In Raffman 1994, 1996, Diana Raffman developed an influential contextualist account of vagueness. In Unruly Words, Raffman presents a new account of vagueness. According to this account, vagueness, while often accompanied by context sensitivity, does not depend essentially on context sensitivity. And while vagueness is, on this view, a semantic phenomenon, unlike standard semantic analyses, Raffman's semantic analysis of vagueness is compatible with bivalence.
The book consists of five chapters. It is written in a clear and engaging manner and, at 215 pages, is easily digested. Chapter 1 provides a brief survey of extant accounts of vagueness. Chapter 2 presents a novel account of what it is for something to be a borderline case. Chapter 3 develops a framework for treating the context sensitivity exhibited by at least many vague words. Chapter 4 presents Raffman's new account of vagueness. And, finally, chapter 5 looks at our use of...
