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Feb 8, 1997 · Vagueness is standardly defined as the possession of borderline cases. For example, ‘tall’ is vague because a man who is 1.8 meters in height is neither clearly tall nor clearly non-tall. No amount of conceptual analysis or empirical investigation can settle whether a 1.8 meter man is tall.
- Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.
- Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness. Stendhal. Math, Hypocrisy, Mathematics.
- Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth. Charles Ives. Perfect, Indication.
- A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people. Edgar Degas.
1. A person with £5,000,000,000 is rich. 2. Someone does not go from being rich to being not rich by losing £1. 3. Therefore, someone with £4,999,999,999 is rich. (C) Therefore, someone with £6 is rich. Of course, we can reverse the process and generate a similar paradox involving the predicate ‘is poor’.
The vagueness so far discussed does not require vagueness in the world. But worldly vagueness can be treated in a similar way. Suppose, as we normally do, that there really is a nonlinguistic property of being red, a property expressed by the predicate ‘is red’. This predicate is vague and so is the property.
- 1910s
- 1920s
- 1930S-1951
- Attributed from Posthumous Publications
- Philosophical Investigations
- On Certainty
- Culture and Value
- Personal Recollections
It seems to me as good as certain that we cannot get the upper hand against England. The English — the best race in the world — cannot lose! We, however, can lose and shall lose, if not this year t...
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
1. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicusonline at Wikisource 1. The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather — not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense. 1.1. Preface 1. Th...
A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in...
We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.Don't say: “They must have something in common, or they would not be called ‘games’" but look and see whether there is anything common to all. For if you look at them, you won't see something that...Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache.Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.On Certainty (Über Gewissheit), J. & J. Harper Editions, New York, 1969 1. If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest. 94. I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish b...
Vermischte Bemerkungen (1977), as translated by Peter WinchYou get tragedy where the tree, instead of bending, breaks.A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.Quotes of Wittgenstein found in Personal Recollections (1981) by Rush Rhees, Ch. 6Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring.If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.It requires a certain level of open-mindedness and a willingness to embrace the unknown. As the renowned writer Oscar Wilde once said, “To define is to limit.” Embracing vagueness allows for infinite possibilities and a deeper understanding of the world. Many great thinkers have pondered the nature of vagueness and its role in human ...
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Aug 18, 2020 · Elizabeth Barnes and J. Robert G. Williams claim to offer a new ontic theory of vagueness, the kind of theory which considers vagueness to exist not in language but in reality. This paper refutes ...
