Nonsense + Unintelligibility = How to Understand Vagueness
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"Ramsey said that a statement of the form 'p is 1/3 true'
would be 'sheer nonsense'.  The aim of this paper is to
dispute that view, and thereby to establish the coherence of
the notion of degrees of truth."  So wrote R.M. Sainsbury
in 1986.  Yet, despite his and others' efforts, the doctrine
that truth comes in degrees remains a fringe position.  Also
in 1986, David Lewis wrote, "The only intelligible account
of vagueness locates it in our thought and language."  In
this paper, I want to argue for the combination of these two
allegedly unintelligible and nonsensical views: truth comes
in degrees, and the best account of vagueness locates it in
the world itself (not merely in our thought and language
about the world).  The two views come together in a picture
in which fuzzy logic takes a central place: the best account
of vagueness employs fuzzy logic, and this use of fuzzy
logic involves commitment both to the view that truth comes
in degrees and to the view that there is vagueness in the
world.