Truth is vague (in a sense)

In this paper, we argue that the notion of truth is vague, in a specific sense. We proceed in the following fashion. First, we offer a new, and arguably natural, characterization of vagueness, based on some formal results which led us to identify as explanatory salient a feature which we refer to as "scalability". Intuitively, a property P is scalable if (a) it induces a relation of P-similarity (similarity regarding P) between individuals, and (b) such relation is associated with a comparison according to some scale. Second, we argue that the new characterization is strictly more inclusive than the traditional ones: if a property is vague in some traditional sense, then it remains vague in ours; however, there are scalable properties that do not count as vague in any of the traditional senses. Finally, we argue that characterizing vagueness via scalability enables us to explain why truth and vagueness share so many intuitive similarities, and are affected by paradoxes that are close relatives of one another. In short, characterizing vagueness via scalability enables us to flesh out the sense in which truth is vague. We close by outlining the implications of considering truth to be scalable (and therefore vague, in our sense).