Imperfect perception and vagueness

Abstract We present a model that locates the source of vagueness as the speaker’s inability to perfectly perceive the world. We show that the agents will communicate clearly about the world as the sender perceives it. However, the implied meaning about the actual world will be vague. Vagueness is characterized by probability distributions that describe the degree to which a statement is likely to be true. Hence, we provide micro-foundations for truth-degree functions as an equilibrium consequence of the sender’s perception technology and his optimal, non-vague communication in the perceived world – connecting the epistemic and truth-degree approaches to vagueness.