Wright on the epistemic conception of vagueness

Abstract

1. According to the epistemic conception of vagueness defended in Williamson 1994, what we use vague terms to say is true or false, but in borderline cases we cannot know which. Our grasp of what we say does not open its truth-value to our view. Crispin Wright 1995 offers a lively critique of this conception. A reply may help to clarify the issues.1 The first point to note is that epistemicism is not a denial that our terms are vague; it is a theory about what their acknowledged vagueness consists in. We all recognize examples of vagueness when we encounter them in borderline cases; we can then go on to construct alternative hypotheses as to the underlying nature of the phenomenon. Wright acknowledges this point, for he credits epistemicism with '[t]he merit [...] of bringing out that the ordinary idea of genuine semantic indeterminacy is not itself a datum, but a proto-theory of data' (134, Wright's emphasis). Unfortunately, some of his criticisms neglect the point. For example, he takes the epistemicist to hold that 'when I intend that you should stand roughly here, [...] the demarcation of the range of cases in which you would comply from that in which you would not is already perfectly precise' (155, Wright's emphasis; other such remarks occur on 153 and 155). Precision is the absence of vagueness. On the epistemic view, 'Stand roughly here' is a vague request, not a precise one, but its vagueness is an epistemic matter. Our understanding of it is such that we cannot know where we cease to comply with it. Even the metaphor of vague concepts as blurred shadows (133) can be interpreted epistemically. Fortunately, Wright's main arguments do not depend on this misstatement; they must now be addressed.