Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:08:57.528Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sorting Out Sorites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Peter March
Peter March*
Affiliation:
Saint Mary's University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Let Hn stand for an assembly of n grains of salt. Then the paradox of Sorites may be presented this way:

  1. H10,000 is a heap. p

  2. If H10,000 is a heap then H10,000-1 is a heap. p

  3. H9,999 is a heap. MP

  4. H9,999 is a heap then H9,999-1 is a heap. P

    19998. If H2 is a heap then H2-1 is a heap. P

    19999. H1 is a heap. MP

    20000. H1 is not a heap. P

    20001. H1 is and is not a heap. Con

A more significant example of the argument results where Ht stands for a human being (h.b.) at time t (in seconds) where t=O is the present and the human being is one year old.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 445 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Unger, Peter ‘Why There Are No People,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 4 (1979) 177–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Quine, W.V. ‘What Price Bivalence?,’ The Journal of Philosophy, 78 (1981) 90-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Wright, C. ‘On the Coherence of Vague Predicates,’ Synthese, 30 (1975) 326-65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I wish to thank Robert Martin of Dalhousie for this suggestion.