Not Exactly
In Praise of Vagueness
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Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 24 May 2012
- ISBN 9780199645732
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages358 pages
- Size 196x128x27 mm
- Weight 388 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 20 black and white illustrations 0
Categories
Short description:
Our lives are full of inexactitude. We say a person is tall or an action is just without the precision of measurement on a dial. In this engaging account, Kees van Deemter explores vagueness, cutting across areas such as language, mathematical logic, and computing. He considers why vagueness is inherent, and why it is important in how we function.
MoreLong description:
Not everything is black and white. Our daily lives are full of vagueness or fuzziness. Language is the most obvious example - for instance, when we describe someone as tall, it is as though there is a particular height beyond which a person can be considered 'tall'. Likewise the terms 'blond' or 'overweight' in common usage. We often think in discontinuous categories when we are considering something continuous.
In this book, van Deemter cuts across various disciplines in considering the nature and importance of vagueness. He looks at the principles of measurement, and how we choose categories; the vagueness lurking behind what seems at first sight crisp concepts such as that of the biological 'species'; uncertainties in grammar and the impact of vagueness on the programmes of Chomsky and Montague; vagueness and mathematical logic; computers, vague descriptions, and Natural Language Generation in AI (a new class of programs will allow computers to handle descriptions such as 'the man in the yellow shirt').
Van Deemter shows why vagueness is in various circumstances both unavoidable and useful, and how we are increasingly able to handle fuzziness in mathematical logic and computer science.
Review from previous edition Amusing, persuasive. conversational and engaging.
Table of Contents:
Prologue
Introduction: False Clarity
Part 1: Vagueness, where one leasts expects it
Sex and similarity: On the Fiction of Species
Measurements that Matter
Identity and Gradual Change
Vagueness in Numbers and Maths
Part II: Theories of Vagueness
The Linguistics of Vagueness
Reasoning with Vague Information
Parrying a Paradox
Degrees of Truth
Part III: Working Models of Vagueness
Artificial Intelligence
When to be Vague: Computers as Authors
The Explusion from Boole's Paradise
Epilogue: Guaranteed Correct
Endnotes
Further Reading
Bibliography
