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3.7: Review of Major Points

  • Page ID
    36060
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    When communicating appropriately, we ignore irrelevant inexactness. But communication can break down when the inexactness is relevant to our concerns. Ambiguity, vagueness, overgeneralization, pseudoprecision, and improper operationalization are all sources of imprecision and potential obstacles to communication. Vagueness can almost never be entirely eliminated from our statements, and very often vagueness is helpful by not getting us side-tracked into removing it, but excessive vagueness should be eliminated, as should ambiguity and overgeneralization.

    Vagueness is not the same as ambiguity. For example, the word “purple” is vague because there is no sharp boundary between purple and not purple, but it wouldn't be proper to call the word ambiguous, since there are not a small number of distinct interpretations. With vagueness, the uncertain interpretations form a continuum.

    To stay on track, the logical reasoner must be sensitive to inadequate precision that occurs in semantic disagreements, some of which are due to equivocation or faulty operationalization. The logical reasoner must also be aware of the effects on communication due to context, background knowledge, and the difference between a universal and a non-universal generalization.

    Clear, precise definitions can be an aid to communication. Definitions are used not only to inform people of the meanings of words but also to make jokes, remove vagueness and ambiguity, and push a political agenda. Definitions come in various flavors: ostensive, lexical, stipulative, operational, and by example. Helpful definitions are often difficult to create, especially operational ones. Definitions can be faulty because they are too broad, too narrow, ambiguous, vague, inappropriate for the audience, misleading as to grammatical category or connotation, circular, or inconsistent.


    This page titled 3.7: Review of Major Points is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Bradley H. Dowden.

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