Please join us this Friday as we host John MacFarlane, Professor of Philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Date: Friday, October 2, 2015
Time: 12:30 – 3:20 p.m.
Location: MS 112 (Math-Stat Building)

Talk title: “Vagueness as Indecision”

Abstract
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“This paper motivates an explores an expressivist theory of vagueness, modeled on Allan Gibbard’s (2003) normative expressivism. It shows how Chris Kennedy’s (2007) semantics for gradable adjectives can be adjusted to fit into a theory on Gibbardian lines, where assertions constrain not just possible worlds but plans for action. Vagueness, on this account, is _literally_ indecision about where to draw lines. It is argued that the distinctive phenomena of vagueness, such as the intuition of tolerance, can be explained in terms of practical constraints on plans, and that the expressivist view captures what is right about several contending theories of vagueness.”