Language, Thought and the Epistemic Theory of Vagueness

Abstract

There are borderline cases of baldness, cases where we are in principle unable to say whether or not a subject is or is not bald. According to the epistemic theory of vagueness, when X is on the borderline, 'X is bald' either is true or is false, and X either definitely is or definitely is not bald, though we cannot determine which it is. There is, that is, such a thing as the correct verdict but we cannot tell which one it is. I argue that the role of language in communicating our thought about how things are makes a strong argument against this theory.