Dos Santos, Miguel F.;
(2020)
Vagueness in What Matters. Superhard Comparisons, Choice and Vagueness.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
![[thumbnail of Dos Santos-M_F__thesis.pdf]](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
Dos Santos-M_F__thesis.pdf Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 June 2025. Download (1MB) |
Abstract
What is the minimum number of grains that you need to remove from a heap of sand for it to no longer be a heap? Is a male adult who is 180 cm in height tall? Over the past few decades, the philosophical literature has appealed to cases such as these, which exemplify the vagueness of ‘is a heap’ and ‘is tall’ (respectively), to solve problems in the metaphysics, logic and epistemology of vagueness. The driving thought of this dissertation is that vagueness can arise in the application of much more interesting predicates than ‘is a heap’ and ‘is tall’. In particular, vagueness can arise in the application of predicates that matter to us, such as ‘is better than’ and ‘is morally permissible’. Unsurprising as this thought may seem, it allows me to explore uncharted territory. In Chapter 1, I develop an account of decision-making under vagueness in ‘better than’ with the aim of coming up with a novel solution to the problem of superhard comparisons, the problem of explaining what grounds cases of comparison in which (roughly) no classic value relation—‘better than’, ‘worse than’ or ‘equally good’—appears to hold between a certain pair of items relative to a value that they bear. In Chapter 2, I link my approach to the problem of superhard comparisons with the growing literature on moral vagueness, arguing that different leading theories of vagueness yield different accounts of decision-making under moral vagueness. In Chapter 3, building on the approach and conclusions of the previous chapters, I develop a solution to a neglected problem in aesthetics.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Vagueness in What Matters. Superhard Comparisons, Choice and Vagueness |
| Event: | UCL |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10099146 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
