Please join us on Friday, December 8th for our Philosophy Department Colloquium with Professor Rohan Sud.
 
The event will start at 3pm in room 402 of Cohen Hall, with a reception to follow.
 
Title: A Zetetic Approach to Vagueness
 
Abstract: 
 
Consider a sorites series of people who are increasing bald. For some middling member in the series, we form a distinctive judgement which we give voice to with expressions like “it's vague whether they are bald.’' What is the nature of this judgement? And what is the meaning of such expressions? Like many theorists before me, I will try to shed some light on these questions. My starting point, however, will not be the connection that vagueness judgements have with belief and knowledge. Instead, I start with the puzzling zetetic profile such judgements exhibit. For instance, once we've decided that it's vague whether someone is bald, it seems deeply confused to go on to wonder whether they are bald (Field, 2000, 2009). More generally, deciding that it's vague whether p seems to close the question whether p. I offer my own account of the nature of vagueness judgements which explains this, and other, puzzling phenomena.