Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, April 2008.

Vagueness is ubiquitous in natural language. It seems incompatible with classical, bivalent logic, which tells us that every statement is either true or false, and none is vaguely true. Yet we do manage to reason using vague natural language. In fact, the majority of our day-to-day reasoning involves vague terms and concepts. There is a puzzle here: how do we perform this remarkable feat of reasoning? I argue that vagueness is a kind of semantic indecision. In short, that means we cannot say exactly who is bald and who is not because we have never decided the precise meaning of the word 'bald'--there are some borderline cases in the middle, which might be bald or might not. That is a popular general strategy for addressing vagueness. Those who use it, however, do not often say what they mean by 'borderline case'. It is most frequently used in a loose way to refer to in-between items: those people who are neither clearly bald nor clearly not bald. But under that loose description, the notion of borderline cases is ambiguous, and some of its possible meanings create serious problems for semantic theories of vagueness.Here, I clarify the notion of a borderline case, so that borderline cases can be used profitably as a key element in a successful theory of vagueness. After carefully developing my account of borderline cases, I demonstrate its usefulness by proposing a theory of vagueness based upon it. My theory, vagueness as permission, explains how classical logic can be used to model even vague natural language.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on February 26, 2010). Department of Philosophy, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Cornelis de Waal, André De Tienne, Nathan R. Houser. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-114).

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Many theories of vagueness employ question-begging assumptions about the semantic boundaries between truth and falsity. This thesis defends a theory of vagueness put forward by Charles S. Peirce and argues for a novel solution to the sorites paradox based upon his work. Contrary to widespread opinion, I argue that Peirce distinguished borderline vagueness from other related forms of indeterminacy, e.g. indefiniteness, generality, unspecificity, uninformativity, etc. By clarifying Peirce’s conception of borderline vagueness, I argue for a solution to the sorites paradox based upon his logical semantics. In addition, I argue for this theory against the epistemic theory of vagueness, which makes controversial claims concerning the sharp semantic boundary between truth and falsity, and against the supervaluationist theory of vagueness, which is committed to the in principle impossibility of sharp semantics boundaries for propositions with vague terms.

This study investigates six theoretical approaches offered as solutions to the paradox of the heap (sorites paradox), a logic puzzle dating back to the ancient Greek philosopher Eubulides. Those considered are: Incoherence Theory, Epistemic Theory, Supervaluation Theory, Many-Valued Logic, Fuzzy Logic, and Non-Classical Semantics. After critically examining all of these, it is concluded that none of the attempts to explain the sorites are fully adequate, and the paradox remains unresolved. / Philosophy / M.A. (Philosophy)

According to the dominant approach in the theory of vagueness, the nature of the vagueness of an expression ‘F’ consists in its presenting borderline cases in an appropriately ordered series: objects which are neither definitely F nor definitely not F (where the notion of definiteness can be semantic, ontic, epistemic, psychological or primitive). In view of the various problems faced by theories of vagueness adopting the dominant approach, the thesis proposes to reconsider the naive theory of vagueness, according to which the nature of the vagueness of an expression consists in its not drawing boundaries between any neighbouring objects in an appropriately ordered series. It is argued that expressions and concepts which do present this feature play an essential role in our cognitive and practical life, allowing us to conceptualize—in a way which would otherwise be impossible—the typically coarse-grained distinctions we encounter in reality. Despite its strong initial plausibility and ability to explain many phenomena of vagueness, the naive theory is widely rejected because thought to be shown inconsistent by the sorites paradox. In reply, it is first argued that accounts of vagueness based on the dominant approach are themselves subject to higher-order sorites paradoxes. The paradox is then solved on behalf of the naive theory by rejecting the unrestricted transitivity of the consequence relation on a vague language; a family of logics apt for reasoning with vague expressions is proposed and studied (using models with partially ordered values). The characteristic philosophical and logical consequences of this novel solution are developed and defended in detail. In particular, it is shown how the analysis of what happens in the attempt of surveying a sorites series and deciding each case allows the naive theory to recover a "thin" notion of a borderline case.

This study investigates six theoretical approaches offered as solutions to the paradox of the heap (sorites paradox), a logic puzzle dating back to the ancient Greek philosopher Eubulides. Those considered are: Incoherence Theory, Epistemic Theory, Supervaluation Theory, Many-Valued Logic, Fuzzy Logic, and Non-Classical Semantics. After critically examining all of these, it is concluded that none of the attempts to explain the sorites are fully adequate, and the paradox remains unresolved. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.A. (Philosophy)

According to orthodoxy the study of the Soritical and semantical paradoxes belongs to the domain of the philosophy of language. To solve these paradoxes we need to investigate the nature of words like `heap' and `true.' In this thesis I criticise linguistic explanations of the state of ignorance we find ourselves in when confronted with indeterminate cases and develop a classical non-linguistic theory of indeterminacy in its stead. The view places the study of vagueness and indeterminacy squarely in epistemological terms, situating it within a theory of rational propositional attitudes. The resulting view is applied to a number of problems in the philosophy of vagueness and the semantic paradoxes.

Marine microbiome research is a rapidly expanding field of study, as scientists investigate the functions of microbial associations in eukaryotic organisms. Foraminifera are among the most abundant shelled organisms in the oceans, yet little is known of their associated microbiomes. This study investigated microbes associated with four species of Foraminifera that host three kinds of algal endosymbionts. The Order Miliolida, Family Soritidae, was represented by three species: Archaias angulatus and Cyclorbiculina compressa, which both host chlorophyte symbionts, and Sorites orbiculus, which hosts dinoflagellate symbionts. The fourth species, Amphistegina gibbosa, belongs to the Order Rotaliida and hosts diatom endosymbionts. Bacterial DNA extraction was attempted from 5−8 specimens per species followed by amplification and amplicon sequencing of the V4 variable region of the 16S rRNA gene. Three Ar. angulatus specimens shared 177 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), and six C. compressa specimens shared 58 OTUs, of which 31 OTUs were found in all specimens of both species. Four S. orbiculus specimens shared 717 OTUs dominated by Proteobacteria, notably Amoebophilaceae. The three soritid species shared 26 OTUs, predominantly representing the bacterial families Rhodobacteraceae and Flavobacteriaceae. Since S. orbiculus shared 84% of the OTUs shared by Ar. angulatus and C. compressa, which host similar endosymbionts, phylogenetic relatedness of host taxa clearly had more influence on core microbiomes than the algal-symbiont taxon. The microbiomes of three normal-appearing and five partly-bleached specimens of Am. gibbosa varied widely, sharing only six OTUs, four of which represented Proteobacteria. All four species shared only four OTUs, three of which may have been contaminants. As the first known microbiome study to include western Atlantic/Caribbean benthic foraminifers that host algal endosymbionts, the results for Am. gibbosa revealed quite similar results to a recent study of the microbiome of Am. lobifera, a closely related Indo-Pacific taxon.

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