The Instability of Vague Terms

Timothy Williamson's response to the question why we cannot know where the sharp boundaries marked by vague terms lie involves the claim that vague terms are unstable. Several theorists would not accept this claim, and it is tempting to think that this gives them a good objection to Williamson. By clarifying the structure of Williamson's response to the title question, I show that this objection is wrong-headed, and reveal a new line of attack.     

Interviewing as Communication: An Alternative Way of Administering the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children

Parents of 24 children referred to an outpatient psychology clinic (mean child age 10.8, range 6–15) were administered the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version 2.3 (DSIC-2.3) twice in a 1-week test–retest reliability design (mean retesting interval = 7.5 days, range = 6–11 days). An alternative mode of administration of the DISC, based on communication principles, was used, involving (a) a schematic representation of the areas to be covered; (b) definition of a common language for the categories, diagnoses, and criteria; and (c) the respondent being allowed to select the order in which the diagnostic areas were covered. The DISC items and modules were unchanged. Symptom scores derived from the DISC were highly reliable over 1 week (average ICC = .85, range = .67–.95) and showed no attenuation from Time 1 to Time 2. Reliability of DSM diagnoses averaged kappa = .80 (range = .63–1.0). There was no significant attenuation in diagnoses from Time 1 to Time 2. Overall, this alternative way of administering the DISC appears to have promise for reducing attenuation and boosting the reliability—and ultimately the validity—of child psychiatric diagnoses. Further investigations of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and further studies with child and adolescent respondents and nonreferred community samples are recommended.     

Vague Value

You are morally permitted to save your friend at the expense of a few strangers, but not at the expense of very many. However, there seems no number of strangers that marks a precise upper bound here. Consequently, there are borderline cases of groups at the expense of which you are permitted to save your friend. This essay discusses the question of what explains ethical vagueness like this, arguing that there are interesting metaethical consequences of various explanations.     

Vague fictional objects

ABSTRACT

I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts.     

Against Vague Existence

Philosophical Studies -     

Mathematics Participation and Mathematics Achievement Across Secondary School: The Role of Gender

The present study investigated whether the relationship between mathematics participation and mathematics achievement is reciprocal for boys and girls. In Years 1, 2, 4 and 6 (US grades 7, 8, 10 and 12), we administered mathematics achievement tests to a cohort of 1,495 Flemish students and collected data on the number of classroom hours allocated to mathematics. A cross-lagged panel design was used to analyze the data. Evidence was found for a reciprocal relationship between mathematics participation and mathematics achievement, particularly in Years 4 and 6 (US grades 10 and 12). The results suggest that boys’ better performance in mathematics is related to their higher participation in math, whereas other factors—in addition to gender differences in math achievement—play a role in explaining why boys participate more in mathematics than girls.     

The Fourth Alternative: Leisure Search and Planning

Employment counselors need to be aware of a fourth job search alternative—leisure search and planning. Leisure interests are relatively untapped resources that the unemployed might use to find employment or develop necessary job-related skills.     

Intransitivity and Vague Preferences

This paper is concerned with intransitivity in normative rational choice. It focuses on a class of intransitivities which have received little attention, those involving vague preferences. “Vague preferences” are defined in terms of vague predicates such as “red” or “bald.” Such preferences appear common, and intransitive indifference is argued to be an unavoidable feature of them. Such preferences are argued to undermine intransitive strict preference also. Various formal theories of vagueness are applied to an example of vague preferences, but none of them provide a justification for the transitivity axiom. For helpful comments on earlier drafts and discussions of this material, I am very grateful to John Broome, Rosanna Keefe, Matthew Kramer, Stuart Rachels, Jochen Runde and Adrian Walsh. I owe a large debt to John O’Neill, who suggested an earlier version of the “Tragedy of the Disappearing Commons” example.     

When Vague Sentences Inform: A Model Of Assertability

A speaker often decides whether or not to saysomething based on his assessment of the impact itwould have on his hearer's beliefs. If he thinks itwould bring them more in line with the truth, he saysit; otherwise he does not. In this paper, I developa model of these judgments, focusing specifically onthose of vague sentences. Under the simplifyingassumption that an utterance only conveys a speaker'sapplicability judgments, I present a Bayesian model ofan utterance's impact on a hearer's beliefs. Fromthis model I derive a model of a speaker's judgment ofwhether or not an utterance would be informative. Iillustrate it with several examples of judgments ofvague and non-vague sentences. For instance, I showthat it models the common judgment that assertingeither ``George is tall' or ``George is not tall' wouldbe misleading if George were borderline tall, butasserting ``George is tall and he isn't tall' would notbe.