PHL145H5 Study Guide - Final Guide: Ad Hominem, Slippery Slope
Document Summary
Chapter 13-15: vagueness: a concept c is generally vague when it comes in degrees, or when there is no precise answer to what degree of c something has to be c. The hallmark of vagueness is the existence of borderline cases. There are three phenomena distinct from vagueness: relativity, ambiguity, and uncertainty: slippery slope arguments (ssa, sorites arguments claim that small differences doesn"t affect applicability. It claims that similarity is transitive: if a~b, b~c, then a~c. But it is de nitely false since small differences can accumulate to very large difference: fairness: object to a classi cation of an object as c on the grounds that there are borderline cases. Context usually suffices to make it clear which meaning the speaker intends. There are two kinds of ambiguities: semantic/lexical and syntactic. * distinguish the possible meanings of the potentially ambiguous expressions in the argument.
