Word and Plan

Name: Word and Plan
Price: 52.95 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780231212816

John MacFarlane

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Paperback

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English

Columbia University Press
26 May 2026

Semantics; Communication studies; Analytical philosophy & Logical Positivism; Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge

Series: Columbia Themes in Philosophy

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.

By: John MacFarlane
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm,
ISBN: 9780231212816
ISBN 10: 023121281X
Series: Columbia Themes in Philosophy
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 26 May 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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).

Reviews for Word and Plan

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, author of <i>Propositions: Ontology and Logic</i>