The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to introduce the framework of update semantics and to explain what kind of semantic phenomena may successfully be analysed in it: (ii) to give a detailed analysis of one such phenomenon: default reasoning.

This paper provides an update semantics for counterfactual conditionals. It does so by giving a dynamic twist to the ‘Premise Semantics’ for counterfactuals developed in Veltman (1976) and Kratzer (1981). It also offers an alternative solution to the problems with naive Premise Semantics discussed by Angelika Kratzer in ‘Lumps of Thought’ (Kratzer, 1989). Such an alternative is called for given the triviality results presented in Kanazawa et al. (2005, this issue).

In this paper the system IL for relative interpretability is studied.

Of course, although this view on meaning was the prevailing one for almost a century, many of the people who initiated the enterprise of logical semantics, including people like Frege and Wittgenstein, had an open eye for all that it did not catch. However, the logical means which Frege, Wittgenstein, Russell, and the generation that succeeded them, had at their disposal were those of classical mathematical logic and set-theory, and these indeed are not very suited for an analysis of other (...) aspects of meaning than those which the slogan covers. A real change in view then had to await the emergence of other concepts, which in due course became available mainly under the influence of developments in computer science and cognate disciplines such as artificial intelligence. And this is one of the reasons why it took almost a century before any serious and successful challenge of the view that meaning equals truthconditions from within logical semantics could emerge. (shrink)

Psychological experirnents have repeatedly shown that in judging the likelihood of uncertain events people do not follow the principles of probability theory. A notorious example is given by the so called conjunction fallacy. In this paper I argue that this fallacy is not really a fallacy when it is analysed in the light of a dynamic theory of default reasoning. The question that immediately rises is whether the fact that this theory conforms better to the way people actually think provides (...) a reason to prefer it to probability theory. (shrink)

Discussions often end before the issues that started them have been resolved. For example, in the late sixties and early seventies, a hot topic in philosophical logic was the development of an adequate semantics for the language of modal predicate logic. However, the result of this discussion was not one single system that met with general agreement, but a collection of alternative systems, each defended most ably by its proponents.

Voorzover het maken van kopieën uit deze uitgave is toegestaan op grond van artikel 16B Auteurswet 1912 j0 het Besluit van 20 juni 1974, St.b. 351, zoals gewijzigd bij het Besluit van 23 augustus 1985, St.b. 471 en artikel 17 Auteurswet 1912, dient men de daarvoor wettelijk verschuldigde vergoedingen te voldoen aan de Stichting Reprorecht (Postbus 882, 1180 AW Amstelveen). Voor het overnemen van gedeelte(n) uit deze uitgave in bloemlezingen, readers en andere compilatiewerken (artikel 16 Auteurswet 1912) dient men zich (...) tot de uitgever te wenden. (shrink)

The core language can be extended by defining additional logical constants. E.g., we can add ‘→’ (implication), ‘∨’ (disjunction), and ‘∀x’ (universal quantifiers). The choice of logical primitives is not as optional in DPL as it is in standard predicate logic.

This paper contains a completeness proof for the system ILW, a rather bewildering axiom system belonging to the family of interpretability logics. We have treasured this little proof for a considerable time, keeping it just for ourselves. Johan’s ftieth birthday appears to be the right occasion to get it out of our wine cellar.

The aim of this paper is to argue that update semantics is a natural framework for contextually restricted quantification, and to illustrate its use in the analysis of anaphoric definite descriptions and certain other anaphoric terms.

Update semantics1 embodies a radical view on the relation between context and interpretation. The meaning of a sentence is identified with its context change potential, where contexts are identified with information states. The recursive definition of semantic interpretation is stated in terms of a process of updating an information state with a sentence. Meanings of sentences, then, are update functions. In general, these are partial functions, since the possibility to update with a sentence may depend on the fulfillment of certain (...) constraints (presuppositions, the presence of antecedents for anaphora, etc.). It is important to note that context and interpretation are interdependent: the interpretation process depends on the context, `. (shrink)

a la base de cet article a ´ et´ e pr´ esent´ ee ` a la cinqui` eme ‘Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory’ qui s’est tenue ` a Austin, Texas, en F´ evrier 1995, et va paraˆıtre dans les actes de celle-ci. Nous aimerions remercier les participants `.

Our main concern in this paper is the semantics of predicates of personal taste. However, in order to see these predicates in the right perspective, we had to broaden the scope to the wider class of relative gradable adjectives. We present an analysis of the meaning of these adjectives in the framework of update semantics. In this framework the meaning of a sentence is not identified with its truth conditions, but with its impact on people’s intentional states. In this respect, (...) an important characteristic of relative gradable adjectives is the interplay between their evaluative features and people’s expectations. The dynamic set-up also makes it possible to model the interpretation of a relative gradable adjective without supposing that the context always supplies a ‘cut-off’ point determining its application, and to deal in a pragmatic way with situations in which the Sorites paradox arises. (shrink)

Some Generalizations of Categorical Grammars Emmon Bach 0. INTRODUCTION The last decade of work in syntax has seen a marked demotion in the importance of ...

This first chapter contains an introduction to modal logic. In section 1.1 the syntactic side of the matter is discussed, and in section 1.2 the subject is approached from a semantic point of view.

This paper is on the update semantics for might of Veltman. Threeconsequence relations are introduced and studied in an abstract setting.Next we present sequent-style systems for each of the consequence relations.We show the logics to be complete and decidable. The paper ends with asyntactic cut elimination result.

This paper is on the update semantics for might of Veltman. Threeconsequence relations are introduced and studied in an abstract setting.Next we present sequent-style systems for each of the consequence relations.We show the logics to be complete and decidable. The paper ends with asyntactic cut elimination result.

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this "beautiful question." With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek's groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe (...) embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry--harmony, balance, proportion--and economy. There are other meanings of "beauty," but this is the deep logic of the universe--and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. As he reveals here, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that "all things are number," to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. Yes: the world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.--From publisher description. (shrink)

One of our great contemporary scientists presents ten insights that illuminate what every thinking person needs to know about what the world is and how it works. Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek's Fundamentals is built around a simple but profound idea: the models of the world we construct as children are practical and adequate for everyday life, but they do not bring in the surprising and mind-expanding revelations of modern science. To do that, we must look at the world (...) anew, combining clear thinking with an openness to wonder. This "born again" world is in many ways larger, fuller, and much stranger than it appears. Through an exploration of space, time, matter, and ideas--and equipped with facts, questions, and brilliant speculations--Wilczek guides us through the past, present, and future of fundamental science. Readers will emerge with an expanded vision of our universe. Author Bio: Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a graduate student. He was among the earliest MacArthur fellows, and has won many awards both for his scientific work and his writing. He is the author of A Beautiful Question, The Lightness of Being, Fantastic Realities, Longing for the Harmonies, and hundreds of articles in leading scientific journals. His "Wilczek's Universe" column appears regularly in the Wall Street Journal. Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founding director of the T. D. Lee Institute and chief scientist at the Wilczek Quantum Center in Shanghai, China, and a distinguished professor at Arizona State University and Stockholm University. (shrink)

Die {raquo}Revolution der Denkart{laquo} hat nicht nur den Anlauf genommen, welchem sie ihren Namen verdankt.! Gezahlt werden noch weitere Umstellungen der Theorie bildung als bloG die kopernikanische Kants. Hier interessieren gleich zwei. Die eine liefert den Gegenstand, die entsprechende, RevolutionPhanomenologie.

**** Reprint of the Indiana U. Press edition of 1966--which is cited in BCL3. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Although declarations of the death of God seem to be provocations announcing the end of the era of theology, this announcement is actually central to the Christian revelation in its most classic forms, as well as to its reworkings in contemporary religious thought. Indeed provocative new possibilities for thinking theologically open up precisely in the wake of the death of God. Already Hegel envisaged a revolutionary new realization of divinity emerging in and with the secular world through its establishment of (...) a total order of immanence. However, in postmodern times this comprehensive order aspired to by modern secularism implodes or cracks open towards the wholly Other. A hitherto repressed demand for the absolute difference of the religious, or for “transcendence”, returns with a vengeance. This difference is what could not be stated in terms of the Hegelian System, for reasons that poststructuralist writers particularly have insisted on: all representations of God are indeed dead. Yet this does not mean that they cannot still be powerful, but only that they cannot assign God any stable identity. Nietzsche’s sense of foreboding concerning the death of God is coupled with his intimations of the demise of representation and “grammar” as epistemologically bankrupt, but also with his vision of a positive potential for creating value in the wake of this collapse of all linguistically articulated culture. He points the way towards the emergence of a post-secular religious thinking of what exceeds thought and representation. (shrink)

Der Übergang vom Verhältnisbewußtsein zum Selbstbewußtsein kann unmöglich nur vom Verhältnisbewußtsein aus gedacht werden, weil wir uns eine Welt, in der das Bewubtsein unserer selbst verteilt ist auf die Dimensionen der Handlung vor deren Zentrierung in uns, gar nicht vorstellen können. Jedes Tableau der Handlungsmöglichkeiten, so abstrakt es auch abgefaßt sein mag, ist gebunden an Vorstellungen möglicher Handlungssubjekte, denen wir Handlungsmöglichkeiten zuschreiben. Handlungstheorie ist daher notwendig Reflexion unserer Praxis, in der wir uns selbst als Selbstbewußtsein erfahren, das seinem Verhältnisbewubtsein enthoben (...) ist, ohne dieses dadurch selbst schon aufzuheben zu können. Daß uns Freiheit im Handeln unaufhebbar prekär und problematisch bleiben mub, ist die Grundvoraussetzung dafür, dab wir Handlungstheorien historisch und bereichsbezogen ständig neu entwerfen müssen. Das Verhältnis von Handlungsphilosophie zu Handlungstheorien kann daher so gefaßt werden, daß Handlungsphilosophie die Grundbegrifflichkeit in kritischer Absicht bereitstellt, die den bereichsorientierten, mehr oder weniger deskriptiven Handlungstheorien abgehen muß. Dazu muß die ontologische Differenz von Handlung und Interpretation methodologisch ernst genommen werden. Die radikale Andersheit der hier zu begründenden Konzeption liegt vor allem in der Ansicht, daß Handlungen nicht als isolierbare Ereignis-Entitäten aufgefaßt werden können, die gegenüber der »Welt der Tatsachen des Bewußtseins« eine kausale, d.h. von der Welt des Bewußtseins abgetrennte Rolle übernehmen. (shrink)

In light of the impact of work on human flourishing, an intractable problem for political theorists concerns the distribution of meaningful work in a community of moral equals. This article reviews a number of partial solutions that a well-ordered society could draw upon to provide equality of opportunity for eudemonistically meaningful work and to minimize the impact of bad work upon those who perform it. Even in view of these solutions, however, it is not likely that opportunities for meaningful work (...) can be guaranteed for all people, which carries an implication that, even in well-ordered societies, it is likely that not all people will flourish. The author argues that the limitedness of meaningful work is not a reason to reject the normative claim that meaningful work is integral in flourishing, nor is it a reason against working to transform social and political institutions to increase opportunities for meaningful work. (shrink)

Comparing the typologies of human activities developed by Beauvoir and Arendt, I argue that these philosophers share the same concept of labor as well as a similar insight that labor cannot provide a justification or evaluative measure for human life. But Beauvoir and Arendt think differently about work (as contrasted with labor), and Arendt alone illuminates the inability of constructive work to provide non-utilitarian value for human existence. Beauvoir, on the other hand, exceeds Arendt in examining the ethical implications of (...) our existential need for a plurality of free peers in a public realm. (shrink)

This book develops the view that meaningful work is central in human flourishing. The author defends a pluralistic account of what makes work meaningful, arguing that work can be meaningful in virtue of developing capabilities, supporting virtues, providing a purpose, or integrating elements of a worker's life.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Some properties are causally relevant for a certain effect, others are not. In this paper we describe a problem for our understanding of this notion and then offer a solution in terms of the notion of a program explanation.

In this paper, I consider the relationship between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, both of which are well-known accounts of the nature of scientific inference. In Sect. 2, I give a brief overview of Bayesianism and IBE. In Sect. 3, I argue that IBE in its most prominently defended forms is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism because not all of the items that feature on popular lists of “explanatory virtues”—by means of which IBE ranks competing explanations—have confirmational import. (...) Rather, some of the items that feature on these lists are “informational virtues”—properties that do not make a hypothesis \ more probable than some competitor \ given evidence E, but that, roughly-speaking, give that hypothesis greater informative content. In Sect. 4, I consider as a response to my argument a recent version of compatibilism which argues that IBE can provide further normative constraints on the objectively correct probability function. I argue that this response does not succeed, owing to the difficulty of defending with any generality such further normative constraints. Lastly, in Sect. 5, I propose that IBE should be regarded, not as a theory of scientific inference, but rather as a theory of when we ought to “accept” H, where the acceptability of H is fixed by the goals of science and concerns whether H is worthy of commitment as research program. In this way, IBE and Bayesianism, as I will show, can be made compatible, and thus the Bayesian and the proponent of IBE can be friends. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey was the greatest of the remarkable generation of Cambridge philosophers and logicians which included G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Maynard Keynes. Before his tragically early death in 1930 at the age of twenty-six, he had done seminal work in mathematics and economics as well as in logic and philosophy. This volume, with a new and extensive introduction by D. H. Mellor, contains all Ramsey's previously published writings on philosophy and the foundations of mathematics. The (...) latter gives the definitive form and defence of the reduction of mathematics to logic undertaken in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica; the former includes the most profound and original studies of universals, truth, meaning, probability, knowledge, law and causation, all of which are still constantly referred to, and still essential reading for all serious students of these subjects. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of the radical disagreement over the adequacy of string theory. The prominence of string theory despite its notorious lack of empirical support is sometimes explained as a troubling case of science gone awry, driven largely by sociological mechanisms such as groupthink (e.g. Smolin 2006). Others, such as Dawid (2013), explain the controversy by positing a methodological revolution of sorts, according to which string theorists have quietly turned to nonempirical methods of theory assessment given (...) the technological inability to directly test the theory. The appropriate response, according to Dawid, is to acknowledge this development and widen the canons of acceptable scientific methods. As I’ll argue, however, the current situation in fundamental physics does not require either of these responses. Rather, as I’ll suggest, much of the controversy stems from a failure to properly distinguish the “context of justification” from the “context of pursuit”. Both those who accuse string theorists of betraying the scientific method and those who advocate an enlarged conception of scientific methodology objectionably conflate epistemic justification with judgements of pursuit-worthiness. Once we get clear about this distinction and about the different norms governing the two contexts, the current situation in fundamental physics becomes much less puzzling. After defending this diagnosis of the controversy, I’ll show how the argument patterns that have been posited by Dawid as constituting an emergent methodological revolution in science are better off if reworked as arguments belonging to the context of pursuit. (shrink)

This collection of new essays examines philosophical issues at the intersection of feminism and autonomy studies. Are autonomy and independence useful goals for women and subordinate persons? Is autonomy possible in contexts of social subordination? Is the pursuit of desires that issue from patriarchal norms consistent with autonomous agency? How do emotions and caring relate to autonomous deliberation? Contributors to this collection answer these questions and others, advancing central debates in autonomy theory by examining basic components, normative commitments, and applications (...) of conceptions of autonomy. Several chapters look at the conditions necessary for autonomous agency and at the role that values and norms -- such as independence, equality, inclusivity, self-respect, care and femininity -- play in feminist theories of autonomy. Whereas some contributing authors focus on dimensions of autonomy that are internal to the mind -- such as deliberative reflection, desires, cares, emotions, self-identities and feelings of self-worth -- several authors address social conditions and practices that support or stifle autonomous agency, often answering questions of practical import. These include such questions as: What type of gender socialization best supports autonomous agency and feminist goals? When does adapting to severely oppressive circumstances, such as those in human trafficking, turn into a loss of autonomy? How are ideals of autonomy affected by capitalism? and How do conceptions of autonomy inform issues in bioethics, such as end-of-life decisions, or rights to bodily self-determination? (shrink)

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

In the context of discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research, behavioral scientists widely accept a convention for false positive (α) and false negative error rates (β) proposed by Jacob Cohen, who deemed the general relative seriousness of the antecedently accepted α = 0.05 to be matched by β = 0.20. Cohen’s convention not only ignores contexts of hypothesis testing where the more serious error is the β-error. Cohen’s convention also implies for discovery-oriented hypothesis testing research that a statistically significant observed effect is (...) four times more probable to be a mistaken discovery than for a statistically significant true observed effect to be independently replicable. In the long run, Cohen’s convention thus is epistemically harmful to the development of a progressive science of human behavior, making its acceptance crucial in explaining the replication crisis in behavioral science. The balance between α- and β-errors generally ought to be struck using both epistemic and practical considerations. Yet epistemic considerations alone imply that making a genuine contribution to the body of knowledge in behavioral science requires error rates that are not only small but also symmetrical. (shrink)