文章基本信息

标题：Russell on Metaphysical Vagueness
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作者：Mark Colyvan
期刊名称：Principia : an International Journal of Epistemology
印刷版ISSN：1414-4247
电子版ISSN：1808-1711
出版年度：2001
卷号：5
期号：1-2
页码：87-98
语种：English
出版社：Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil
摘要：Recently a fascinating debate has been rekindled over whether vagueness is metaphysical or linguistic. That is, is vagueness an objective feature of reality or is it merely an artifact of our language? Bertrand Russell's contribution to this debate is considered by many to be decisive. Russell suggested that it is a mistake to conclude that the world is vague simply because the language we use to describe it is vague. He argued that to draw such an inference is to commit "the fallacy of verbalism". I argue that this is only a fallacy if we have no reason to believe that the world is as our language says. Since vagueness is apparently not eliminable from our language—a fact that Russell himself acknowledged—an indispensability argument can be launched for metaphysical vagueness. In this paper I outliine such an argument.
关键词：Vagueness;Russell;naturalism;ontology;epistemology