Comments on Inconstancy and Inconsistency

Overview In this very interesting paper, David Ripley brings together formal work on the semantics of vague predicates with experimental work on speakers’ reactions to statements involving such predicates. Working within a broadly Kaplanian framework—in which predicate expressions have characters, which together with contexts determine contents, which together with circumstances determine extensions—Ripley distinguishes three positions on the semantics of vague predicates [§1–§2]: 1. A vague predicate P has an inconstant character: there are contexts c1 and c2 and circumstance i such that the extension of P relative to c1 and i is not the same as the extension of P relative to c2 and i.