ABSTRACT

According to Dominic Hyde, any genuinely vague predicate must be higher-order vague. This chapter explores the fallacy and presents some related observations on the vague, the higher-order vague, and the vaguely vague. Hyde tells that vagueness, of the sort associated with predicates, is characterized by border cases. He argues as follows: since “vague” is vague philosophers must suppose that the notion of a border case is itself vague. For “predicate-vagueness is characterised by ‘there being border cases’, yet the existential quantifier is precise”. But if “border case” is vague, then it follows that there are border border cases and hence higher-order vagueness. So, as soon as philosophers admit that a predicate is vague, philosophers must grant that it also admits of higher-order vagueness. Vaguely vague predicates are such that it is indeterminate whether they have any border cases.