Vague Disagreements: Vagueness Without Arbitrary Stipulation

Abstract

According to Ruth Chang (2002, 2022), incommensurability in hard cases cannot be cases of vagueness. This is because vagueness, unlike hard cases, can always be resolved by arbitrary stipulation, leaving no resolutional remainder or substantive disagreement. Contrary to this, I argue that Chang’s argument fails because proponents of the vagueness view are in no way necessarily committed to the claim that vagueness always can be resolved by arbitrary stipulation. In fact, there seems to be no reason to assume that vagueness could not accommodate our intuitions about resolutional remainder and substantive disagreements in a satisfying way. If we want a simple theory, and if at least some incommensurability is vagueness, this could then be a reason for understanding incommensurability as vagueness; and perhaps even rejecting parity.