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We commonly believe that communication is successful when a hearer grasps what a speaker means. But Abe can assert “Sam is tall” without having any definite intention about how tall one must be to count as “tall,” and Bertha can understand his assertion without grasping such an intention. What exactly has been communicated in such a case? John MacFarlane argues that standard models of meaning and communication cannot answer this question. To answer it, he proposes, we need to see vague talk as not purely factual but in part expressive of linguistic plans. In this book, he gives a novel expressivist account of vagueness and explores its implications for semantics, pragmatics, thought, and disagreement.
Price: $32.00
Pages: 232
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Series: Columbia Themes in Philosophy
Publication Date:
26 May 2026
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.50 in
ISBN: 9780231212816
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Analytic, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Communication Studies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics, PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology
This is an excellent book that makes an important and original contribution. Many observers outside of philosophy are puzzled by the fact that problems about vagueness have been such a preoccupation in the philosophy of language, but Word and Plan explains precisely why these issues are so important. MacFarlane’s arguments, both constructive and critical, are incisive and convincing.
— Robert Stalnaker, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MacFarlane provides a compelling and original account of communication with vague expressions while also offering a richly insightful picture of many of the central issues in semantics and pragmatics.
— Daniel Rothschild, professor of philosophy of language, University College London
In Word and Plan, John MacFarlane asks what we do when we communicate with semantically indeterminate language and what semantic indeterminacy consists in, given what we do with it. MacFarlane's masterful interweaving of theoretical concepts and analytical tools from formal semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language makes this essential reading for anyone working on meaning and communication and a case study in interdisciplinary scholarship at its best. Word and Plan will challenge and inspire research on these topics for years to come.
— Chris Kennedy, William H. Colvin Professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago
— Robert Stalnaker, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MacFarlane provides a compelling and original account of communication with vague expressions while also offering a richly insightful picture of many of the central issues in semantics and pragmatics.
— Daniel Rothschild, professor of philosophy of language, University College London
In Word and Plan, John MacFarlane asks what we do when we communicate with semantically indeterminate language and what semantic indeterminacy consists in, given what we do with it. MacFarlane's masterful interweaving of theoretical concepts and analytical tools from formal semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language makes this essential reading for anyone working on meaning and communication and a case study in interdisciplinary scholarship at its best. Word and Plan will challenge and inspire research on these topics for years to come.
— Chris Kennedy, William H. Colvin Professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago
John MacFarlane is a professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Group in Logic and the Methodology of Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and Its Applications (2014) and Philosophical Logic: A Contemporary Introduction (2021).
Preface
1. Vagueness and Communication
2. Seeing Through the Clouds
3. Indeterminacy as Indecision
4. Indecisive Semantics
5. Metalinguistic Negotiation
6. Probabilistic Information
Bibliography
Index