The Vagueness of Knowledge

References

• This paper has benefited from the comments and criticisms of two anonymous referees.
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• 1979 . Australasian Journal of Philosophy Stephen Stich discusses this position in ‘Do Animals Have Beliefs?,’ 15–28; quot. from 19.
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• 1963 . ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?,’ . Analysis , 23 : 121 – 3 . Edmund Gettier presented his counterexamples in
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• 1964 . ‘Mr. Clark's Definition of “Knowledge”’ . Analysis , 24 This point was made in John Turk Saunders and Narayan Champawat's 6 (June, 8–9. They are also responsible for the example of the scientist.
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• Midivest Studies in Philosophy , 5 151 – 61 . Ginet presents this example in his ‘Knowing Less by Knowing More,’ in (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press 1980)
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• Lehrer , Keith . 1974 . Knowledge 61 – 2 . Oxford : Clarendon Press .
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• Radford , Colin . 1970 . “Analysing” “Know(s) That,” . Philosophical Quarterly , 20 : 228 – 9 . 222–9; quot. from
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• Lehrer , Keith . Knowledge 67
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• 1979 . Synthese , 41 : 253 – 72 . Unger and Wheeler endorse this position in a number of articles. Representative are Unger's There are no Ordinary Things, 117–54, and Wheeler's ‘On That Which is Not’ (same issue)
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• 1985 . “Vague,” . Analysis , 45 I present the details of this criticism in An Argument for the Vagueness of 134–7. I also argue that the paradoxes of vagueness cannot be avoided by restricting logic to nonvague terms.
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• 1975 . Synthese , 30 : 265 – 300 . An excellent example of the supervaluationist's approach can be found in Kit Fine's ‘Vagueness, Truth, and Logic,’
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• 1965 . ‘Fuzzy Sets,’ . Information and Control , 8 : 47 – 78 . The many-valued approach to vagueness originates with L.A. Zadeh's 338–53. It seems to have attracted the allegiance of a plurality of the commentators on the sorites paradox. Well developed versions of this position are presented in David Sanford's ‘Borderline Logic,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 18 (1981) 175–84, and Kenton Machina's ‘Truth, Belief and Vagueness,’ Journal of Philosophical Logic 5 (1976)
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• 1969 . ‘The Sorites Paradox,’ . The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science , 20 James Cargile was the first to defend the epistemic approach in 193–202. Other proponents of the view include Richmond Campbell and Isreal Schetfler.
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• Jackson , Frank . 1973 . ‘Is There a Good Argument against the Incorrigibility Thesis?,’ . Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 51 : 51 – 62 . ; quot. from 60.
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• 1975 . ‘Infinity and Vagueness,’ . The Philosophical Review , 84 : 520 – 35 . As far as I know, David Sanford provided the first analysis of this resemblance in his excellent piece
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• 1969 . Knowledge and Belief , : 5 – 17 . For a discussion of infinite belief structures in epistemic logic see Hintfkka's (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1962); for convention, see David Lewis’ appeal to common knowledge in Convention (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1969); the threat of infinite regress for intentions is discussed by Gilbert Harman in ‘Practical Reasoning,’ Review of Metaphysics 24 (1976) 431–63. The way infinite belief structures seem to arise for communication is well known from H.P. Grice's theory of meaning. For a perceptual case, see Colin Radford's ‘Report on Analysis “Problem” No. 19,’ Analysis 43 (1983) 113–15. For sexual perversion, see Thomas Nagel's ‘Sexual Perversion,’ Journal of Philosophy 66
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• 1972 . Meaning Oxford : Oxford University Press . Stephen Schiffer appears sympathetic to this position on pp. 31–2 of. However, on pp. 34–5 he also seems to support the view that the infinite knowledge is merely potential.
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• 1968 . ‘Knowing and Telling,’ . Philosophical Review , 78 : 326 – 36 . Radford discusses the affair in
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• 1969 . ‘Utterer's Meaning and Intentions,’ . Philosophical Revieiv , 78 : 147 – 77 . See his
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• 1978 . ‘Common Knowledge,’ . Philosophical Quarterly , 28 : 116 – 31 . Heal makes this point on p. 125 of her
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• Lewis , David . 1969 . Convention 56 Cambridge : Harvard University Press .
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• 56 – 7 . Ibid.
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• Heal , Jan . ‘Common Knowledge,’ 128
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• 1980 . ‘Reasoning and Evidence one does not Possess,’ . Midwest Studies in Philosophy , 5 : 163 – 82 . Harman suggests this analysis on pp. 172–4 of (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press
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• 1984 . ‘An Unsolved Problem about Knowledge,’ . Philosophical Quarterly , 34 : 41 – 52 . For more about these knower paradoxes see Thomas Tymoczko's
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• 1959 . ‘Excluders,’ . Analysis , 20 : 1 – 7 . The concept of an excluder term is Roland Hall's as explained in
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• The argument just given is a generalized version of a point made by William G. Lycan and George F. Schumm in an unpublished manuscript ‘A Theory of Question-Begging.’ They observe that the principle ‘Any argument trivially equivalent to a question-begging argument is itself question-begging’ can serve as the induction step of a sorites and hence must be restricted.
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• Armstrong , D. M. 1963 . ‘Is Introspective Knowledge Incorrigible?,’ . Philosophical Review , 62 : 417 – 432 . ; quot. from 420
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• 1981 . Journal of Philosophy , 77 : 143 – 56 . Adler's ‘Scepticism and Universalizability’ appeared in 3 (March
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• 144 – 5 . Ibid.
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• By ‘justification’ Adler means ‘justification sufficient for knowledge.’ The explanation of ‘defeated’ is: ‘If p justifies q, then the justification is defeated if there is some truth d such that p & d fail to justify q.’ Both of these technical terms are used for convenience. Adler's argument is compatible with alternate terminologies.
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• Ibid., 149
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• 155 – 6 . Ibid.
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• 1958 . ‘The Paradox of the Unexpected Examination,’ . Mind , 67 : 382 – 4 . Shaw's seminal contribution appeared in
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• 1984 . ‘Conditional Blindspots and the Knowledge Squeeze: A Solution to the Prediction Paradox,’ . Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 62 : 126 – 35 . I adopt this approach in
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• 1973 . Thought Princeton : Princeton University Press . Harman presents these cases in.
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• Lycan , William . 1977 . ‘Evidence One Does Not Possess,’ . Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 55 : 114 – 26 . ; quot. from 119
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• Ibid., 121
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• Ibid.
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