ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author considers the applications of the Uncertainty Principle–to conditionals, and then to vagueness. The problem made vivid by the paradox of the heap is an everyday problem–some what as the problem made vivid by the Lottery Paradox is an everyday problem. A solution to the sorites should help to understand the general structure of reasoning with vague terms. The sorites Paradox and the Lottery Paradox are structurally the same phenomenon. Each is a pathological case of a phenomenon we need to understand: reasoning with uncertainty, and reasoning with vague concepts. The sorites paradox involves a long series of, say, patches of colour each insignificantly different from its neighbour if one is red, so is its neighbour. But at one end, the patches are red, at the other end they are not. Imagine evidence mounting by small intervals that parents are mistreating a child.
