ABSTRACT
The techniques for conceptual elucidation may be classed into three groups: interpretation, analysis and synthesis. Some concepts are particularly helpful for performing concept extension and elucidation. Rather than attempting to elucidate concepts with an objective referent with the help of anthropocentric concepts, as demanded by some philosophers, scientists try to frame elucidations with the help of concepts referring to physical objects. Conspicuous among the sharpening tools are the mathematical concepts of set and probability. Since every concept has an intension and an extension, vagueness can be intensional or extensional. The vagueness fringe itself may be ill-limited, and correspondingly the fraction of borderline cases somehow indeterminate. Extensional vagueness can be reduced by performing finer partitions. Extensional vagueness can be shrunk by introducing finer partitions or by adopting practical criteria which need not go to the heart of the matter, and by executing the corresponding empirical operations.
