Supervaluationism and classical logic

  • Authors:
  • Pablo Cobreros

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Philosophy, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

  • Venue:
  • ViC'09 Proceedings of the 2009 international conference on Vagueness in communication
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The supervaluationist theory of vagueness provides a notion of logical consequence that is akin to classical consequence. In the absence of a definitely operator, supervaluationist consequence coincides with classical consequence. In the presence of 'definitely', however, supervaluationist logic gives raise to counterexamples to classically valid patterns of inference. Foes of supervaluationism emphasize the last result to argue against the supervaluationist theory. This paper shows a way in which we might obtain systems of deduction adequate for supervaluationist consequence based on systems of deduction adequate for classical consequence. Deductions on the systems obtained this way adopt a completely classical form with the exception of a single step. The paper reviews (at least part of) the discussion on the non-classicality of supervaluationist logic under the light of this result.