Vagueness
Vagueness
A term may be said (loosely) to be vngue if there are ”borderline cases” for its applicability, i.e. cases for which the rules of the language containing the term do not specify either that the term shall or that it shall not apply. Thus certain shades of reddish-orange in the spectrum are borderline cases for the application of the term “red”. And “red” is vague in the English language.
More preciselyLet “S” be a symbol (simple or complex) in the language L. And let “f(S)” be any sentence containing “S” and constructed in conformity with the syntactical rules of L. Let “e1” be any experiential sentence of L. Then “S” may be said to be vague in the context “f(. .)” if, for at last one “e1” the rules of L do not provide that f(S) be either consistent or inconsistent with e1. And “S” may be said to be vague in L if it is vague in at least one context of L.
Vagueness needs to be distinguished from Generality and Ambiguity (q.v.). See also Vague.
References B. Russell, “Vagueness”, Australasian J. of Phil. I, 88. M. Black, “VaguenessAn exercise in logical analysis” Phil. of Sci. 4, 427. — M.B.