Abstract:This chapter presents a semantic account of open-textured predicates, particularly in the law, but also in language more broadly. The central idea is that judgments involving open-textured predicates are evaluated against a background set of previous authoritative decisions involving these predicates, which then constrain later applications in just the way that precedent cases constrain later decisions in the common law. In developing this idea, the paper relies on the “reason model” of precedential constraint… Show more
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