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Mind 2001 110(437):45-98; doi:10.1093/mind/110.437.45
© 2001 by Mind Association
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On being in a quandary. Relativism vagueness logical revisionism

C Wright

Department of Logic and Metaphysics, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, UK Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1150 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 4971, New York, NY 10027, USA E-mail: cjgw@st-andrews.ac.uk

This paper addresses three problems: the problem of formulating a coherent relativism, the Sorites paradox and a seldom noticed difficulty in the best intuitionistic case for the revision of classical logic. A response to the latter is proposed which, generalised, contributes towards the solution of the other two. The key to this response is a generalised conception of indeterminacy as a specific kind of intellectual bafflement - Quandary. Intuitionistic revisions of classical logic are merited wherever a subject matter is conceived both as liable to generate Quandary and as subject to a broad form of evidential constraint. So motivated, the distinctions enshrined in intuitionistic logic provide both for a satisfying resolution of the Sorites paradox and a coherent outlet for relativistic views about, e.g., matters of taste and morals. An important corollary of the discussion is that an epistemic conception of vagueness can be prised apart from the strong metaphysical realism with which its principal supporters have associated it, and acknowledged to harbour an independent insight.


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