PHIL 1290 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Beer Stein, Vagueness, Fallacy

• School: University of Manitoba
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1290
• Professor: Mark Rosner

Document Summary

Vagueness, ambiguity, predication -- problems - 3 broad areas of unclear language. Two expressions can refer to the same thing but have different meaning. Vagueness: not clear whether case falls within reference (borderline cases) Children are immature; mark is a 14 year old child; therefore, mark is immature. "child" - no clear "cut off point" to determine borderline cases. Problem: since term is indeterminate, claim is; therefore, argument is too. If something is desired, then it is desirable. If something is desirable, then it is good. If we don"t make it uniform, argument is ill-formed. If something is desired, then it is capable of being desired. If something is capable to being desired, then it is good. Clear premise 2 here is false (even if 1 is true) When we remove the ambiguity the argument will not work. If something is desired, then it is worthy of being desired. If something is worthy of being desired, then is good.