I realise that the scenario in my last post was unnecessarily complicated by the use of 3 parties. I amend it as follows:
Amber and Gus watch a documentary on the Antipodeans. In one scene, one Antipodean is seen to berate another in a town square for arriving late saying, ‘I told you to be here at neen and it’s now quarter past neen.’
The narrator explains that there is only one minute in the day known to the Antipodeans as neen. Further, it is considered to be very rude by Antipodeans to be imprecise. So, when an Antipodean says be there at neen, they mean not the minute before neen nor the minute after neen but neen and neen alone. Amber and Gus observe the shadows apparent in the scene and agree that neen must be some time within a few minutes of their noon.
The following day, Gus leaves to go to the hardware store.
Knowing that she needs to use their only car at 12:15 p.m. local time, Amber asks, ‘What time will you be back?’
Gus answers, ‘I’ll be back at noon.’
Amber presses, ‘Noon exactly?’
Gus clarifies, ‘I’ll be back at neen.’
Amber laughs unconvincingly and then says, ‘No, seriously, what time will you be back?’
Neither Amber or Gus know precisely what the relation is between neen and noon. Further, they each know that they each don’t know the precise relation. Yet, ‘I’ll be back at neen’ does not provide a sufficient paraphrase for ‘I’ll be back at noon-ish,’ or ‘I’ll be back at about noon,’ when Amber wants to know, not only what time he intended to return but, also, whether had is making a precise commitment or a vague commitment to that time. Notwithstanding the partial knowledge they each have of the application of ‘neen’, the meaning expressed by the term is of a precise commitment rather than a vague one and it does not answer the question Amber asked (twice).
This would seem to show that the use of a term concerning which both the speaker and the hearer do not know the precise meaning is not, of itself, adequate to communicate a vague commitment. The challenge for the epistemicist would be to show why some meanings concerning which we have partial knowledge are insufficient to produce vagueness, while others are sufficient.
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