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James W. Garson [42]James Warfield Garson [1]
  1.  99
    Modal Logic for Philosophers.James W. Garson - 2006 - Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Designed for use by philosophy students, this 2006 book provides an accessible, yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort has been made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams in place of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dictio distinction. Discussion of philosophical issues (...)
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  2. What Logics Mean: From Proof Theory to Model-Theoretic Semantics.James W. Garson - 2013 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    What do the rules of logic say about the meanings of the symbols they govern? In this book, James W. Garson examines the inferential behaviour of logical connectives, whose behaviour is defined by strict rules, and proves definitive results concerning exactly what those rules express about connective truth conditions. He explores the ways in which, depending on circumstances, a system of rules may provide no interpretation of a connective at all, or the interpretation we ordinarily expect for it, or an (...)
     
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  3.  82
    Modal Logic.James W. Garson - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  4. Unifying Quantified Modal Logic.James W. Garson - 2005 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 34 (5-6):621-649.
    Quantified modal logic has reputation for complexity. Completeness results for the various systems appear piecemeal. Different tactics are used for different systems, and success of a given method seems sensitive to many factors, including the specific combination of choices made for the quantifiers, terms, identity, and the strength of the underlying propositional modal logic. The lack of a unified framework in which to view QMLs and their completeness properties puts pressure on those who develop, apply, and teach QML to work (...)
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  5.  97
    Natural Semantics: Why Natural Deduction is Intuitionistic.James W. Garson - 2001 - Theoria 67 (2):114-139.
    In this paper investigates how natural deduction rules define connective meaning by presenting a new method for reading semantical conditions from rules called natural semantics. Natural semantics explains why the natural deduction rules are profoundly intuitionistic. Rules for conjunction, implication, disjunction and equivalence all express intuitionistic rather than classical truth conditions. Furthermore, standard rules for negation violate essential conservation requirements for having a natural semantics. The standard rules simply do not assign a meaning to the negation sign. Intuitionistic negation fares (...)
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  6.  64
    Cognition poised at the edge of chaos: A complex alternative to a symbolic mind.James W. Garson - 1996 - Philosophical Psychology 9 (3):301-22.
    This paper explores a line of argument against the classical paradigm in cognitive science that is based upon properties of non-linear dynamical systems, especially in their chaotic and near-chaotic behavior. Systems of this kind are capable of generating information-rich macro behavior that could be useful to cognition. I argue that a brain operating at the edge of chaos could generate high-complexity cognition in this way. If this hypothesis is correct, then the symbolic processing methodology in cognitive science faces serious obstacles. (...)
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  7.  44
    Syntax in a dynamic brain.James W. Garson - 1997 - Synthese 110 (3):343-55.
    Proponents of the language of thought (LOT) thesis are realists when it comes to syntactically structured representations, and must defend their view against instrumentalists, who would claim that syntactic structures may be useful in describing cognition, but have no more causal powers in governing cognition than do the equations of physics in guiding the planets. This paper explores what it will take to provide an argument for LOT that can defend its conclusion from instrumentalism. I illustrate a difficulty in this (...)
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  8. Expressive Power and Incompleteness of Propositional Logics.James W. Garson - 2010 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 39 (2):159-171.
    Natural deduction systems were motivated by the desire to define the meaning of each connective by specifying how it is introduced and eliminated from inference. In one sense, this attempt fails, for it is well known that propositional logic rules underdetermine the classical truth tables. Natural deduction rules are too weak to enforce the intended readings of the connectives; they allow non-standard models. Two reactions to this phenomenon appear in the literature. One is to try to restore the standard readings, (...)
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  9.  21
    Categorical Semantics.James W. Garson - 1990 - In J. Dunn & A. Gupta (eds.), Truth or Consequences: Essays in Honor of Nuel Belnap. Boston, MA, USA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 155--175.
  10. A New Semantics for Vagueness.Joshua D. K. Brown & James W. Garson - 2017 - Erkenntnis 82 (1):65-85.
    Intuitively, vagueness involves some sort of indeterminacy: if Plato is a borderline case of baldness, then there is no fact of the matter about whether or not he’s bald—he’s neither bald nor not bald. The leading formal treatments of such indeterminacy—three valued logic, supervaluationism, etc.—either fail to validate the classical theorems, or require that various classically valid inference rules be restricted. Here we show how a fully classical, yet indeterminist account of vagueness can be given within natural semantics, an alternative (...)
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  11. Cognition without classical architecture.James W. Garson - 1994 - Synthese 100 (2):291-306.
    Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988) argue that any successful model of cognition must use classical architecture; it must depend upon rule-based processing sensitive to constituent structure. This claim is central to their defense of classical AI against the recent enthusiasm for connectionism. Connectionist nets, they contend, may serve as theories of the implementation of cognition, but never as proper theories of psychology. Connectionist models are doomed to describing the brain at the wrong level, leaving the classical view to account for the (...)
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  12. (Dis)solving the binding problem.James W. Garson - 2001 - Philosophical Psychology 14 (4):381 – 392.
    The binding problem is to explain how information processed by different sensory systems is brought together to unify perception. The problem has two sides. First, we want to explain phenomenal binding: the fact that we experience a single world rather than separate perceptual fields for each sensory modality. Second, we must solve a functional problem: to explain how a neural net like the brain links instances to types. I argue that phenomenal binding and functional binding require very different treatments. The (...)
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  13.  45
    Indefinite topological logic.James W. Garson - 1973 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 2 (1):102 - 118.
  14.  56
    No representations without rules: The prospects for a compromise between paradigms in cognitive science.James W. Garson - 1994 - Mind and Language 9 (1):25-37.
  15. Chaos and free will.James W. Garson - 1995 - Philosophical Psychology 8 (4):365-74.
    This paper explores the possibility that chaos theory might be helpful in explaining free will. I will argue that chaos has little to offer if we construe its role as to resolve the apparent conflict between determinism and freedom. However, I contend that the fundamental problem of freedom is to find a way to preserve intuitions about rational action in a physical brain. New work on dynamic computation provides a framework for viewing free choice as a process that is sensitive (...)
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  16.  5
    Logics for Rigidity.James W. Garson - 2024 - In Yale Weiss & Romina Birman (eds.), Saul Kripke on Modal Logic. Cham: Springer. pp. 193-208.
    Kripke is famous for holding that when the identity sign is flanked by proper names or natural kind terms, then the result is necessary if true. His conclusion is supported by the idea that proper names and natural kinds terms are rigid designators. To explore the cogency of Kripke’s position, this paper takes on two interlocking projects in the formulation of the semantics for quantified modal logic (QML). Project 1. Define ‘rigidity’ in a way that is faithful to Kripke’s intentions, (...)
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  17. Completeness of some quantified modal logics.James W. Garson - 1978 - Logique Et Analyse 21 (82):153.
     
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  18.  24
    The completeness of an intensional logic: definite topological logic.James W. Garson - 1973 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 14 (2):175-184.
  19.  47
    A Note on Chronological Logic.Nicholas Rescher & James W. Garson - 1967 - Theoria 33 (1):39-44.
  20.  3
    Modal logic for philosophers.James W. Garson - 2013 - New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
  21.  27
    A commentary on "cortical activity and the explanatory gap".James W. Garson - 1998 - Consciousness and Cognition 7 (2):169-172.
  22.  61
    Chaotic emergence and the language of thought.James W. Garson - 1998 - Philosophical Psychology 11 (3):303-315.
    The purpose of this paper is to explore the merits of the idea that dynamical systems theory (also known as chaos theory) provides a model of the mind that can vindicate the language of thought (LOT). I investigate the nature of emergent structure in dynamical systems to assess its compatibility with causally efficacious syntactic structure in the brain. I will argue that anyone who is committed to the idea that the brain's functioning depends on emergent features of dynamical systems should (...)
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  23.  41
    Computer-Assisted Instruction in Logic.James W. Garson & Paul Mellema - 1980 - Teaching Philosophy 3 (4):453-478.
  24. Evolution, consciousness, and the language of thought.James W. Garson - 2002 - In James H. Fetzer (ed.), Consciousness Evolving. John Benjamins.
  25. Free topological logic.James W. Garson - 1979 - Logique Et Analyse 22 (88):453.
     
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  26.  67
    Here and Now.James W. Garson - 1969 - The Monist 53 (3):469-477.
    One of the most puzzling things about time is that peculiar experience we all have of the present forever “moving” from the past towards the future. What is now future becomes progressively closer to the present as time goes on, until it becomes present, and finally slips away into the past. Philosophers of time seem to divide themselves into two main camps concerning the ontological status of these phenomena. The objectivist insists that this temporal “becoming” is an objective feature of (...)
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  27. (1 other version)Leonard Angel, How to Build a Conscious Machine Reviewed by.James W. Garson - 1991 - Philosophy in Review 11 (1):8-10.
     
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  28.  19
    Mice in mirrored mazes and the mind.James W. Garson - 1993 - Philosophical Psychology 6 (2):123-34.
    The computational theory of cognition (CTC) holds that the mind is akin to computer software. This article aims to show that CTC is incorrect because it is not able to distinguish the ability to solve a maze from the ability to solve its mirror image. CTC cannot do so because it only individuates brain states up to isomorphism. It is shown that a finer individuation that would distinguish left-handed from right-handed abilities is not compatible with CTC. The view is explored (...)
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  29.  24
    Must we solve the binding problem in neural hardware?James W. Garson - 1993 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (3):459-460.
  30.  68
    Simulation and connectionism: What is the connection?James W. Garson - 2003 - Philosophical Psychology 16 (4):499-515.
    Simulation has emerged as an increasingly popular account of folk psychological (FP) talents at mind-reading: predicting and explaining human mental states. Where its rival (the theory-theory) postulates that these abilities are explained by mastery of laws describing the connections between beliefs, desires, and action, simulation theory proposes that we mind-read by "putting ourselves in another's shoes." This paper concerns connectionist architecture and the debate between simulation theory (ST) and the theory-theory (TT). It is only natural to associate TT with classical (...)
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  31.  45
    The substitution interpretation in topological logic.James W. Garson - 1974 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 3 (1/2):109 - 132.
  32.  35
    The unaxiomatizability of a quantified intensional logic.James W. Garson - 1980 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 9 (1):59 - 72.
  33.  33
    What connectionists cannot do: The threat to classical AI.James W. Garson - 1991 - In Terence E. Horgan & John L. Tienson (eds.), Connectionism and the Philosophy of Mind. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 113--142.
  34.  36
    Why dynamical implementation matters.James W. Garson - 1998 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (5):641-642.
    Another objection to the dynamical hypothesis is explored. To resolve it completely, one must focus more directly on an area not emphasized in van Gelder's discussion: the contributions of dynamical systems theory to understanding how cognition is neutrally implemented.
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  35.  26
    The substitution interpretation and the expressive power of intensional logics.James W. Garson - 1979 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 20 (4):858-864.
  36.  22
    Bressan Aldo. Metodo di assiomatizzazione in senso stretto della tneccanica classica. Applicazione di esso ad alcuni problemi di assiomatizzazione non ancora completamente risolti. Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico della Universita di Padova, vol. 32 , pp. 55–212. [REVIEW]James W. Garson - 1973 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 38 (1):144-145.
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  37.  24
    Imperatives and their Logics. [REVIEW]James W. Garson - 1978 - New Scholasticism 52 (4):595-598.
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  38.  44
    Investigations in Modal and Tense Logics with Applications to Problems in Philosophy and Linguistics. [REVIEW]James W. Garson - 1978 - International Studies in Philosophy 10:190-192.
  39.  72
    Review of Ernest Lepore, Kirk Ludwig, Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language, and Reality[REVIEW]James W. Garson - 2006 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (2).
    Over the last forty years, Donald Davidson has been one of the most influential, but least accessible voices in philosophy. There are several reasons why it is hard to come to grips with his work. First, his language is dense, even by the standards of analytic philosophy; while at the same time his thought is highly organic, so that it is difficult to make sense of one idea without an understanding of his whole program. Davidson never attempted to write a (...)
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  40.  17
    (1 other version)Review: Stuart M. Shieber, An Introduction to Unification-Based Approaches to Grammar. [REVIEW]James W. Garson - 1987 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 52 (4):1052-1054.
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