Philosophy
The Logic of Vague Predicates and the Sorites Paradox
Quick fact
The sorites paradox, also known as the 'little-by-little' argument, can be run with any vague predicate, and it forces us to choose between three seemingly obvious premises: the base premise, the inductive premise, and the bivalence of classical logic – yet all three cannot be true together.
Why this is interesting
Imagine a single grain of sand – clearly not a heap. Add one more, and it's still not a heap. So when does it suddenly become a heap? The sorites paradox shows that this simple question breaks classical logic.