The Sorites Paradox

For centuries, the sorites paradox has spurred philosophers to think and argue about the problem of vagueness. This volume offers a guide to the paradox which is both an accessible survey and an exposition of the state of the art, with a chapter-by-chapter presentation of all of the main solutions to the paradox and of all its main areas of influence. Each chapter offers a gentle introduction to its topic, gradually building up to a final discussion of some open problems. Students will find a comprehensive guide to the fundamentals of the paradox, together with lucid explanations of the challenges it continues to raise. Researchers will find exciting new ideas and debates on the paradox.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Prelude; An introduction to the sorites paradox Sergi Oms and Elia Zardini; Part I. Solutions to the Sorites Paradox: 1. Epistemicism and the sorites paradox Ofra Magidor; 2. Supervaluationism, subvaluationism and the sorites paradox Pablo Cobreros and Luca Tranchini; 3. Contextualism and the sorites paradox Inga Bones and Diana Raffman; 4. Incoherentism and the sorites paradox Matti Eklund; 5. Intuitionism and the sorites paradox Crispin Wright; 6. Rejection of excluded middle and the sorites paradox Scott Soames; 7. Dialetheism and the sorites paradox Graham Priest; 8. Degree theory and the sorites paradox Francesco Paoli; 9. Non-transitivism and the sorites paradox Elia Zardini; Part II. The Influence of the Sorites Paradox: 10. The sorites paradox in philosophy of logic Sergi Oms; 11. The sorites paradox in metaphysics Irem Kurtsal; 12. The sorites paradox in practical philosophy Hrafn Asgeirsson; 13. The sorites paradox in linguistics Chris Kennedy; 14. The sorites paradox in psychology Paul Égré, David Ripley and Steven Verheyen; Coda: 15. The pre-analytic history of the sorites paradox Ricardo Santos; References; Index.

Sergi Oms is Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Universitat de Barcelona. He has published in a number of journals, including Disputatio.
Elia Zardini is Research Fellow at the Centre of Philosophy, Universidade de Lisboa. He has published in a number of journals, including The Journal of Philosophy and The Review of Symbolic Logic, and is co-editor of Scepticism and Perceptual Justification (2014).