Vagueness and Contradiction [Paperback]

Roy Sorenson offers a unique exploration of an ancient problem: vagueness. Did Buddha become a fat man in one second? Is there a tallest short giraffe? According to Sorenson's epistemicist approach, the answers are yes! Although vagueness abounds in the way the world is divided, Sorenson argues that the divisions are sharp; yet we often do not know where they are. Written in Sorenson'e usual inventive and amusing style, this book offers original insight on language and logic, the way world is, and our understanding of it.

Introduction
1. Absolute Borderline Cases
2. Intellectual Embarrassment without Vagueness
3. Forced Analytical Errors
4. Inconsistent Machines
5. Sainsbury's Spectra and the Penrose Triangle
6. Does Apriority Agglomerate?
7. Analytic Sorites and the Cheshire Cat
8. Believing the Impossible
9. Reason Demands Belief in Infinitely Many Contradictions
10. The Viral Theory of Inconsistency
11. Truthmaker Gaps
References, Index