The Construction of Fuzziness - Fuzziness and Medicine - page 8

2

The Construction of Fuzziness

Kazem Sadegh-Zadeh

2.1 Introduction

I feel very honored to have the opportunity of speaking to you and to thank those of
you in person who have been interested in my forthcoming Handbook of Analytic
Philosophy of Medicine and have concerned themselves with one or another of its
subjects.
Initially, when I was asked to present an introduction to this topic, I wanted to
write about an idea then that fuzzy logic might be an empirical science because
it was concerned with something that existed in the experiential world and made
statements about that empirical entity. But later, when I started writing this text, I
didn't succeed to show that I was right. Therefore, I shall now slightly deviate from
my initial intentions and shall discuss about the question whether fuzziness exists
in the world out there or is something constructed by fuzzy logic. Concisely said,
the topic of this introduction will be the ontological status of fuzziness. I shall deal
with this topic by offering a few ideas on:

• The nature of fuzzy logic,

•

The nature of vagueness, and

•

The nature of fuzziness.

2.2 The Nature of Fuzzy Logic

Regarding the nature of fuzzy logic, we can first ask ourselves the question: What
kind of science is fuzzy logic? Is it a theoretical science, a practical science, an
empirical science, or what else? To answer such questions, I shall introduce some
terminology. I shall first differentiate between theoretical or pure science , applied
science ,and practical science .

2.2.1 Pure Science, Applied Science, and Practical Science

A pure science is a scientific field which is not concerned with the question of
whether, how, and for what purpose its results are actually applied or may be