A Linguistic Account of Mereological Vagueness

Proponents of linguistic accounts of vagueness generally trace vagueness in mereological claims to imprecision in singular terms. The purpose of this chapter is to develop an alternative linguistic account of vague mereological claims. I propose that vagueness in ordinary mereological claims is typically due, not to imprecision in singular terms, but to imprecision in mereological terms such as the relational predicate “is part of.” Though my account is not problem-free, I think it is preferable to the standard linguistic account because it preserves important ordinary intuitions about objects. Moreover, my account is supported by the evident lack of rigor and specificity in our actual use of mereological vocabulary. I further suggest that my linguistic account of mereological vagueness might accommodate some intuitions motivating ontic accounts of vagueness while avoiding a troublesome commitment to indeterminacy in the world.