It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. It arises because vagueness makes the second premise appear to be true. As our previous video explained, logical arguments consist of premises and a conclusion. The difference between ambiguity and vagueness is a matter of whether two or more meanings associated with a given phonological form are distinct ambiguous, or united as non. Vagueness and the normativity of logic this dilemma was known, in some form or other, already to the ancient world. This week the legal theory lexicon entry focuses on ambiguity and vagueness two important concepts for the theory of interpretation. Fuzzy logic a spectrum of theoretical and practical issues. As for the origins and accounts of vagueness the different approaches are sorted into logic, ontic, epistemic and semantic accounts with epis. First, the nature of vagueness is discussed, and contrasted with notions such as ambiguity and context dependence. The case against fuzzy logic revisited 187 of kamp 8 and to a lesser extent that of fine 4. Clarity in language definitions, vagueness, and ambiguity phil 102 introduction to logic and critical thinking csu, chico clarity clarity is essential in language and logic claims are made up of words and phrases confusion is caused when the meaning of a claim lacks sufficient clarity. Vagueness is a characteristic of language, specifically of those words and phrases that classify or qualify objects, that is, common nouns and adjectives. This article explores ambiguity and vagueness in legal interpretation, and discusses other forms of indeterminacy, kinds of vagueness, and vagueness and the rule of law.
A vague statement lacks clear and specific meaning. Vagueness and ambiguity are key problems in theories of legal interpretation. I will then discuss some rival theories of vagueness with an emphasis on manyvalued logic, supervaluationism and contextualism. Actually a restatement of the tarskilukasiewicz infinitevalued logics of the 1930s, one of the side benefits of fuzzy logics was claimed to be an adequate logic for vagueness. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. There are at least four different vantage points from which to address the problems caused by vagueness. For example, if we are unclear about the definition of the term child pornography, we may want to. In order to express just one meaning, the sentence must contain no lexical ambiguity, no syntactic ambiguity and no vagueness. Vagueness and ambiguity clearly a person with a person with a head like an egg is bald.
However, i will use independencefriendly logic to formally encode the multiple meanings within a pun. The first half of the paper con tains the basic material. The major book in this area is timothy williamsons vagueness but also see the bibliography on the stanford site above. Weaker than lukasiewiczs infinitely valued logic, it is presented first in a natural deduction system, then given a. Ambiguity and vagueness have been the subject of considerable attention in linguistics and philosophy 1 4, but despite the significant detrimental effect of ambiguity and vagueness on cpg adherence and implementation, these concepts have not been explored and differentiated in a medical context.
The logic of vagueness dirk pattinson australian national university canbera, dec 20 dirk pattinson anu lukasiewicz logic canbera, dec 20 1 27. In chapter 1, i introduced vagueness and ambiguity together, and so far i have not attempted to distinguish them. In contextcountablelangen terms the difference between ambiguity and vagueness is that ambiguity is countable something liable to more than one interpretation, explanation or meaning, if that meaning etc cannot be determined from its context while vagueness is countable something which is vague, or an instance or example of vagueness. We take it for granted these days but occasionally wonderful things happen that make us rediscover the joy of connection. Fuzziness vagueness generality ambiguity sciencedirect. This is useful for real world situations with unknowns such as a robot that needs to navigate a busy street with. Lexical ambiguity occurs when a word in the sentence has more than one meaning. In other words, just as dead metaphors are to the right of productive ambiguity and occur when theres denotation but little connotation, so vagueness lies to the left of generative ambiguity and, as macfarlane would put it, happens due to semantic indecision.
A standard example of ambiguity is bank financial institution vs. One definition of ambiguity is defended as being more theoretically. Ambiguity when considering whether a set of sentence is consistent, we need to remember that sentences can be ambiguous. Handke explained and exemplified the central aspects of these two phenomena. It is true that soon after zadehs original paper in 1965, fuzzy logic was appliedto account for vagueness, approximators, and comparatives in natural language goguen, 1969. Once the parties to the dispute make clear the sense in which they are using the terms they will realise that their disagreement is on the meaning of their terms and the. For example, go down the road a ways and then turn right is vague because a ways does not precisely explain how far one should go down the road. The rest of the paper is devoted to arguing that, in some sense, ambiguity is not necessary. This paper presents f, substructural logic designed to treat vagueness. Ambiguity, polysemy and vagueness are terms used in cognitive semantics referring to different instances of plurality of meaning. This led to the further question what are the correct truthcondi tions for a vague language.
Disputes arising out of either ambiguity or vagueness of words are verbal disputes. The problem addressed is that of finding a sound characterization of ambiguity. The philosophical discussion motivates two alternative weakenings of classical logic. Weaker than lukasiewiczs infinitely valued logic, it is presented first in. Pdf ambiguity, polysemy, and vagueness david tuggy. A verbal dispute can be avoided by stating the sense in which the key words are used.
According to deane 1988 these three phenomena form a gradient between total semantic identity vagueness and total semantic distinctness p. Here are a few examples of vague definitions from the goldmine of pseudowisdom that is depak chopra. In which sense is fuzzy logic a logic for vagueness. Ambiguity and vagueness in legal interpretation by ralf. Given the widespread interest in ambiguity, in this paper we focus on the logic of ambiguity. In mathematics and logic, ambiguity can be considered to be an instance of the logical concept of underdeterminationfor example, leaves open what the value of x iswhile its opposite is a selfcontradiction, also called inconsistency, paradoxicalness, or oxymoron, or in mathematics an inconsistent systemsuch as, which has no solution. There is no doubt that vagueness and ambiguity are related phenomena.
A statement lesson, page 91 a categorical statement of the form all s is p, also called a universal affirmative. Ambiguity and vagueness in legal interpretation oxford. The social dilemmas raise their ugly head in every aspect of governance from voting by both citizens and representatives to rentseeking to taxation and distribution. Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted. Accent lesson 34, page 265 changing the meaning of a sentence through improper emphasis. Introductory logic glossary of key terms this glossary includes terms that are defined in the text, in the lesson and on the page noted. In philosophy of logic, ambiguity is usually made distinct from vagueness see here for instance, and i think what you are after is vagueness as vagueness is defined as terms where there are borderline cases. So if vagueness is incompatible with classical logic, classical logic is ultimately inapplicable to ordinary thought and language. Vagueness and ambiguity in lexical definitions although vagueness and ambiguity are often used interchangeably, the two terms are nonetheless distinct. Logical fallacy informal fallacy vagueness subfallacy. Sep 06, 2016 although people often confuse vagueness and ambiguity, they are being vague when they do. This third electure, not only summarizes its two predecessors but. Elsevier journal of pragmatics 29 1998 31 fuzziness vagueness generality ambiguity qiao zhang asian studies, school of languages, university of otago, po box 56, dunedin, new zealand received march 996. What is the difference between ambiguity and vagueness.
Vagueness and ambiguity vagueness when a definition is vague it has no specific meaning for the intended audience. Fuzzy logic traditional systems of logic only handle true and false with nothing in between. In fuzzy logic, propositional expressions have a numerical value between 0 and 1 as their meaning, and negation and conjunction are interpreted as functions mapping a sin. Some legal texts are ambiguousthey contain words or phrases that can have two or more distinct meanings. And some legal texts are vaguethey use concepts that have indefinite application to particular cases. Jun 07, 20 in the electures ambiguity and vagueness, prof. Within that overlap resides the continuum of ambiguity. We will read the first chapter of rosanna keefes theories of vagueness. A word is vague when there are borderline cases which might or might not fit in the definition and it isnt easy to tell how to classify them.
Vagueness, ambiguity, and underspecification manfred pinkal 1. Various definitions of ambiguity are critically examined and contrasted with definitions of generality and indeterminacy, concepts with which ambiguity is sometimes confused. After that, some reasons are given that could perhaps explain why vagueness is such a pervasive phenomenon in natural language. It will also give you insights into how you can use. Although vagueness and ambiguity are often used interchangeably, the two terms are nonetheless distinct.
The characteristic of words or phrases whose meaning is not determined with precision. Vagueness, ambiguity, and the sound ofmeaning sylvain bromhcrger 5. Vagueness will then be contrasted with ambiguity and generality. Critical thinking vagueness and ambiguity by ben matthews. Borderline vagueness is reconstructed using certain modality operators.
Premises and conclusions are propositions which express just one meaning. Ambiguity is a type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. However, it is not unusual for a term to be both ambiguous and vague. Ambiguity is when there is more than one clear meaning, and it is difficult to choose which meaning was intended. This video is part of our introduction to logic series and explains what ambiguity and vagueness are. A model of ambiguity and vagueness in clinical practice. Ambiguity is a strategy you can use to win more negotiations but most negotiators are unsure how to employ it and when. Vagueness is commonly demonstrated by the sorites paradox. Vagueness makes it seem as if a minuscule difference between two things cant cross the threshold from correct application of an expression to incorrect application of an expression.
Thus the logic of vagueness is a logic for equivocators. And this sort of indeterminacy does not reduce to ambiguity. A standard form of this paradox features a 2000man sequence of progressively taller men, starting with a paradigm case of a short man at one extreme, say george costanza, and at the other extreme, a paradigm case of a tall one, say kramer. Although people often confuse vagueness and ambiguity, they are being vague when they do. This article outlines when you might consider evoking ambiguity as a strategy, and a few ways to use it as a backdoor to escape a negotiation thats not serving you. Vagueness, ambiguity, and pragmatism one of my favourite things about the web is the ease at which serendipity occurs. Chapter 2 ambiguity and vagueness flashcards quizlet. Lewis idea is that ambiguous statements are true when they come out true under all disambiguations. In symbolic logic 1881 venn applied the insights of boole, euler, and others in developing a diagrammatic method for testing the validity of categorical syllogisms.
The difference between ambiguity and vagueness is a matter of whether two or more meanings associated with a given phonological form are distinct ambiguous, or united as nondistinguished subcases of a single, more general meaning vague. Introduction university of the saarland, germany at the beginning of naturallanguage semantics as a formal discipline, there was the insight that the notion of meaning and the notion of truth are narrowly related. Formalizing puns is therefore impossible, since puns have ambiguous meanings for their components. But logicians normally require that a statement be disambiguated before logic is applied. Use of one or more vague terms typically renders it impossible to establish the truth or falsity of the sentences in which they appear. In the late 1960s and early 70s, fuzzy logic was introduced into the philosophic world. Sep 10, 2018 the difference between ambiguity and vagueness is a matter of whether two or more meanings associated with a given phonological form are distinct ambiguous, or united as nondistinguished subcases of a single, more general meaning vague. Clarity clarity in language definitions vagueness and. Vagueness is a major part of politics and governance as will be demonstrated in the remainder of this essay. He also contributed to the development of modern theories of probability in the logic of chance 1867 and the principles of empirical or inductive logic 1889. Vagueness, truth and logic1 this paper began with the question what is the correct logic of vague ness. Lesson 1 intro logic the purposes and types of definitions. What is the difference between verbal and factual disputes. The term ambiguity is often used indiscriminately in the.
In general, vagueness cannot be avoided as this is the nature of life its just that the government takes advantage of vagueness more than other entities do and the consequences are so great. Some of the most popular theories of vagueness include supervaluationism, the degree theory of truth and the epistemic theory, and many of the available theories demand a radical rethink of classical accounts of logic. Such a word or phrase divides the world of objects into those it applies to 1, and those to which it doesnt apply. Any theory of vagueness must offer some solution to this paradox. Fuzzy logic is a class of logic that can represent ambiguity as probabilities. Humour plays off ambiguity, while classical logic falters over it. The article first delimits vagueness and ambiguity and sets it into relation to related phenomena like the generality of legal expressions 1. This will clarify the nature of the philosophical challenge posed by vagueness. The purpose of lexical definitions learn religions.