open society See POPPER. open texture, the possibility of vagueness. Friedrich Waismann (‘Verifiability,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1945) introduced the concept, claiming that open texture is a universal property of empirical terms. Waismann claimed that an inexhaustible source of vagueness remains even after measures are taken to make an expression precise. His grounds were, first, that there are an indefinite number of possibilities for which it is indeterminate whether the expression applies (i.e., for which the expression is vague). There is, e.g., no definite answer whether a catlike creature that repeatedly vanishes into thin air, then reappears, is a cat. Waismann’s explanation is that when we define an empirical term, we frame criteria of its applicability only for foreseeable circumstances. Not all possible situations in which we may use the term, however, can be foreseen. Thus, in unanticipated circumstances, real or merely possible, a term’s criteria of applicability may yield no definite answer to whether it applies. Second, even for terms such as ‘gold’, for which there are several precise criteria of application (specific gravity, X-ray spectrograph, solubility in aqua regia), applying different criteria can yield divergent verdicts, the result being vagueness.
Waismann uses the concept of open texture to explain why experiential statements are not conclusively verifiable, and why phenomenalist attempts to translate material object statements fail.
See also PHENOMENALISM , VAGUENESS , VERIFICATIONIS. W.K.W.