Does supervaluationism provide a satisfying solution to the sorites paradoxes?

The sorites paradox is the name given to a class of paradoxical arguments, an example of which is the heap paradox. Consider a heap of sand: intuition tells us that removing a single grain cannot turn the heap into something that is not a heap. If we had two quantities of sand grains that differed in number by one, then both or neither are heaps. But this seemingly obvious and uncontroversial supposition appears to lead to the paradoxical conclusion that a single grain of sand is a heap. Consider a diminishing quantity of sand. A collection of 100,000 grains of sand is a heap. By our supposition, so must 99,999 grains. However if this is a heap, so must a collection a grain less in number, and so on indefinitely, until we are forced to say that even a single grain of sand is a heap. There are many situations that when this logic is applied to them arrive at an apparently paradoxical conclusion (an adult of 66 is short, a man with a full head of hair is bald etc.). The feature all these arguments have in common is a vague predicate: heap, short, bald etc. Vague concepts such as heap dont appear to have any sharp boundaries, and the consequent indeterminacy surrounding the extension of the predicate is a heap, is what results in there being no sharp distinction between is a heap and is not a heap. It is the phenomena of vagueness which is the source of the paradoxical reasoning (1). In this essay I will discuss if supervaluationism adequately defuses the sorites paradoxes. There are three responses for any paradox: accept the conclusion, reject the reasoning as invalid or reject one or more of the premises. In this case the first two responses are unappealing: the false conclusions such as those given above seem unacceptable and the reasoning behind them is simple, using only the fundamental logical principle modus ponens. Supervaluationism uses semantics in order to reject a condition premise. The supervaluationists theory treats the indeterminacy of vague predicates as real, through a process called sharpening. By fixing a sharp boundary between a predicates positive and negative extensions, vagueness is replaced by precision (2). Therefore it can be decided which way to classify each of the borderline cases. Supervaluationists do not intend that vagueness should apply to an object as a property does, but instead believe that vagueness resides in language, and can be avoided through the use of semantics (3). By the supervaluationists account, a statement is true, is a heap, if it is true for all sharpenings, false if it is false for all sharpenings. Statements in the penumbra, on the other hand, are neither true nor false. As it is subjective as to where sharpenings are made, the truth or falsity of a statement falling within the penumbra will only be so relative to a sharpening. Take the case of sharpening the vague predicate heap. For those objects for which the predication of heap is intuitively true is definitely a heap fall under its positive extension, and those that are definitely not a heap fall under its negative. Those that do not fall under either extension are fall under the prenumbra (4). This account claims to resolve the paradox by showing that not all of the premises of the arguments are true,

particularly the principle of tolerance. Also, this account doesnt break or alter any laws of formal logic, such as the instances of the principle of bivalence. An argument against supervaluationism comes from considering a sentence central to the sorites paradoxes: For some number n, a collection of n grains is a heap but a collection of (n-1) grains is not. Intuition tells us that this sentence (and its analogues) is false. The definition of vagueness is that it has no sharp boundary, so it can be argued that by the definition of a vague predicate the above sentence is false. But in supervaluationism this sentence is true due to the process of sharpening (5). It also may not be such a positive factor that supervaluationism preserves classical logic. Vagueness often throws doubt on the law of the excluded middle: P v P An example of this law is that either he is an adult or he isnt But there are cases where borderline cases should be considered, when an arguments can exploit the law. For example should a young offender be imprisoned as long as an adult would for the same crime, or not at all if as a child he was too young to understand the consequences of his actions. There is a definite case to argue that neither response is appropriate, and borderline cases need to be considered. Another problem for the supervaluational theory is hat it uses an inadequate conception of vagueness (6). The first of these inadequacies is an insufficient characterisation of vagueness. The assumption in supervaluationism is that a vague term can be classified in one of three ways: its positive extension, its prenumbra and its negative extension. There are, however, predicates which do not seem vague and yet remain classifiable by these three sets. We could define a adult by the following clauses; People who have not reached their 18th birthday are not adults People who have reached their 21st birthday are adults. In this case adult can be classified in three ways: its negative extension bounded by clause 1, its positive extension bounded by clause 2, and the rest (18-20 year olds) fall under its prenumbra (7). But in the way it was defined above adult cannot said to be vague. The clauses that define adult are precise, but the definition isnt an exhaustive one which leads to the case of three classifications. As shown, the supervaluationists theory cannot tell between a vague term and one whose definition is incomplete, since any predicate with three possible classifications will be treated the same. So it means supervaluationism shouldnt be used unthinkingly to apply or deny a predicate, the borderline cases need to be considered.

A second inadequacy in a supervaluationism is its failure to account for higher order vagueness (8). In its creation of the three sets, supervaluationism makes the presupposition that there is a sharp defining boundary between a vague predicates positive extension and its prenumbra, and again between its prenumbra and negative extension. In other words, in the sharpening of a vague predicate there is as much vagueness affecting the boundaries between prenumbra and either extension as there was originally between the positive and negative extensions. So the sharpening doesnt really clear things up with regards to vagueness. For example, a sixteen year old might be considered a borderline case for a child, and belonging under the prenumbra, but a fifteen year old might not be a clear cut choice for borderline children. They may be children, or they may be borderline children; the doubt and consequent vagueness remains. There would in theory be no difficulty in dividing the extension of a predicate into three precise classifications if higher order vagueness wasnt an issue. But if a predicate has a higher order vagueness, then the process of sharpening would itself be vague - some cases would be on the borderline for the prenumbra. In order for the supervaluationists theory to truly defuse the paradoxes, it would have to be altered to account for higher order vagueness. For the theory to work, there would have to be a clear case of sharpening that makes one of the conditional premises untrue. However, this change would create its own difficulties and wouldnt solve the other problem for supervaluationism. Word Count: 1265 References 1. Waismann, Friedrich (1968) "Verifiability", in Logic and Language, Anthony Flex (ed.), Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Williamson, Timothy (1994) Vagueness, London: Routledge. Boolos, George (1991) "Zooming Down the Slippery Slope", Nous, 25: 695-706. Endicott, Timothy (2000) Vagueness in the Law, (Oxford University Press). Evans, Gareth (1978) "Can there be Vague Objects?", Analysis, 38: 208. Fine, Kit (1975) "Vagueness, truth and logic", Synthese, 54: 235-59.

7. Vagueness: A Reader, Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith (eds.), Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996, 119-150. 8. Graff, Delia (2000) "Shifting sands: an interest-relative theory of vagueness", Philosophical Topics, 28: 4581.