Delia Graff Fara facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Delia Graff Fara
|
|
|---|---|
| Born |
Delia Ruby Graff
April 28, 1969 |
| Died | July 18, 2017 (aged 48) |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Delia Ruby Graff Fara |
| Alma mater | |
|
Notable work
|
"Shifting Sands" (2000) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The Phenomena of Vagueness (1997) |
| Doctoral advisor |
|
Delia Ruby Graff Fara (born April 28, 1969 – died July 18, 2017) was an American philosopher. She taught philosophy at Princeton University. She was an expert in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophical logic.
Early Life
Delia's mother was African-American. Her father had Irish and Jewish roots. She grew up in New York with her mother. Her mother raised her alone after her father passed away when Delia was young.
Education and Career
Delia Graff Fara graduated from Harvard University in 1991. She earned her PhD in 1997 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her teachers there were George Boolos and Robert Stalnaker.
In 1997, she started working at Princeton University as an assistant professor. She moved to Cornell University in 2001. Then, in 2005, she returned to Princeton. She became a tenured associate professor there. This means she had a permanent teaching position. She passed away in July 2017.
What She Studied
Delia Graff Fara was best known for her work on vagueness. Imagine a word like "tall." How tall do you have to be to be "tall"? This is a vague word. She had a special idea about this. She believed that the meaning of vague words depends on our interests.
In her important article, "Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness," she explained her idea. She said that what makes a sentence true can change based on what we care about. For example, the word "child" is vague. It means a level of immaturity that is important to the person speaking. If a speaker's interests change, what they consider a "child" might also change.
Her Writings
- "Shifting Sands: An Interest-Relative Theory of Vagueness." Philosophical Topics 28 (2000): 45–81.
- "Descriptions As Predicates." Philosophical Studies 102 (2001): 1-42.
- "Phenomenal Continua and the Sorites." Mind 110 (2001): 905-935.
- The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language (co-edited with Gillian Russell). Routledge, 2011.
- "Specifying desires." Nous 47 (2013): 252-272.
- "Names Are Predicates." Philosophical Review 124 (2015): 59-117.
