  The second type of singular term is the vague individual (individuum vagum), represented by the phrases ‘this white &lt;thing&gt;’ and ‘this approaching &lt;person&gt;’. In other contexts, especially commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories 2a11–13, the vague individual was represented by such phrases as ‘some man’, but in all the texts we are concerned with, the presence of the demonstrative pronoun is crucial. The word ‘vague’ is used partly because the same phrase will have a different reference when uttered in different contexts, but mainly because the identification of the individual in question is indeterminate, though to a varying extent. ‘This being’ and ‘this body’ are highly indeterminate, ‘this animal’ is less indeterminate, and ‘this man’ is even less indeterminate, but it still lacks the precision of ‘Socrates’. I can recognize someone as a man without being able to distinguish him from other men in any reliable manner. As we shall see below (§9), Buridan took the vague singular to be the most proper type of singular term.