Let's say that the proposition that p is transparent just in case K^mp for every m, where K^m abbreviates m iterations of the epistemological operator 'it is known that'. I show that, given Timothy Williamson's margin for error semantics for such epistemological operators, the existence of transparent propositions, (for example B(0), which abbreivates 'any man with 0% scalp coverage is bald') requires (in a large class of models) that certain higher-order predicates (such as K^mB(x) for some sufficiently large m) have known boundaries – a fact which is apparently incompatible with the epistemicist theory of vagueness.

In this paper I propose that the meanings of vague expressions render the truth conditions of utterances of sentences containing them sensitive to our interests. For example, 'expensive' is analyzed as meaning 'costs a lot', which in turn is analyzed as meaning 'costs significantly greater than the norm'. Whether a difference is a significant difference depends on what our interests are. I argue that appeal to the proposal provides an attractive resolution of the sorites paradox that is compatible with classical logic and semantics.

I argue that, contrary to widespread philosophical opinion, phenomenal indiscriminability is transitive. For if it were not transitive, we would be precluded from accepting the truisms that if two things look the same then the way they look is the same and that if two things look the same then if one looks red, so does the other. Nevertheless, it has seemed obvious to many philosophers (e.g. Goodman, Armstrong and Dummett) that phenomenal indiscriminability is not transitive; and, moreover, that this non-transitivity is straightforwardly revealed to us in experience. I show this thought to be wrong. All inferences from the character of our experience to the non-transitivity of indiscriminability involve either a misunderstanding of continuity, a mistaken interpretation of the idea that we have limited powers of discrimination, or tendentious claims about what our experience is really like; or such inferences are based on inadequately supported premisses, which though individually plausible are jointly implausible.

In a number of standard sentential environments, definite and indefinite descriptions lack the properties we would expect them to have if they were quantified noun phrases. In predicative position — as in 'Max is not the owner' — descriptions lack the scopal and distributional properties of quantified noun phrases. In argument position when ocurring with adverbs of quantification — as in 'The owner of a Porsche is usually smug' — descriptions interact with adverbs while quantifers do not, providing for more ambiguities than in a sentence like 'Every owner of a Porsche is usually smug'. Consequently, a Russellian analysis of descriptions should be rejected. To handle the phenomena I propose a unified analysis of definite and indefinite descriptions as predicates, including mass definites, plural definites, and bare plurals. The analysis handles generic as well as existential descriptions, and handles also the interaction of descriptions with adverbs of quantification, without positing ambiguity for either the definite or indefinite articles.

A reply to arguments against the identity theory of truth, according to which something's a true proposition just in case it's a fact.