On Vagueness

Abstract

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that natural language meanings are vague. Much depends, however, on the way meaning is analyzed. For example, should vagueness of meaning be treated in terms of the truth- or denotation-conditions of expressions? Rather than proposing yet another ‘fuzzy’ or multi-valued logic, the present paper investigates the nature of reference and truth . We consider two possible interpretations of the formal model structures used in formal semantics. One is called the paradigm I approach, according to which the model structure is interpreted as a representation of reality (such that the speaker/hearer is part of the model structure). The other is called the paradigm II approach, according to which the model-structure is interpreted as a representation of conceptual meaning structures (such that the model structure is part of the speaker/hearer). It is shown that the theoretical nature of vagueness is totally different in the two paradigms. In conclusion, a number of standard examples of vagueness are analyzed within the paradigm II approach, including the so-called Sorites paradox or paradox of the heap.