 Peirce connects intrinsic uncertainty with the sorites paradox: “vagueness is an indeterminacy in the applications of an idea, as to how many grains of sand are required to make a heap, and the like.” (1892, 167). In the case of relative borderline cases, the question is determinate but our means for answering it are incomplete. For absolute borderline cases, there is incompleteness in the question itself. When a term is applied to one of its absolute borderline cases the result is a statement that resists all attempts to settle whether it is true or false (Hu 2021). For instance, no amount of conceptual analysis or empirical inquiry can establish the minimum number of grains needed for a heap. Equally futile is inquiry into the qualitative vagueness illustrated by the decapitation riddle. An inventive speaker could give the appearance of settling the matter by stipulating that ‘decapitate’ means ‘remove a head’ (as opposed to ‘make headless’ or ‘remove the head’). But that semantic revision would change the topic to an issue that merely sounds the same as decapitation. The switch in meaning might not be detected if the inventive speaker was misperceived as merely applying antecedent knowledge of decapitation. 