Wright and Sainsbury on Higher-order Vagueness

1. In [6] Crispin Wright presents an argument with the conclusion that it is higher-order vagueness, rather than vagueness as such, which is paradoxical. A simple manoeuvre removes the threat of paradox to the latter, he claims, and while at first sight this manoeuvre succeeds equally with higher-order vagueness, at second sight it does not. I show here that the prima facie case for symmetry between the higher and lower orders survives Wright's argument to the contrary.1 First, a sketch of his reasoning. A salient feature of a vague expression ('red', say) is that it admits of borderline cases things which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. The logic and semantics of such expressions may, then, best be elucidated using an operator, Def, meaning 'definitely'. While