 0 P0

S0 =

P1

S1

P2

S2

P3

S3

Pl

Sl

Pl+1

Sl+1

Sl+2

FIG. 14.1 4 OK, so I ran out of ideas. 5 Yablo (1985) also used a series of Kripkean fixed points to interpret a non-monotonic truth predicate. Mention was made at the end of extending the method to ‘‘Łukasiewicz implication’’(?), but I seem to remember having no idea what I was talking about.


9:36pm page 315

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 315 or 1. A valuation V is Kleene (strictly, Kleene over M, for M a model of the base language) iff (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

< Fa, 1 >2 V iff M(a) 2 M(F).6 < Fa, 0 >2 V iff M(a) 62 M(F). < :A, 1 >2 V iff < A, 0 >2 V. < :A, 0 >2 V iff < A, 1 >2 V. < A v B, 1 >2 V iff < A, 1 >2 V or < B, 1 >2 V. < A v B, 0 >2 V iff < A, 0 >2 V and < B, 0 >2 V. < 8x Gx, 1 >2 V iff < Ga, 1 >2 V for each name a7 . < 8x Gx, 0 >2 V iff < Ga, 0 >2 V for some name a.

V is Kripke iff (9) < T[A], 1 >2 V iff < A, 1 >2 V. (10) < T[A], 0 >2 V iff < A, 0 >2 V. A fixed point—of Kripke’s jump operator, but let that be understood—is a valuation that is both Kleene and Kripke. Provided a valuation V is sound in the sense of satisfying the left-to-right directions of (1)–(10), it can be built up into a fixed point V* by closing under the right-to-left directions of (1)–(10). Note that Sa is automatically sound because it assigns truth-values only to conditionals, and there are no conditionals on the left sides of (1)–(10). The relation between Pa and Sa is simply that Pa ¼ Sa . Now let’s consider (b) how Sa is calculated on the basis of earlier Pb s. Given our treatment of valuations as (not necessarily single-valued) relations between sentences and truth-values, A’s semantic value in V is best understood as {vj < A, v >2 V}. Thus, limiting ourselves for now to consistent valuations, the semantic values are {1}, {0}, and {}. These values are ordered in the obvious way: {1} > {} > {0}. (Sometimes we use Field’s notation and write {1} as 1, {0} as 0, and {} as 12; then the ordering is by numerical size.) If a is a successor ordinal b þ 1, then Sa is < A ! B, 1 > jPb (A) Pb (B) [ < A ! B, 0 > jPb (A) > Pb (B)g. If a is a limit ordinal, then Sa is b b < A ! B, 1 > j9g < a 8b 2 [g, a) Pb (A) bP (B) [ < A ! B, 0 > j9g < a 8b 2 [g, a) P (A) > P (B) . 6 Assume for simplicity that all predicates are monadic. 7 Assume that every object has a name.


9:36pm page 316

316 / S. Yablo The Sa s and Pa s will as Field says ‘‘oscillate wildly’’ (Figure 14.1 is in that respect misleading), but the hope is that deserving sentences will eventually stabilize on their deserved classical value (1 or 0), while defective sentences will stabilize at 12 or never stabilize at all. Which brings us to (c), the assignment of ultimate values. kAk is limb Pb (A) if the limit exists, otherwise 1 b 1 2. That is, kAk ¼ 1 (0) if P (A) is eventually always 1 (0), and kAk ¼ 2 if 1 b P (A) is eventually always 2 or not eventually always anything. The main and most exciting claim Field makes on behalf of his semantics is that it validates the ‘‘naive theory of truth’’: (i) kT[A] $ Ak ¼ 1 unrestrictedly, and (ii) k . . . T[A] . . . k ¼ k . . . A . . . k unrestrictedly. Property (i) and most of property (ii) are immediate from the fact that each Pb is a Kripkean fixed point. For it is a feature of every fixed point that Pb (T[A]) ¼ Pb (A), and that T[A] and A are freely substitutable in otherthan-conditional contexts. Substitutivity within the scope of ! is proved by induction on the complexity of A. For instance, kB ! Ck ¼ 1 iff Pb (B) is eventually always Pb (C) iff Pb (T[B]) is eventually always Pb (C) iff kT[B] ! Ck ¼ 1. Field proves in fact that k . . . k is one of the Pb s and so a full-fledged Kripkean fixed point. Now to call k . . . k a Kripkean fixed point is not to say that it is a fixed point of Field’s operator, the operator taking Pb to Pbþ1 . Recall that a Kripkean fixed point needs only to satisfy (1)–(10) above. The closure S of any seed set S, obtained by slapping 1s and 0s on conditionals however one likes, does that much. To be a Fieldian fixed point, V must also satisfy (11) < A ! B, 1 >2 V iff V(A) V(B). (12) < A ! B, 0 >2 V iff V(A) > V(B). This means that V must be S not for any old S but the particular one Sv that V itself induces: f< A ! B, 1 > jV(A) V(B)g [ f< A ! B, 0 > jV(A) > V(B)g. But if the language contains a Curry sentence—a K identical or equivalent to T[K] ! 0 ¼ 1—then no V can do this. Either V(T[K]) V(0 ¼ 1) or V(T[K]) > V(0 ¼ 1). If the latter, then by (12), V(T[K] ! 0 ¼ 1) ¼ V(K) ¼ 0, whence (by (10) ), V(T[K]) ¼ 0 V(0 ¼ 1) after all. If the


9:36pm page 317

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 317 former, then by (11), V(K) ¼ 1, whence (by (9) ) V(T[K]) ¼ 1, contradicting our assumption that V(T[K]) V(0 ¼ 1). How much should it bother us that k . . . k is not a Fieldian fixed point? What is nice about (11) and (12) is that they equip !-sentences with intuitive and comprehensible truth-conditions. By the same token, it should be no great cause for alarm if the ‘‘real’’ truth-conditions don’t take precisely the (11)–(12) form, provided that intuitive comprehensibility is not sacrificed. Indeed (11) and (12) might be considered problematic, since they prevent A ! B from assuming the value 12, thus obliterating the distinction between conditionals whose antecedents are much truer than their consequents (1 ! 0) and ones whose antecedents are only a little truer (1 ! 12 , or 12 ! 0). Better from this perspective would be an interpretation along the lines of (110 ) < A ! B, 1 >2 V iff V(A) V(B) (120 ) < A ! B, V(A) V(B) > iff V(A) > V(B) (the 3-valued Łukasiewicz conditional). However, (110 ) and (120 ) are no more within reach than (11) and (12). Consider K as above (T[K] ! 0 ¼ 1) and K0 which says that 0 ¼ 0 ! K. At odd stages K and K0 are 1 and 0; at even nonlimit stages they are 0 and 1. Since kKk and kK0 k are 12, kK ! K0 k should according to (110 ) be 1. But it can’t be 1, for at odd stages K has a higher value than K0 , making K ! K0 0 at even successor stages. kK ! K0 k is in fact 12. That some 12 ! 12 conditionals, like K ! K, are 1, while others, like K ! K0 are 12, shows that ! is not value-functional. Therefore nothing like (11)–(12) and (110 )–(120 ) can possibly work.8 Of course Field is under no illusions about this. He is not for a moment suggesting that ! is a standard-issue extensional connective. Still, it is natural to wonder how in that case ! is to be understood. I am not sure that a commonsensical explanation of !’s meaning is possible. What we can do is try to place it on the map between two more familiar sorts of connective. One is the extensional connective i defined by (110 ) and (120 ), the Łukasiewicz conditional. A look at the truth tables shows that ! is stronger than i, in that k A ! B k is never greater than k A i B k and occasionally less, for instance k K ! K0 k¼ 1=2 while k K i K0 k¼ 1. This raises the 8 See Field (forthcoming, a), for a type of semantic value with respect to which ! is compositional.


9:36pm page 318

318 / S. Yablo question, in what does the additional strength consist? What more is asserted by A ! B than A i B? Necessitating a claim is the obvious way to strengthen it, so one natural conjecture is that A ! B is &(A i B) for some suitable modal operator &. But ! does not appear to pack much modal punch. If it did, then one would expect A ! B not to hold unless A somehow necessitated B, and B ! A not to hold unless B necessitated A. Since ‘‘most’’ pairs of sentences necessitate in neither direction, one would expect k (A ! B) _ (B ! A) k to not often be 1. But in fact it is always 1 except under rather special conditions. For k (A ! B) _ (B ! A) k not to be 1, we need first that neither A nor B stabilizes at a classical value, and second that at least one of A, B does not stabilize at all.9 If the first condition is met but not the second, as for instance when A and B are the Truthteller and the Liar, then A ! B and B ! A are both true. This suggests that C ! D, although stronger than C i D, is not as strong as &(C iD). What does it matter, one might say, whether ! has an antecedently comprehensible meaning? A conditional that gets the job done in other respects is one we will learn how to use, and learning the use will teach us the meaning. This response is fair enough in principle. But it assumes that ! does get the job done in other respects, and that a certain semantic obscurity is just the price that has to be paid. This may be right in the end. But it seems to me that !’s performance in other respects is not beyond criticism, and that attending to the criticism makes !’s meaning less obscure rather than more. When we speak of getting the job done in other respects, we should distinguish Job 1—verifying the T-biconditionals—from Jobs 2, 3, 4, etc.— assigning appropriate values to other sentences (sentences not of the form T[A] $ A). When it comes to the evaluation of other sentences, I see three areas where ! could stand to be tweaked. The first is that ! should be less arbitrary. A ! B should not be assigned 1 when there is an equally good case for assigning it 0. The second is that ! should be more grounded. Assignments should be made on some prior and independent basis, and the dependency chains should eventually bottom out. The third is that ! should be stricter. If A contradicts B, for instance, we want not only that A ! :B is 1, but also that A ! B is not 1. 9 These conditions are necessary for a value other than 1, but not sufficient.


9:36pm page 319

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 319

Arbitrariness. One objection people have raised to counting E (the Truthteller) true is that one could just as easily consider it false. Construed as true, it verifies itself, construed as false, it falsifies itself, and there is no reason to prefer one scenario over the other.10 To treat the Truthteller as true, pure and simple, strikes us as arbitrary, which in a truth-value assignment seems a Bad Thing. By the Conditional Truthteller, let’s mean a sentence F to the effect that (A ! A) ! T[F].11 F describes itself as true-if-(A ! A). Because A ! A is a tautology, this should be the same as F describing itself simply as true. The hypothesis that F is true is self-justifying, and likewise the hypothesis that F is false. Since there is no reason to prefer one outcome to the other, to consider F true, pure and simple, seems unacceptably arbitrary. However, that is the value the semantics assigns. Recall that at stage 0, all conditionals are ½, including A ! A and (A ! A) ! T[F]( ¼ F). That F’s antecedent and consequent have the same value at stage 0 makes F 1 at stage 1. That F’s consequent is 1 at stage 1 makes F 1 at stage 2, and so on indefinitely. ‘‘I am true if (A ! A)’’ has therefore an ultimate value of 1.12 Groundedness. A second reason not to call the Truthteller true is that truth attributions should be based on prior facts, facts already in place before they are made. I call this a different reason because there are cases where a nonarbitrary assignment seems objectionable simply because there is no prior and independent basis for it. Consider an infinite line-up of people each saying ‘‘I am speaking truly the person behind me is speaking truly’’ (Sn is T[Sn ] T½Snþ1 ). The only classically defensible assignment is 11111 . . . , since if any Sn were false it would have a false antecedent, making it true after all. Still we are hard put to regard any of these sentences as true. There is no basis for calling Sn true that does not run through assignments to later Sm s for which the same problem arises. Suppose now that the people in our infinite line decide to use arrows instead of horseshoes (Sn is T[Sn ] ! T½Snþ1 ). There is no more reason to call the sentences true than before, but this is the assignment that the semantics 10 I myself think that there is a reason and that the Truthteller is false (Yablo 1985, 1993). But I am not aware of having convinced anyone of this, so I treat the Truthteller as semantically underdetermined. A better example from my perspective would be J ¼ ‘‘S is false’’, S ¼ ‘‘J is false’’. That really is underdetermined. 11 A can be any sentence you like. 12 Another oddity is that k F k becomes 0 if in place of A ! A we put 0 ¼ 0.


9:36pm page 320

320 / S. Yablo makes. Each Sn is ½ at stage 0, so 1 at stage 1, and then we never look back. Such an outcome may not be arbitrary, but it does seem ungrounded. To suppose that Sn is true is to suppose it has a true antecedent. But then its truth is owing to the truth of its consequent T½Snþ1 , with the buck being passed on forever down the line.

Strictness. If a thing is red, then it is not orange. This seems true not only of determinately red and determinately orange objects but also objects on the red–orange border. The incompatibility of red with orange is not limited to the clear cases on either side. Similarly, if a sentence is true, then it is not false. This applies not only to determinately true and determinately false sentences but also to sentences on the border.13 The incompatibility of true with false is not limited to the clear cases on either side. Facts like these ought to be expressible in the language. (This is more or less the problem of penumbral connections.) Suppose that Jones, assured by her instructor that the Truthteller is true, asserts T0 E0 , while Smith, assured by his instructor that it is false, asserts T0 :E0 . It seems that Jones and Smith are saying incompatible things. If Smith is right in calling E false, then Jones is wrong to call it true. Similarly if Jones and Smith call each other liars: J ¼ :T[S] and S ¼ :T[ J].14 They cannot both be right. If Jones’s statement J is true, then Smith’s statement S is false, and vice versa. It would seem natural to try to register the incompatibility of T0 E0 with T0 :E0 by saying that T0 E0 ! :T0 :E0 . This sentence is certainly true for Field. But does it express the incompatibility of T0 E0 with T0 :E0 ? I would say not, since k T0 E0 ! T0 :E0 k is also 1, and, far from being incompatible with :T0 :E0 , T0 E0 , would seem to imply it. A similar situation arises if one tries to express the incompatibility of J with S by saying that J ! :S. This has ultimate value 1 as desired. However, J ! S also has ultimate value 1, even though it is precisely not the case that J is incompatible with :S( ¼ :: T[ J]).15 13 Does it apply to all sentences on the border? Some might think it false of the Liar that if it is true, then it is not false. I suspect it seems false only because of a felt tension with ‘‘If the Liar is true then it is false’’, and that we do best to regard both sentences as true. No such problems arise for the examples in the text. 14 I assume that S and J are {} (in Field’s notation ½). 15 The last three paragraphs take issue with a claim that Field has since dropped. He now says that the contrariety of red with orange consists in the fact that &8x (x is red ! x is not orange), where & is conceptual necessity (Field, Chapter 13 in this volume, and Field forthcoming, a). A couple of things still worry me, however. First, Field uses the unnecessitated conditional to express a related notion: an object x is red-to-orange iff x isn’t red ! x is orange. However if this


9:36pm page 321

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 321 A thing is orange if and only if it is redder than yellow things and yellower than red ones. A sentence A is true iff A. Both claims seem correct for definite and borderline cases alike. The equivalence of orange with redder-thanyellow-and-vice-versa is not limited to the clear cases on either side, and likewise the equivalence of T[A] with A. Our theory of these matters should somehow register these equivalences. Kripke’s theory comes close to registering the T-equivalence, in that each fixed point treats the two sides alike. The trouble is that this is for Kripke an essentially metalinguistic observation. He lacks an object language connective # with the property that k B # C k¼ 1 iff Q (B) ¼ Q (C) for all fixed points Q.16 This is because his connectives are monotonic, and no monotonic connective can permit the combination of k B # C k¼ 1 with k B k¼k C k¼ 12. Now Field’s ! is not monotonic, so one might hope it would allow the equivalence of T[A] with A finally to be stated. This requires not just that k T[A] $ A k¼ 1, but also that k T[A] $ :A k not be 1 (leaving aside cases, like the Liar, where the second assignment is forced on us by the first). However, this is not what we find. k T[G] $ :G k¼ 1 for every G that stabilizes at 12, including the Truthteller and the Tautologyteller (‘‘This sentence is either true or not true’’). A related situation arises with sentences A that do not stabilize at 12. Notice first that if A0 is 0 ¼ 0 ! A, then A and A0 are intuitively speaking equivalent. One might hope then that k T[A] $ A0 k¼ 1 and k T[A] $ :A0 k¼ 0. In fact the reverse is true for certain choices of A: k T[A] $ A0 k¼ 0 and k T[A] $ :A0 k¼ 1. (This happens, for instance, if A is a Curry sentence.) To be sure, when A has ultimate value 1 or 0, biconditionals framed with ! behave as they should: k T[A] $ A k¼ 1, k T[A] $ :A k¼ 0. But that much we get already from the material biconditional . The advantage of ! was supposed to lie with its treatment of the k A k¼ 12 case. conditional really expressed that x was red-to-orange, one would expect it not to be true that x isn’t red ! x is big, for x is not red-to-big. And it looks like it will be true if x is borderline big, or at least that is the natural assumption given the almost-extensionality of !. A different explanation of red-to-orange avoids this problem: &8y ( y is indiscernible in color from x ! ( y is not red ! y is orange)). This will be false if ‘‘big’’ is substituted since we can choose y to be small. Second, suppose with Field that P is contrary to Q iff &8A(P[A] ! :Q [A]). ‘‘True’’ and ‘‘untrue if 0 ¼ 0’’ are intuitively speaking contraries, so we should have &8A(T[A] ! : (0 ¼ 0 ! :T[A])). But 8A(T[A] ! :(0 ¼ 0 ! :T[A])) is not true on Field’s semantics, since it does not hold for the Curry sentence K. ( k T[K] ! :(0 ¼ 0 ! :T[K]) k¼ 12.) 16 Kripke (1975) does discuss the possibility of adding a modal operator.


9:36pm page 322

322 / S. Yablo A number of strategies might be tried to address these issues (I don’t call them ‘‘problems’’ since my reactions may be idiosyncratic). The ones I will look at exploit the fact that Kripke’s minimal fixed point P is, as the name implies, only one of a class of valuations all satisfying conditions (1)–(10) listed above. The idea very roughly will be to give a possible worlds semantics for !, with these valuations playing the role of worlds. I will first sketch a construction in the style of Field, building on Herzberger and Gupta; it helps with some of the examples just discussed but does not greatly clarify the truth-conditions of A ! B. This will be followed by a construction in the style of Kripke (and Yablo 1985), which addresses all of the examples and makes the truthconditions relatively straightforward. Field-style possible worlds semantics. Call a fixed point ‘‘categorical’’ if it leaves !statement unevaluated. The Field-style construction takes off from (i) the minimal fixed point P and (ii) the set Q of all categorical fixed points. Because no consistency requirement is imposed—Q 2 Q can contain neither, either, or both of and —the members of Q form a lattice under the operations Q1 _ Q2 ¼ (Q1 [ Q 2 ) Q1 ^ Q2 ¼ (Q1 \ Q 2 ) . Each Q 2 Q has a dual that turns Q’s gaps into gluts and vice versa, leaving other sentences unchanged. In particular Q contains a (unique) maximal fixed point obtained by taking the dual of P. (See Woodruff 1984.) The definition of stages is by a simultaneous induction starting from Q ¼ {Q i ji 2 I}. Each Q k is the starting point Q 0k of a sequence < Q ak >, with Q bþ1 determined by Q b ¼ {Q bi ji 2 I}. The key to the construction is k that A ! B is true in Q bþ1 iff B is valued as highly as A by all the members of k Q b . By ‘‘valued as highly as’’ I mean Q (A) Q (B) ¼df < A, 1 > 2 Q only if < B, 1 > 2 Q , and < B, 0 > 2 Q only if < A, 0 > 2 Q :17 If Q(C) is considered {}, {1}, {0}, or {1,0} according as Q contains neither of < C, 1 > , < C, 0 >, the first only, the second only, or both, then this corresponds to the ordering that has {0} < all other values, {1} > all other values (and that’s all). Q is said to validate A ! B iff Q (A) Q (B).

17 Q (C) ¼ Q (D) means that < C, v >2 Q iff < D, v >2 Q .


9:36pm page 323

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 323 Suppose we have Q a ¼ {Q ai ji 2 I} in hand. Then Q aþ1 is the set of all Q aþ1 (i 2 I), where i Q aþ1 ¼ ({ < A ! B, 1 > j every Q ai Q ak validates A ! B})} k [{ < A ! B, 0 > j not every Q ai Q ak validates A ! B}) : A ! B is true in Q lk iff as g approaches l, it is eventually always the case that every Q gi Q gk validates A ! B.18 Q lk ¼ ({ < A ! B, 1 > j9b < l 8g 2 [b, l) each Q ai Q ak validatesA ! B} [{ < A ! B, 0 > j9b < l 8g 2 [b, l) no Q ai Q ak validates A ! B}) :

This results in the back-and-forth process shown in Figure 14.2 Now the definition of ultimate values. For each Q k in Q , let Q 1 k be liminf b Q bk , that is b Q1 k ¼ { < C, v > j < C, v >2 Q k for all large enough b}:

If Q 0 is the minimal fixed point, then A’s ultimate value is the value it is assigned by Q 1 0 . Consider, for instance, ‘‘If J, then not S’’, where again J is :T[S] and S is :T[ J]. This receives value 1 because Q ( J) Q (:S) ( ¼ Q (::T[J])) for all fixed points Q. ‘‘If J, then S’’ is not assigned 1 because it is not validated by consistent Qs assigning 1 to J, and such Qs can be found in every Q b . (Recall that ‘‘If J then S’’ is 1 on the original Field semantics.) I do not want to dwell too long on this system, so let me just note a few basic properties. That Q ak is always a Kripkean fixed point means that each Q a0 validates both directions of T[A] $ A, so Q 1 0 (T[A] $ A) ¼ 1. Substitutivity is harder to prove, but it holds, so we have the full naive theory of truth. ! is stricter than it was than on the original Field semantics, which helps with Q0

Q1

Q2

Q k2

Q k1

Q k0

Q 00 =P

Q 01

Ql

Q3

Q kl+1

Q kl

Q k3

Q 02

Ql+1

Q 03

Q 0l

Q 0l+1

FIG. 14.2 18 This looks a little different from the successor clause but is in keeping with Field.


9:36pm page 324

324 / S. Yablo penumbral connections (as just observed in effect with J and S). But the issues of arbitrariness and groundedness remain. It is unfortunately not the case that 1 P1 (A ! B) ¼ 1 iff 8 Q 1 k Q 0 Q k (A) Q k (B).19 The new truth-conditions are as obscure as the old ones. Kripke-style possible worlds semantics. This time we start not with the set R of all categorical fixed points meeting a certain condition: R 2 R must be ‘‘transparent’’ in the sense that substituting T[C] for C always preserves semantic value in R. (Note that each opaque fixed point has a least transparent extension, obtained by closing under both directions of < w(T[C]), v >2 V iff < w(C), v >2 V and (1)–(10).) < R, ^ , _ > is a lattice under the same operations as before. Each R 2 R has a dual in R that turns gaps into gluts and vice versa, leaving everything else alone. In particular R contains a maximal transparent fixed point making each conditional statement both true and false (Woodruff 1984). The idea is to develop an increasing series of fixed points Pb in tandem with a decreasing series Rb of sets of fixed points. A ! B is to be true in Paþ1 iff each R 2 Ra validates it. Raþ1 is obtained by purging Ra of any valuations that conflict with Paþ1 :Pa grows as Ra shrinks, because the smaller Ra is, the easier it becomes for all its members to validate A ! B: Ra shrinks as Pa grows, because the more opinionated a valuation is, the more it comes into conflict with other valuations. Above we said that R(A) R(B) just in case R assigns 1 to B if to A, and 0 to A if to B. And we said that R validates A ! B iff R(A) R(B). Now we further stipulate that R(A) > R(B) iff R(A) R(B) and R(A) 6¼ R(B). Explicitly, R(A) > R(B) ¼df R assigns 1 to A if to B, and 0 to B if to A, and (either) 1 to A only or 0 to B only. When R(A) > R(B), we say that R invalidates A ! B. The induction goes as follows. Suppose we have Pa and Ra in hand. Paþ1 ¼ ({ < A ! B, 1 > j each R 2 Ra validates A ! B}[ { < A ! B, 0 > j each R 2 Ra invalidates A ! B}) . Valuations are incompatible when they disagree in their unique assignments, i.e. one makes a sentence uniquely true (false) that the other fails to make uniquely true (false). 19 The right-hand side holds for K, 0 ¼ 0 ! K but P1 (K ! (0 ¼ 0 ! K)) 1.


9:36pm page 325

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 325 Raþ1 ¼ {R 2 Ra jR is compatible with Paþ1 }. Limit stages are similar. Suppose we have Pg and Rg in hand for all g < l. Pl ¼ ({ < A ! B, 1 > j9b < l 8g 2 [b, l) each R 2 Rg validates A ! B)}[ { < A ! B, 0 > j9b < l 8g 2 [b, l) each R 2 Rg invalidates A ! B}) .

Rl ¼ {R 2 \g 62 P1 . R0 contains a least R assigning 1 to both A ! A and T[F]; call it R1 : R0 also contains a least R assigning 1 to A ! A and 0 to T[F]; call it R2 . Since R1 validates F and R2 invalidates it, P1 leaves (A ! A) ! T[F] unevaluated. Since P1 assigns 1 to A ! A (why?) and nothing to F, P1 is compatible with both R1 and R2 . Hence R1 and R2 survive into R1 , which by the same argument as before means that P2 leaves (A ! A) ! T[F] unevaluated. Continuing in this way we see that P1 (F) ¼ {}. Our example of ungroundedness was the infinite Curryesque sequence Ki ¼ T[Ki ] ! T[Kiþ1 ]: R0 contains for each i a smallest valuation Ri1 assigning 1 to Ki and 1 to Kiþ1 , and a smallest valuation Ri2 assigning 1 to Ki and 0 to Kiþ1 The first validates Ki and the second invalidates it, so P1 (Ki ) ¼ {} for all i. But then as above Ri1 and Ri2 survive into R1 , so P2 (Ki ) ¼ {} for all i, and so on ad infinitum. The Ki s are 1 on the Field semantics but are neither 1 nor 0 by the lights of P1 . The strictness issue was addressed already by the previous semantics, and the same considerations apply. Consider, for instance, T0 K0 ! :T0 :K0 . This has ultimate value 1 because every fixed point (including those assigning both 1 and 0 to K) validates it. T0 K0 ! T0 :K0 is not 1 because fixed points assigning just 1 to K fail to validate it, and not 0 either because fixed points assigning just 0 to K fail to invalidate it. Look back now at the Top Ten Excellent Features of Field’s system (the original system, without possible worlds). How many of these are shared by the system sketched in the last section? I have already said that the Kripke


9:36pm page 327

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 327 system verifies all T-biconditionals (that’s 1), and permits the substitution ‘‘salva valutate’’ of T[A] for A (that’s 2). Certainly it provides an explicit model (that’s 3) which means no hidden paradoxes (that’s 4).21 When it comes to 7 and 8, there is a tradeoff. The Kripke system gives ! a more natural semantics—a fixed point semantics—but at the cost of a less horseshoe-like logic. For a sense of what is lost (and what is not), some key axioms, rules, and metarules of the Field system are A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6

A!A

::A ! A

A ! (A _ B)

A^B!A

(A ! :B) ! (B ! :A)

(A ! :A) ! :(T ! A)

R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6

A, A ! B B A, :B :(A ! B) A B!A (A ! B) ^ (A ! C) A ! (B ^ C) (A ! C) ^ (B ! C) (A _ B) ! C A ! B (C ! A) ! (C ! B).

A1–A4 are valid on the present semantics, but A5 and A6 hold in rule form only: A ! :B B ! :A and A ! :A :(T ! A). R1–R5 are truthpreserving but R6 fails.22 This last is important to the proof that, as in the Field system, ! ‘‘becomes’’ horseshoe in bivalent contexts (that’s feature 9).23 21 One might worry about inconsistencies, but see the previous note. 22 One key weakness of the present logic is its obliviousness in many cases to embedded conditionals (as evidenced, for instance, in the failure of A5 and A6). It might help to impose more conditions on R0 than just transparency. 23 Field’s ‘‘Theorem on ! and ’’ (Field forthcoming, a) still holds when ‘LCC is replaced by

, understood as 1-preservingness in the Kripke semantics. The modified theorem states that: (ia) (ib) (iia) (iib)

AB A!B (A _ :A) ^ (B _ :B) (A B) ! (A ! B) (A _ :A) ^ (A ! B) A B (A _ :A) ^ (B _ :B) (A ! B) ! (A B).

Clearly B A ! B, and :A A ! B. _-elimination holds because k A _ B k¼ 1 only if k A k¼ 1or k B k¼ 1. By _-elimination, :A _ B A ! B, which is the same as (ia). For (ib) and (iib), if k (A _ :A) ^ (B _ :B) k¼ 1 then k A k¼ 1 or ±0, and k B k¼ 1 or 0. But then R(A) ¼k A k and R(B) ¼k B k for all R 2 R1 . It follows that k A ! B k¼k A B k¼ 1 or 0. Either way R(A B) ¼ R(A ! B) for all R 2 R1 , so k (A B) ! (A ! B) k¼ 1 (proving (ib)


9:36pm page 328

328 / S. Yablo That leaves 5 and 6: high degree of revenge-immunity, and not because vengeance-threatening notions are inexpressible. One of the great attractions of Field’s theory is the astonishing mileage he gets out of a language-internal determinacy operator DA, defined as (0 ¼ 0 ! A) & A. DA is 1 at stage aþ1 iff A is true both at stage aþ1 and stage a, and 0 at stage aþ1 iff A fails either at the given stage or the one before it. DA is 1 at limit stage l iff A is 1 through the closed interval [b, l] for some b < l, and 0 at stage l if A is either 0 at l or less than 1 through the half-open interval [b, l). If L is the Liar then DL is 0; if L1 is the strengthened Liar ‘‘I am not determinately true’’ then DDL1 is 0; if L2 is the double-strength Liar ‘‘I am not determinately determinately true’’ then D3 L2 is 0; and so on until the ordinal notations run out. That none of these Liars is unevaluable, and indeed each is truly describable as defectivea (:Da A ^ :Da :A) for suitably large a, might seem to support a claim of revenge-immunity. Distinguish two questions, however. Question 1: is the language able to characterize as defective every sentence that deserves to be so characterized? Question 2: are there intelligible semantic notions such that paradox is avoided only because those notions are not expressible in the language? Field goes a long way towards addressing the first of these, but revengemongers have traditionally been more interested in second. Now it may seem that Field does address the second question, in the section of Field (forthcoming, a) called ‘Revenge (2)’. The revenge-monger (RM) asks us to imagine the chaos that would result if having an ultimate value other than 1 were expressible in the language. A Superliar L1 could then be constructed saying that k L1 k 6¼ 1. ‘‘Why imagine it?’’ Field asks. The ‘‘new’’ predicate needn’t even be added to the language: [it is] already there, at least if (i) the base language from which we started the construction in Section 2 included the language of set theory and (ii) the model M0 for the base language from which the construction . . . started is definable in the base language . . . for the construction showed how to explicitly define [it] in set-theoretic terms . . . (p. 302 above)

That Field goes so far as to lend RM his tools makes the next step all the more crushing:

and k (A ! B) ! (A B)k ¼ 1 (proving (iib) ). For (iia), that kA _ :Ak ¼ 1 means that kAk is 1 or 0. If the latter then kA Bk ¼ 1. If the former then 8R 2 R1 R(A) ¼ 1. Also though 8R 2 R1 R(A) R(B) since kA ! Bk ¼ 1. So kBk ¼ 1, hence kA B k¼ 1. QED


9:36pm page 329

New Grounds for Naive Truth Theory / 329 Can’t we then reinstitute a paradox? . . . No we can’t: our construction yields the consistency of the claim True ( ) $k A k 6¼ 1 . . . (p. 000 above)

The problem is that by Tarski’s theorem, ‘‘we can’t within classical set theory define any notion of determinate truth that fully corresponds to the intuitive notion’’ (p. 000 above), what Tarski would have called the metalinguistic notion. The paradox fails because the predicate ‘k . . . k6¼ 1’ does not mean what RM wanted it to. But of course it was clear from the start that no truth predicate definable in the language was going to express the notion of having a semantic value 6¼ 1. What then was the point of inviting RM into his workshop and offering the use of his tools? I will not speculate about motive, but the result was to get RM off the street where he might really have caused some trouble. From that external vantage point, RM would have seen the old familiar bargain at work and raised the old familiar alarm: consistency is being maintained through a sacrifice of expressive power. I am not saying I agree with RM about this, just that he should be allowed the platform from which his type has traditionally threatened revenge. Field does have a response to this: ‘‘RM, you are taking the semantics and its classical setting too seriously. The most a classical semantics can accomplish is to provide a consistency proof for the theory. The ‘real’ semantics, if there were going to be one, would be carried out in a non-classical set theory, a theory that is needed anyway to deal with the set paradoxes. Sentences like ‘k this very sentence k6¼ 1’ will not bother us any longer, when we are free of the requirement that k A k¼ 1 _ k A k6¼ 1’’. A unified treatment of the set and semantic paradoxes is the grail cup of antinomy studies. Russell thought he had it in the theory of types, but we know how that turned out. How Field’s attempt at a unified treatment will turn out, we don’t know. But the attempt bears watching.24

REFERENCES B a r w i s e , J., and J. E t c h e m e n d y (1987), The Liar: An Essay in Truth and Circularity (Oxford: Oxford University Press). B r a d y , R. (1989), ‘The Non-triviality of Dialectical Set Theory’, in Priest et al. (1989: 437–70). 24 See Field, Ch. 13 in this volume.


9:36pm page 330

330 / S. Yablo B u r g e , T. (1979), ‘Semantic Paradox’, Journal of Philosophy, 76: 169–98; repr. in Martin (1984: 83–117). F e f e r m a n , S. (1984), ‘Towards Useful Type-Free Theories, I’, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 49: 75–111; repr. in Martin (1984: 237–87). F i e l d , H. (2002), ‘Saving the Truth Schema from Paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 31: 1–27. —— (forthcoming, a), ‘A Revenge-Immune Solution to the Semantic Paradoxes’, Journal of Philosophical Logic. —— (forthcoming, b), ‘The Consistency of the Naı¨ve(?) Theory of Properties’. G u p t a , A. (1982), ‘Truth and Paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 11: 1–60; repr. in Martin (1984: 175–235). H e r z b e r g e r , H. (1982), ‘Notes on Naive Semantics’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 11: 61–102; repr. in Martin (1984: 133–74). K r i p k e , S. (1975), ‘Outline of a Theory of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 72: 690–716; repr. in Martin (1984: 54–81). M a r t i n , R. (1984), Recent Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox (Oxford: Clarendon Press). —— and P. Woodruff (1975), ‘On Representing ‘‘True-in-L’’ in L’, Philosophia, 5: 213– 17; repr. in Martin (1984: 47–51). P r i e s t , G. (1979), ‘The Logic of Paradox’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8: 219–41. —— R. Routley, and J. Norman (1989), Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent (Munich: Philosophia Verlag). S k y r m s , B. (1984), ‘Intentional Aspects of Semantical Self-Reference’, in Martin (1984: 120–31). T a r s k i , A. (1983), ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, in J. H. Woodger (ed.), Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics (Indianapolis: Hackett). W o o d r u f f , P. (1984), ‘Paradox, Truth, and Logic (I)’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 13: 213–52. Y a b l o , S. (1985), ‘Truth and Reflection’, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 14: 297–349. —— (1993), ‘Hop, Skip and Jump: The Agonistic Conception of Truth’, Philosophical Perspectives, 7: 371–96.


10:20am page 331

15 A Completeness Theorem for Unrestricted First-Order Languages Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson

1. Preliminaries Here is an account of logical consequence inspired by Bolzano and Tarski. Logical validity is a property of arguments. An argument is a pair of a set of interpreted sentences (the premises) and an interpreted sentence (the conclusion). Whether an argument is logically valid depends only on its logical form. The logical form of an argument is fixed by the syntax of its constituent sentences, the meanings of their logical constituents, and the syntactic differences between their non-logical constituents, treated as variables. A constituent of a sentence is logical just if it is formal in meaning, in the sense roughly that its application is invariant under permutations of individuals.1 Thus ‘¼’ is a logical constant because no permutation maps two Thanks to Vann McGee and Stephen Read for many helpful comments. 1 Tarski (1986) (text of a lecture delivered in 1966) suggests invariance under permutations of the universe as a criterion for a logical constant. Sher (1991) develops this approach in an extensional way (see also McGee 1996; contrast McCarty 1981). Alternatively, one might require the invariance to be necessary or a priori. One can also require logical constants to be invariant in extension across circumstances of evaluation (worlds and times), so that a predicate applicable to everything if Nelson died at Trafalgar and to nothing otherwise does not qualify as a logical constant, even though we know a priori that it is necessarily permutation-invariant in extension. Almog (1989) also characterizes logical truth by permutation invariance, although the underlying conception is quite different. Our aim here is not fine-tuning the notion of logical consequence.


10:20am page 332

332 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson individuals to one or one to two; ‘2’ is not a logical constant because some permutations interchange the null set and its singleton. Truth functions, the usual quantifiers, and bound variables also count as logical constants. An argument is logically valid if and only if the conclusion is true under every assignment of semantic values to variables (including all non-logical expressions) under which all its premises are true. A sentence is logically true if and only if the argument with no premises of which it is the conclusion is logically valid, that is, if and only if the sentence is true under every assignment of semantic values to variables. An interpretation assigns values to all variables. For the case of first-order languages,2 interpretations are standardly cashed out in terms of what might be called model-theoretic interpretations (or MTinterpretations). An MT-interpretation for a first-order language L is an ordered pair hD, Fi. The domain D is a non-empty set, and is intended to specify the range of the variables in L. The interpretation function F is intended to specify semantic values for the variables of L (including nonlogical expressions). The semantic value of an n-place predicate-letter is a set of n-tuples of individuals in D,3 and the semantic value of a first-order variable is an individual in D. Truth on an MT-interpretation can then be characterized as follows: [MT- ¼ ] [MT-P] [MT-:] [MT- ^ ] [MT-9]

9vi ¼ vj ; is true on hD, Fi iff F(9vi ;) ¼ F(9vj ;), 9Pin (vj1 , ..., vjn ); is true on hD, Fi iff hF(9vj1 ;), ..., F(9vjn ;)i 2 F(9Pin ;), 9:c; is true on hD, Fi iff 9c; is not true on hD, Fi, 9c ^ y; is true on hD, Fi iff 9c; and 9y; are both true on hD, Fi, 99vi (c); is true on hD, Fi iff there is some d 2 D such that 9c; is true on hD, F[9vi ;=d]i,

where F[v=d] is the function that is just like F except that it assigns d to v. If G is a set of formulas, we say that G is true on hD, Fi just in case each formula in G is true on hD, Fi. Finally, an argument is said to be MT-valid

2 We take a first-order language to consist of the following symbols: the logical connectives ‘^’ and ‘:’, the quantifier-expression ‘9’, variable-symbols 9vi ; for i 2 w, the identity-symbol ‘¼’, n-place predicate-letters 9Pan ; for n 2 ! and a in some set S, and the auxiliary symbols ‘(’ and ‘)’. We do not consider function-letters, since they can be simulated by (n þ 1)-place predicates. The formulas of L are defined in the usual way. 3 To simplify our presentation, we make the assumption that, for every x, the 1-tuple of x is identical with x.


10:20am page 333

Unrestricted First-Order Languages / 333 just in case every MT-interpretation on which the set of premises is true is also an MT-interpretation on which the conclusion is true, and a formula is said to be MT-valid just in case the argument with no premises of which it is the conclusion is MT-valid. The variables of a first-order language are sometimes intended to range over absolutely everything whatsoever (henceforth, we will use ‘everything’ and similar phrases such as ‘all individuals’ in that sense).4 For instance, the variables of the first-order language in which the theory of MT-interpretations is couched must range over everything, on pain of excluding some individuals from the semantic values of non-logical terms. But, according to standard conceptions of set-theory such as ZFU (i.e. Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with urelements), there is no set of all individuals. And, in the absence of such a set, there is no MT-interpretation that specifies a domain consisting of everything. So, when the variables of a first-order language L are intended to range over everything, no MT-interpretation captures the intended interpretation of L. Clearly, matters cannot be improved by appealing to proper classes: no proper class can play the role of a universal domain because no proper class is a member of itself. But one might be tempted to address the problem by adopting a set theory which allows for a universal set—Quine’s New Foundations, the Church and Mitchell systems, and positive set theory all satisfy this requirement.5 Unfortunately, set theories that allow for a universal set must impose restrictions on the axiom of separation to avoid paradox. So, as long as an MT-interpretation assigns a subset of its domain as the interpretation of a monadic predicate, some intuitive interpretations for monadic predicates will not be realized by any MT-interpretation. (Throughout the rest of the paper we will be working with ZFU plus choice principles, rather than a set theory which allows for a universal set.) The problems we have discussed are instances of a more general difficulty. Regardless of the set theory one chooses to work with, trouble will arise from the fact that an MT-interpretation is an individual. For, whatever it is to G, there are legitimate assignments of semantic values to variables according to 4 A powerful defense of unrestricted quantification is set forth in Cartwright (1994), undermining some of the classic criticisms in Dummett (1981, chs. 14–16). The possibility of quantifying over everything is also defended in Boolos (1998b), McGee (2000), Williamson (1999), Rayo (2003), and Williamson (forthcoming). 5 See Quine (1937), Church (1974), Mitchell (1976), and Skala (1974). For an extended discussion of set theories with a universal set, see Forster (1995).


10:20am page 334

334 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson which the predicate-letter P applies to something if and only it Gs. So, if every legitimate assignment of semantic values to variables is to be captured by some MT-interpretation, we must have the following: (1) For every individual x, MG is an MT-interpretation according to which P applies to x if and only if x Gs. But, since MT-interpretations are individuals, we may define a verb ‘R’ as follows: (2) For each individual x, x Rs if and only if x is not an MT-interpretation according to which P applies to x. Putting ‘R’ for ‘G’ in (1) and applying (2) yields: (3) For every individual x, MR is an MT-interpretation according to which P applies to x if and only if x is not an MT-interpretation according to which P applies to x. In particular, we can let x be MR itself; so (3) implies: (4) MR is an MT-interpretation according to which P applies to MR if and onlyifMR is notan MT-interpretation accordingtowhichPapplies toMR . And (4) is a contradiction. It follows that there are legitimate assignments of semantic values to variables that cannot be captured by any MT-interpretation. (It is worth noting that, although the argument is structurally similar to standard derivations of Russell’s Paradox, it does not rest on any assumptions about sets. As long as the variables in the metalanguage range over everything, all we need to get the problem going is the observation that MTinterpretations are individuals, and the claim that, whatever it is to G, there are legitimate assignments of semantic values to variables according to which the predicate-letter P applies to something if and only if it Gs.) It is best to use a semantics which is not based on MT-interpretations. Here we will work with the notion of a second-order interpretation (or SO-interpretation), set forth in Rayo and Uzquiano (1999). Informally, the idea is this: rather than taking an SO-interpretation to be an individual, like an MTinterpretation, we regard it as given by the individuals which a monadic second-order variable I is true of. The ‘domain’ of I is the collection of individuals x such that I is true of h‘8’, xi. The ‘semantic value’ which I assigns to an n-place predicate-letter 9Pi ; is the collection of n-tuples hx1 , ..., xn i such that I is true of h9Pi ;, hx1 , ... , xn ii; and the semantic value which I assigns


10:20am page 335

Unrestricted First-Order Languages / 335 to a first-order variable 9vi ; is the unique individual x such that I is true of h9vi ;, xi (for the sake of brevity, we sometimes use ‘I(9vi ;)’ to refer to the unique x such that Ih9vi ;, xi). Such informal explanations are a kind of useful nonsense, a ladder to be thrown away once climbed, because they use the second-order (predicate) variable ‘I’ in first-order (name) positions in sentences of natural language; nevertheless, they draw attention to helpful analogies between SO-interpretations and MT-interpretations. Formally, when ‘I’ is a second-order variable, we take ‘I is an SO-interpretation’ to abbreviate the following second-order formula:6 9x(Ih‘8’, xi ) ^ 8x(FOV(x) ! 9!yIhx, yi) where ‘FOV (x)’ is interpreted as ‘x is a first-order variable’. Unlike MT-interpretations, SO-interpretations are well-suited to cover the case in which the variables of L range over everything. For, whenever Ih‘8’, xi holds for every x, the ‘domain’ of I will consist of everything. Let us now characterize the predicate ‘f is true on I’, where f is a formula of L and I is an SO-interpretation for L. It is important to note that our satisfaction predicate is a second-level predicate (i.e. a predicate taking a secondorder variable in one of its argument-places), since ‘I’ is a second-order variable.7 [SO- ¼ ] [SO-P] [SO-:] [SO- ^ ] [SO-9]

9vi ¼ vj ; is true on I iff I(9vi ;) ¼ I(9vj ;), 9Pin (vj1 , ... , vjn ); is true on I iff Ih9Pin ;, hI(9vj1 ;),... , I(9vjn ;) ii, 9:c; is true on I iff 9c; is not true on I, 9c ^ y; is true on I iff 9c; and 9y; are both true on I, 99vi (c); is true on I iff there is some d such that Ih‘8’, di and 9c; is true on I[9vi ;=d],

where I[v=d] is just like I except that I(v) ¼ d. 6 On this definition, not everything falling under ‘I’ has a role to play in the resulting semantics. If we wished to stipulate away idle clutter, we could have taken ‘I is an SOinterpretation’ to abbreviate the following instead: 9x(Ih‘8’, xi) ^ 8x(FOV(x) ! 9!yIhx, yi)^ 8x{Ix ! [9y(x ¼ h‘8’, yi) _ 9y9z9n(P r e d (y, n)^T u p l e (z, n) ^ x ¼ hy, zi)_ 9y9z(FOV(y) ^ x ¼ hy, zi)]} where the predicates are understood in the obvious way: ‘FOV (x)’ is interpreted as ‘x is a firstorder variable’, ‘Pr e d (x, n)’ is interpreted as ‘x is an n-place predicate’, and ‘Tu p l e (x, n)’ is interpreted as ‘x is an n-tuple’. 7 For more on second-level predicates see Rayo (2002). Vann McGee has pointed out that, as long as L is a first-order language, the notion of truth on an SO-interpretation for L can be


10:20am page 336

336 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson If G is a set of formulas, we say that G is true on I just in case each formula in G is true on I. Finally, an argument is said to be SO-valid just in case every SOinterpretation on which the set of premises is true is also an SO-interpretation on which the conclusion is true, and a formula is said to be SO-valid just in case the argument with no premises of which it is the conclusion is SO-valid. A famous argument of Kreisel’s can be used to show that a first-order argument hG, fi is SO-valid if and only if it is MT-valid.8 [Proof sketch. Suppose explicitly characterized in a second-order language with no atomic second-level predicates (see ch. 16 in this volume). When L is a second-order language, however, the notion of truth on an SO-interpretation for L cannot be characterized in a second-order language with no atomic second-level predicates. [Proof sketch. Let L and L0 be second-order languages containing no atomic second-level predicates and let M be the intended SO-interpretation for L0 . We suppose, for reductio, that it is possible to characterize in L0 the notion of truth on an SO-interpretation for L, in other words, we suppose that there is a formula ‘Sat(x, I)’ of L0 such that the following sentence of L0 is true on M: (*) 8I8x[ [(I is an SO-interpretation for L ^ x is a formula of L) ! ([SO- ¼ ] ^ [SO-P] ^ [SO-:] ^ [SO- ^ ] ^ [SO-9 ] ^ [SO-V] ^ [SO-29])] where ‘I is an SO-interpretation for L’ and ‘x is a formula of L’ are interpreted in the obvious way, and ‘Sat(x, I)’ is substituted for ‘x is true on I’ in [SO- ¼ ], [SO-P], [SO-:], [SO-^ ], [SO-9], [SO-V], and [SO-29] ([SO-V] and [SO-29] are defined in Section 6). With no loss of generality, we may assume that L0 contains no non-logical predicate-letters which do not occur in (*), and hence that L0 contains only finitely many non-logical primitives (for simplicity, we take second-order languages to contain no function-letters). Since ‘x is a formula of L’ is true of all and only formulas of L, the domain of M must be infinite; this means that any arithmetical sentence 9f; can be expressed in L0 as the universal closure of the result of substituting the arithmetical primitives for variables of the appropriate type in 9PA ! f;, where PA is the conjunction of the second-order Dedekind–Peano Axioms. It is therefore harmless to assume that the language of arithmetic can be interpreted in the theory of M. From this it follows that L0 is able to characterize its own syntax by way of Go¨del numbering. Let P1 ,... , Pn be a complete list of the non-logical predicate-letters in L0 , and say that a correspondence function is a one–one function mapping each of the Pi (1 i n) onto a variable of L with the same number of argumentplaces. Since L0 is able to characterize the syntax of L in addition to its own, there is a correspondence function c definable in L0 . If f is a formula of L0 , let fc be the result of substituting c(Pi ) for every occurrence of Pi in f(1 i n), and, if necessary, relabeling variables to avoid clashes. For any formula f of L0 , c(f) is a formula of pure second-order logic, and therefore a formula of L. Moreover, it follows from the definability of c in L0 that there is a formula C(x,y) of L0 which holds of x and y just in case x is the (Go¨del number of) a formula f of L0 and y is c(f). It is also possible to characterize in L0 an SO-interpretation IM of L with the following characteristics: (a) IM (h‘8’, xi) if and only if M(h‘8’, xi) and (b) for each Pi (1 i n), if 9Vjm ; is c(Pi ), then IM (h9Vjm ;, hx1 ,... , xm ii) if and only if M(h9Pi ;, hx1 ,... , xm ii). But ‘8y(C(x, y) ! Sat(y, IM ))’ is a truth predicate for L0 , contradicting Tarski’s Theorem.] It is worth noting that the result continues to hold when L contains unrestricted quantifiers (introduced in Sections 2 and 6). 8 See Kreisel (1967). Cartwright (1994) uses Kreisel’s argument to argue against the view that the All-in-One Principle—the principle that to quantify over certain objects is to presuppose


10:20am page 337

Unrestricted First-Order Languages / 337 hG, fi is MT-valid. Then, by the completeness of MT-validity, f is derivable from G. But the SO-validity of derivable inferences follows from a straightforward induction on the length of proofs. So f is true on every SO-interpretation which makes G true. hG, fi is therefore SO-valid. Conversely, suppose hG, fi is not MT-valid. Then there is some MTinterpretation on which every member of G is true and f is not true. But, since every MT-interpretation has the same domain and delivers the same assignments of semantic value as some SO-interpretation, there is some SO-interpretation on which every member of G is true and f is not true. So hG, fi is not SO-valid.] Kreisel’s result guarantees that standard first-order deductive systems are sound and complete with respect to SO-interpretations. It also shows that, if the only purpose of a formal semantics is to characterize the set of standard first-order validities, then SO-interpretations are unnecessary, since they deliver the same result as MT-interpretations. But a formal semantics might have a broader objective than that of characterizing the set of standard first-order validities. For instance, one may wish to consider the result of enriching a first-order language with a quantifier ‘9AI ’, as in McGee (1992). On its intended interpretation, a sentence ‘9AI v(f(v))’ is true just in case the individuals satisfying ‘f(v)’ are too many to form a set. Accordingly, when the quantifiers range over everything, ‘9AI v(v ¼ v)’ is true, since there are too many individuals to form a set. Within an SO-semantics, we can specify the truth-conditions of ‘9AI ’ as follows: [SO-9AI ] 99AI vi (f); is true on I iff no set contains every d such that Ih‘8’, di and 9f; is true on I[9vi ;=d]. This yields the intended result. For instance, [SO-9AI ] ensures that ‘9AI v(v ¼ v)’ is true on any SO-interpretation I such that, for every x, Ih‘8’, xi. On the other hand, we run into trouble when we try to specify the truth-conditions of ‘9AI ’ within MT-semantics. For, suppose we attempt to mirror [SO-9AI ] by way of the following clause: [MT-9AI ] 99AI vi (f); is true on hD, Fi iff no set contains every d 2 D such that 9f; is true on hD, F[9vi ;=d]i. that there is one thing of which those objects are the members—derives support from MTsemantics. In particular, Cartwright notes that Kreisel’s argument undermines the thought that the MT-validity of a sentence f can only be a guarantee of f’s truth if the intended domain of f coincides with the domain of some MT-interpretation.


10:20am page 338

338 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson It follows from [MT-9AI ] that no MT-interpretation can make a sentence of the form 99AI vi (f); true. So ‘;9AI v(v ¼ v)’ is an MT-validity, even though ‘9AI v(v ¼ v)’ is true on the intended interpretation.

2. Unrestricted Quantification Throughout our discussion of ‘9’ and ‘9AI ’ we have made the following standard assumption: Domain Assumption. What individuals the truth-value of a quantified sentence depends on is not a logical matter; it varies between interpretations. The presence of the Domain Assumption is evidenced by [MT-9], [SO-9], [MT-9AI ], and [SO-9AI ], which explicitly impose an (interpretation-relative) domain restriction on the individuals that the truth-value of quantified sentences depends on. Williamson (1999) argues that, even if the Domain Assumption is appropriate in the case of ‘9’ and ‘9AI ’, there is no reason to think that it is appropriate in general. Specifically, we might set forth an unrestricted quantifier ‘9U ’ such that a sentence ‘9U v(f(v))’ is true if and only if ‘f(v)’ is true of some individual, whether or not the individual is part of some domain or other. If there is such a quantifier, its application is insensitive to permutations of individuals. So, on the Bolzano–Tarski picture of logical consequence described above, it should count as a logical expression, and its semantic value should not vary between interpretations. Within an SO-semantics, we have the resources to characterize ‘9U ’. All we need to do is add the following clause to our definition of ‘truth on I’: [SO-9U ] 99U vi (f); is true on I iff some d is such that 9f; is true on I[9vi ;=d]. Extending our object-language with ‘9U ’ and our formal semantics with [SO-9U ] does not mean that we must jettison ‘9’ or ‘9AI ’. Arguments in the original language that were SO-valid before the extension will remain SOvalid, and arguments in the original language that were SO-invalid before the extension will remain SO-invalid. On the other hand, we get a number of new SO-validities from arguments in the extended language. For instance, the inference from ‘9v(f)’ to ‘9U v(f)’ is SO-valid. The sentence ‘9U v(v ¼ v)’ is


10:20am page 339

Unrestricted First-Order Languages / 339 also SO-valid. Finally, let 99Un v(f(v)); (read ‘there are at least n vs such that f(v)’) be defined as follows: 9U1 v(f(v)) df 9U v(f(v)) 9U2 v(f(v)) df 9U v9U u(f(v) ^ f(u) ^ v 6¼ u) etc. Since the world contains infinitely many individuals (such as {}, {{}}, {{{}}},...), the sentence 99Un v(v ¼ v);, for any n, is true on every SO-interpretation. So, for any n, 99Un v(v ¼ v); is SO-valid. It is worth noting that the standard (domain-restricted) quantifier ‘9’ can be defined in terms of ‘9U ’. All we need to do is introduce a monadic predicate ‘D’, to play the role of specifying a domain and take ‘9v(f(v))’ to abbreviate ‘9U v(D(v) ^ f(v))’. By taking ‘9U v(D(v))’ as a premise, we can then recover the usual validity for ‘9’. If the language includes a predicate ‘2’ expressing settheoretic membership, then McGee’s quantifier ‘9AI ’ can also be defined in terms of ‘9U ’, since we can take ‘9AI v(f(v))’ to abbreviate ‘;9U v8U v0 (v0 2 v $ f(v0 ))’.9 When ‘9U ’ is regarded as the only primitive quantifier in the language, the notion of an SO-interpretation can be simplified. We can take ‘I is an SO-interpretation’ to abbreviate ‘8x(FOV(x) ! 9!yIhx, yi)’. It is worth noting, moreover, that MT-semantics does not provide an appropriate framework for the introduction of ‘9U ’. Although we could certainly set forth a clause analogous to [SO-9U ], [MT-9U ] 99U vi (f); is true on hD, Fi iff some d is such that 9f; is true on hD, F[9vi ;=d]i, it wouldn’t deliver the intended result. The problem is that an MT-interpretation assigns a set as the semantic value of a predicate. Since no set contains every individual, this means that, for any 9Pj ;, 99U vi (:Pj (vi )); is true on every hD, Fi. So 99U vi (:Pj (vi )); is MT-valid, even though its negation may be true on the intended interpretation of 9Pj ; (for example, as meaning self-identity). Here we will not attempt to assess the legitimacy of ‘9U ’; that project is developed in Williamson (1999). Our present task is to identify a sound and complete deductive system for first-order languages involving ‘9U ’. For simplicity, we will set ‘9’ and ‘9AI ’ aside. Thus, we let our object-language, 9 As usual, we take ‘8U u(f)’ to abbreviate ‘;9U u;(f)’.


10:20am page 340

340 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson LU , be the result of substituting ‘9U ’ for ‘9’ in a standard first-order language. In addition, we let D be the result of substituting ‘9U ’ for ‘9’ in any standard first-order deductive system. Not every SO-valid sentence of LU is deducible in D. To see this note that, although 99Un v(v ¼ v); is not derivable in D for n 2, 99Un v(v ¼ v); is SO-valid for any n. It follows immediately that no deductive system weaker than D1 — the result of enriching D with an axiom 99Un v(v ¼ v); for every n—can be complete with respect to SO-validity. As it turns out, D1 itself is sound and complete with respect to SO-validity.10 Williamson (1999) outlines an argument for this result. Here we will provide a formal proof. The soundness of D1 with respect to SO-validity is immediate, since a straightforward induction on the length of proofs reveals that, if f is a sentence of LU and G is a set of sentences of LU , then f is derivable from G in D1 only if hG, fi is a valid SO-argument. To show the completeness of D1 , we prove the following: Completeness Theorem for Unrestricted First-Order Languages. Let 9f; be a sentence of LU and G a set of sentences of LU . Then hG, 9f;i is a valid SO-argument only if 9f; is derivable from G in D1 . First some preliminary remarks. We work within second-order ZFC with urelements, and assume that everything can be put in one–one correspondence with the ordinals. An immediate consequence of our assumption is that the members of any set S can be put in one–one correspondence with the ordinals less than a given ordinal a. As usual, we let jSj be the smallest such a. In the course of the proof we will make use of several standard modeltheoretic results. In order to retain their availability, we will make use of MTinterpretations, alongside SO-interpretations, with the important proviso that MT-interpretations are to treat ‘9U ’ like a standard (domain-restricted) quantifier, rather than an unrestricted one. Thus, instead of using [MT-9U ] as the truth-clause for ‘9U ’ within MT-semantics, we use the following analogue of [MT-9], [MT-9Uþ ] 99U vi (f); is true on hD, Fi iff some d 2 D is such that 9f; is true on hD, F[9vi ;=d]i. 10 Since any theory compatible with Robinson Arithmetic is recursively undecidable (see, for instance, Mendelson 1987, proposition 3.48), the recursive undecidability of the set of theorems of D1 is an immediate consequence of the observation that Robinson Arithmetic can be consistently added to the axioms of D1 .


10:20am page 341

Unrestricted First-Order Languages / 341 On the other hand, we retain [SO-9U ] as the truth-clause for ‘9U ’ within SOsemantics. Two of the model-theoretic results we make use of are from Tarski and Vaught (1957). The first is a strengthened version of the Upward Lo¨wenheim–Skolem Theorem: Tarski–Vaught 1. If hD, Fi is an MT-interpretation for a language L, D is infinite, and k is a cardinal such that k jDj and k jLj, then there is an elementary extension hD , F i of hD, Fi such that jD j ¼ k. As usual, we say that an MT-interpretation hD0 , F0 i is an elementary extension of hD, Fi just in case: (i) D D0 , and (ii) for any formula c with free variables among 9v1 ;, ... , 9vn ;, and for any a1 , ... , an 2 D, c is true on hD, F[! an ]i if and vn =! 0 0! ! ! ! only if c is true on hD , F [ vn = an ]i, where G[ vn = an ] is the function that is just like G except that it assigns a1 to 9v1 ;, a2 to 9v2 ;, ..., and an to 9vn ;. The second model-theoretic result from Tarski and Vaught (1957) is the following: Tarski–Vaught 2. Let K be a non-empty family of MT-interpretations such that, for any MT-interpretations M, M0 2 K, some MT-interpretation in K is an elementary extension of M and an elementary extension of M0 . Let DK be the union of the Db for hDb , Fb i 2 K; let FK (9vi ;) ¼ F0 (9vi ;) for some hD0 , F0 i 2 K; and let FK (9Pan ;) be the union of the Fb (9Pan ;) for hDb , Fb i 2 K. Then hDK , FK i is an MT-interpretation and, for any MT-interpretation M 2 K, hDK , FK i is an elementary extension of M. So much for preliminary remarks; we now turn to the proof. We assume that 9f; is not derivable from G in D1 , and show that G [ {9:f;} is true on some SO-interpretation. We proceed by proving each of the following three propositions in turn: Proposition 1. For each ordinal a there is an MT-interpretation hDa , Fa i such that: (a) G [ {9:f;} is true on hD0 , F0 i; (b) for any a, jDa j @a ; and (c) for a g, hDg , Fg i is an elementary extension of hDa , Fa i. Proposition 2. For each ordinal a there is an MT-interpretation hDa , Fa i such that: (a) for any sentence c of LU , c is true on hD0 , F0 i if and only if c is true on hD0 , F0 i; (b) for any a, jDa j @a ; (c) for a g, hDg , Fg i is an elementary extension of hDa , Fa i; and (d) every individual is in some Da .


10:20am page 342

342 / Agustıń Rayo and Timothy Williamson Proposition 3. There is an SO-interpretation I such that G [ {9:f;} is true on I . It is worth noting that the use of second-order resources will be confined to propositions 2 and 3.

Proof of Proposition 1 Since 9f; is not derivable from G in D1 , it follows from the standard Completeness Theorem for first-order languages that G[ {9:f;} [ N 1 is true on some MT-interpretation hD0 , F0 i, where N 1 is the set of sentences 99Un v1 (v1 ¼ v1 ); for n 2 w. Since every sentence in N 1 is true on hD0 , F0 i, D0 must be infinite. For a > 0, define hDa , Fa i as follows: (D1) Assume a ¼ b þ 1, and suppose that hDb , Fb i has been defined. By [Tarski–Vaught 1], there is an elementary extension hD, Fi of hDb , Fb i with jDj @a . By our assumption that everything can be put in one–one correspondence with the ordinals, there is a least such elementary extension. Let that elementary extension be hDa , Fa i. (D2) Assume that a is a limit ordinal, and S suppose that hDb , Fb i has been defined for every b < a. Let Da ¼ b

Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox

New Essays on the Knowability Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

New Essays on the Rationalists

New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism

New Essays on Singular Thought

New Essays on the Rationalists

New Essays on Tarski and Philosophy

New Essays on Tarski and Philosophy

Ways of Paradox and Other Essays

Moore's Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person

Lovers and Liars

Lovers and Liars

New Essays on Song of Solomon

New Essays on the Explanation of Action

New Essays on the A Priori

New Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut

Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding

New Essays on the A Priori

Liberalism: New Essays on Liberal Themes

New Essays on the A Priori

Mothers and Other Liars

Lovers and Liars

Mothers and Other Liars

Mothers and Other Liars

Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays

Lovers and Liars

Paradox

Paradox

Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox

New Essays on the Knowability Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox

New Essays on the Rationalists

New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism

New Essays on Singular Thought

New Essays on the Rationalists

New Essays on Tarski and Philosophy

New Essays on Tarski and Philosophy

Ways of Paradox and Other Essays

Moore's Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First Person

Lovers and Liars

Lovers and Liars

New Essays on Song of Solomon

New Essays on the Explanation of Action

New Essays on the A Priori

New Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut

Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding

New Essays on the A Priori

Liberalism: New Essays on Liberal Themes

New Essays on the A Priori

Mothers and Other Liars

Lovers and Liars

Mothers and Other Liars

Mothers and Other Liars

Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays

Lovers and Liars

Paradox

Paradox

Recommend Documents