Framework for a Semantics of Vagueness

Abstract

Chapter 3 begins to develop a semantics for vague words within the familiar framework of a distinction between sense and reference. (Chapter 3 focuses on sense, Chapter 4 on reference.) The account of sense is not essential to the theory of vagueness, since on the present view vagueness is an aspect of the reference of a vague word, not the sense. However, the account of sense helps to clarify the relationship between vagueness and context-sensitivity, a seemingly constant companion. Context-sensitivity is a feature of the sense of a vague word, and is only contingently related to its vagueness. (Thus the theory of vagueness developed in this book is not contextualist.) Chapter 3 distinguishes two elements of the sense of a vague word: a stable content that is shared by all contents of the word, and context-relative contents that vary from context to context. Also, it shows that although most if not all vague words are context-sensitive, they are not indexicals, contrary to what some authors have claimed.