This book examines philosophical approaches to linguistic vagueness a puzzling feature of
natural language that gives rise to the ancient Sorites Paradox and challenges classical logic
and semantics.The Sorites or Paradox of the Heap consists in three claims: (1) One grain of
sand does not make a heap. (2) One billion grains of sand do make a heap. (3) For any two
amounts of sand differing by at most one grain: either both are heaps of sand or neither one
is. The third claim is rendered plausible by an initial conviction that vague predicates like
'heap' tolerate small changes. However the repeated application of a tolerance principle to
the second claim yields the further proposition that one grain of sand does make a heap - which
contradicts claim number one. Consequently many philosophers reject or modify tolerance
principles for vague predicates.Inga Bones reassesses prominent responses to the Sorites and
defends a Wittgensteinian dissolution of the paradox. She argues that vague predicates are
indeed tolerant and discusses how this finding relates to the paradox itself to the notion of
validity and to the concept of a borderline case.
