ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE Vagueness

Standardly, one says that vagueness arises whenever a concept or linguistic expression admits of borderline cases of application. A predicate such as ‘bald’, for example, is vague because there can be situations in which it is indeterminate whether or not it applies to (a name of) a certain object. Some people are clearly bald (Picasso), some are clearly not bald (the count of Montecristo), and some are borderline cases—our concept of baldness and our linguistic practices do not specify any exact number of hairs that marks the boundary between the bald and the non-bald. Similarly, a singular term such as ‘Mount Everest ’ is vague because there is no determinate way of tracing the geographical limits of its referent. Some rocks are clearly part of Everest and some are clearly not, but some rocks enjoy a borderline status. There is, however, dispute concerning this way of characterizing vagueness. For the statement that a term t admits of borderline cases of application—that it is indeterminate whether or not such-and-such objects fall within the boundaries of the entity designated by t—can be given a de re reading, as in (1), or a de dicto reading, as in (2)