Abstract
Naive speakers find some logical contradictions acceptable, specifically borderline contradictions involving vague predicates such as Joe is and isn’t tall. In a recent paper, Cobreros et al. (J Philos Logic, 2012) suggest a pragmatic account of the acceptability of borderline contradictions. We show, however, that the pragmatic account predicts the wrong truth conditions for some examples with disjunction. As a remedy, we propose a semantic analysis instead. The analysis is close to a variant of fuzzy logic, but conjunction and disjunction are interpreted as intensional operators.
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Alxatib, S., Pagin, P. & Sauerland, U. Acceptable Contradictions: Pragmatics or Semantics? A Reply to Cobreros et al.. J Philos Logic 42, 619–634 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-012-9241-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-012-9241-7