Comparative vagueness

Abstract: When Socrates claims in the Republic that the just king lives 729 times as happily as the tyrant, the effect is parodic (as indeed Plato seems to have intended). But what makes us balk at any such suggestion that comparisons - especially those made in terms of thick evaluative concepts like ‘just’ and ‘happy’ - could be perfectly precise? One simple answer is this: ordinarily, our linguistic intuitions incline us to regard such comparisons as inevitably fuzzy, imprecise, or vague. But it would then be nice to have a theory of just what it means for a comparison to be vague. To my knowledge, no satisfactory account of comparative vagueness has been offered in the literature so far. In my talk I will try to gesture towards such an account. In doing so, I shall be drawing on some recent work in linguistics by Christopher Kennedy and François Recanati. I shall also be applying some of my tentative results to a recent debate between John Broome, Erik Carlson, and myself concerning vagueness and value incommensurability.    

Dr Cristian Constantinescu's main research interests are in ethics, metaethics, and philosophy of language.

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This event is hosted jointly with the Department of Philosophy.