Vagueness and identity in David Lewis’ account: foundation for a relaxed epistemology?

Halder, Biplab Kumar (2014) Vagueness and identity in David Lewis’ account: foundation for a relaxed epistemology? Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (589kB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

The problem of vagueness and the problem of identity have received immense attention in the history of logic, philosophy of language, and semantics. David Lewis’ modal realism also includes these problems. Particularly, there are two claims in this thesis: firstly, a survey on Lewis’ epistemology shows that the nature of his epistemology is relaxed and secondly, his stance on the problem of vagueness and the problem of identity set the foundation for that relaxed epistemology, especially when he advocates the thesis of semantic indecision in the problem of vagueness, and partial identity and almost identity thesis in the problem of many. A study of Lewis’ ontology, epistemology, and semantics altogether in terms of the issues of identity and vagueness establishes both claims clearly.

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