Vagueness

With vagueness is a property of terms, in particular predicates, respectively. A term is vague,

• When the term perimeter ( the extension) is inaccurate;
• If there are objects which can not be said with certainty whether they belong to the set of objects which are referred to with this term or the body designated by the predicate property have (so-called borderline cases );
• When the term or the predicate is affected by the Sorites paradox.

Etymology

The noun vagueness is derived from the adjective vague, which means indefinite, uncertain, dark, blurry. It is borrowed from the same major French word vague and the Latin vagus. The two original words have the meaning wandering around, restless. This includes the Latin verb vagari, of which the late Latin adjective vagabundus and finally the tramp are derived. About the Middle Latin extra vagari ( debauched ) there has been extravagance to form the word.

Extension

Thank terms, especially predicates, a certain fuzziness is inherent. Examples are green, large, midsize cars. A person can be rather large for a viewer and tend not great for another viewer. This is regardless of whether the viewer only know the approximate or exact size of this person. Similarly, a car of a certain type to an observer may be a midsize car, not for the other viewer.

This vagueness is not all of the words own. Thus, at the latest be uniquely determined to submission of proper documents, whether a woman spinster, married or widow.

Communicative conflicts that arise from the use of vague terms, are usually solved by negotiation or subsequent ( conceptual ) Clarification:

A: The blue car like that. B: Which blue car? A: Well that back there, the third from the right. B: That's green. A: Well, the blue-green car as I would in any case like to have if I could afford it. But conflicts of this kind must also be occasionally litigated: Was a particular action by gross negligence or not?

Limiting cases

Immediately with the fuzzy concept extent vague terms depends the existence of borderline cases together. The fact that a person ( depending on your perspective ) can not be called great as large and as makes, especially when closing logical problems, as this leads to an insoluble contradiction.

Sorites Paradox

The Sorites Paradox is known from formal logic. It is usually demonstrated by a pile of sand. Removes one of a bunch of a grain of sand, so there's still a bunch. Similarly, if you have a further grain removed. Because there is no termination condition or no change point, this means that a single grain of sand also forms a heap. The same applies to a large object, which reduces one millimeter by millimeter. The cause of the paradox of the heap is that the shape of a cluster is determined by the number of its elements.

Demarcation

Occasionally, the vagueness of terms with the ambiguity ( ambiguity ) of words is equated. But vagueness is a property of linguistic signs, while ambiguity refers to the relationship between signifier and signified. The vagueness of the predicate 'big' remains, even if you have to set to an exact meaning, eg extended in the horizontal direction, while the ambiguity disappears because a reference point is established.

Vagueness is also to be distinguished from contextual underdetermination of some terms. Thus, for example, a large contextually under certain predicate. A small elephant is significantly larger than a large ant in any case. But even if one has been set to a context when talking about dogs, for example, remains the predicate get big its vagueness.

Vagueness is not a property of things denoted by the terms. An object in which you can argue about whether the predicate applies great, but can be exactly vermessbar. On the other hand, our incomplete knowledge prevents what is a string, not that the meaning of this term is defined in the context of a physical theory precisely.

In everyday language, however vagueness is an inevitable, sometimes even desired effect of language use. In most technical texts, eg in laws, standard texts and scientific papers, vagueness, however, is disturbing and should be avoided wherever possible.

Prototype semantics

The prototype semantics as a theory of word meaning ( lexical semantics) provides an explanation for the Vagheitsphänomen ready: terms are not described as meaning areas with clearly defined boundaries, but as a kind of topological spaces with a core ( the prototype ) and a periphery. The more distant, so dissimilar, an object the prototype of the concept is, the more uncertain or controversial is the association of this object to the term. Psycholinguistic studies have demonstrated the adequacy of this theory of meaning for the description of many concept types ( colors and other predicates, terms for natural kinds ).

Using this theory, the vagueness of many terms can not resolve, but at least adequately explain. However, the theory offers no solution to the Sorites paradox.

Quotes

• " Vagueness is not a property of terms, but a false Interpretion of non- vague phenomena. "