The book presents Transparent Intensional Logic in several of its latest realisations in such a way that it makes a case for the system and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to a wide range of cases.

I present an analysis according to which the current state of the definition of substitution leads to a contradiction in the system of Transparent Intensional Logic. I entail the contradiction using only the basic definitions of TIL and standard results. I then analyse the roots of the contradiction and motivate the path I take in resolving the contradiction. I provide a new amended definition of collision-less substitution which blocks the contradiction in a non-ad hoc way. I elaborate on the consequences (...) of the amended definition, namely the invalidity of the Church-Rosser theorem. I present a counterexample to the validity of the theorem in TIL with an amended definition of substitution. (shrink)

This paper deals with generalisations of modally based criteria for determining whether a given property is essential to an individual to the case of generic essences. These criteria usually presuppose extensionally individuated properties. The limitations of their generalisations are demonstrated using the case of the necessarily empty individual property and the necessarily empty individual office. I do not present a novel stance on the discussion of individual essences. The novelty of this paper lies in its claim that none of these (...) criteria can be generalised to generic essences. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate type theories from several perspectives. First, I present and elaborate the philosophical and technical motivations for these theories. I then offer a formal analysis of various TTs, focusing on the cardinality of the set of types contained in each. I argue that these TTs can be divided into four formal categories, which are derived from the cardinality of the set of their basic elementary types and the finiteness of the lengths of their molecular types. The (...) paper provides proofs of the cardinality of the universe of types for each of the specified theories. (shrink)

In this paper, I present, generalize and develop the extensionalist theory of rigidity for general terms in light of criteria commonly applied to theories of general term rigidity. According to the theory, a general term is rigid if its extension is constant across all possible worlds. This position has been widely dismissed because it conflicts with the seemingly straightforward idea that natural kind terms have varying extensions from world to world. This criticism holds only to the extent that natural kind (...) terms are indeed rigid. If it turns out that we need not view them as rigid, then the extensionalist theory fares well when compared with other theoretical requirements. (shrink)

This paper presents an original semantic theory of proper names that aims to cover both non-empty and empty proper names. According to the theory, proper names have simple assignable hyperintensions as their content. This content provides the referent (if there is one) for which the proper name stands. The paper further describes the role of the proposed content of (empty) proper names within the compositional semantics of problematic sentences. I stress the difference between the content of a sentence (i.e. its (...) hyperintension) and the proposition (i.e. a mapping from possible worlds to truth values) denoted by that sentence. (shrink)

This paper investigates the truth values of modal sentences within fictional discourse. I investigate the consequences of (im)possible worlds–based theories of truth in fiction for the truth, in fiction, of (explicit) modal sentences. I elaborate on the consequences of explicit reliable (modal) sentences within the truth-in-fiction operators if we embed the normal modal logics. I prove that the current main possible worlds theories of truth-in-fiction make explicit reliable sentences within fiction truth-value equivalent to their possibility. This has non-intuitive consequences if (...) we employ normal modal logics. These consequences are shown to be contradictory. The main argument of the paper thus concerns the inconsistency of embedding the systems of normal modal logics within the truth-in-fiction operators provided in the discussion. (shrink)

This paper deals with generalisations of modally based criteria for determining whether a given property is essential to an individual to the case of generic essences. These criteria usually presuppose extensionally individuated properties. The limitations of their generalisations are demonstrated using the case of the necessarily empty individual property and the necessarily empty individual office. I do not present a novel stance on the discussion of individual essences. The novelty of this paper lies in its claim that none of these (...) criteria can be generalised to generic essences. (shrink)

This paper presents several important results for Transparent Intensional Logic (TIL). The conversions that are standardly taken to be valid – namely restricted β-conversion by name and β-reduction by value – are shown to be invalid. The core principle on which their validity is based – the so-called Compensation Principle – is also shown to be invalid. Further, the paper demonstrates the flaws of the proof of the Compensation Principle.

This paper presents several important results for Transparent Intensional Logic. The conversions that are standardly taken to be valid – namely restricted β-conversion by name and β-reduction...

The paper deals with a problem in formal theory of quan tification. Firstly, by way of examples, I introduce important parts of the theory. Using type analysis, I present a problem which stems from inadequacy of a rule concerning semantic interpretation of sentences involving n-ary predicates and quantifiers. I propose four distinct principles for specific types of sentences. They are generalized into a general semantic rule, which is, finally, applied to particular examples.

This paper formulates a new argument against the received view in the philosophy of poetry. The received view consists of three tenets: the unity of poetic form and poetic content; the impossibility of paraphrasing and translating poetry; and the hyperintensionality of poetry. We will explore the same detour via direct quotation that has been used by proponents of the received view. We will argue that the hyperintensionality and unity of quotation do not guarantee its untranslatability, and thus that the inference (...) of untranslatability from hyperintensionality and unity is not universally valid. As a consequence, the claim that poetry cannot be translated is left without much support, since it relies on the same kind of inference. However, this does not mean that poetry is translatable; it means only that if it is not translatable, this is due to something other than the combination of hyperintensionality and unity. (shrink)

The Destructions of the Modes of Signifying (henceforth: dms) is an anonymous fourteenth-century polemic against modist speculative grammar (grammatica speculativa). Wielding Ockhamist logic and metaphysics, the dms repeatedly attacks the very root of modism: the claim that the grammatical features of language are grounded in the metaphysical properties of the world. I call this the Modist Correspondence Thesis (henceforth: mct). In its most general form, mct says that every mode of signifying exhibited by an utterance corresponds to a mode of (...) being exhibited by a thing. The Emptiness Argument of the dms tries to show that mct fails to accommodate certain special cases, such as privative, fictitious, and divine utterances, like ‘blindness’ (caecitas), ‘chimera’ (chimaera), and ‘deity’ (deitas). The modist Thomas of Erfurt directly addresses the Emptiness Argument, anticipating the anti-modist criticisms present in the dms. In doing so, he points the way to alternative formulations of mct that are immune to those criticisms. (shrink)

The concept of cuteness, which can evoke positive emotions in people, is an essential aspect to consider in artificial intelligence design. This study aimed to investigate whether the use of baby schema designed avatars in computer-mediated communication elicits higher positive attitudes than neutral avatars and whether the ethnicity of the cute avatars influences individuals' perceived level of cuteness. 485 participants from Israel and Japan viewed six avatar images, including three baby schema avatars of different visual characteristics and ethnicities (Caucasian, Asian, (...) and Black) and three neutral avatars. Participants rated their attitudes on each avatar, and the results revealed that the baby schema designed avatars were rated cuter, more likable, approachable, and pleasant than the neutral mature avatars. Cultural differences were also evident, as the Caucasian baby schema avatar was rated cuter among Japanese participants, while the Asian and Black baby schema avatars were rated cuter among Israeli respondents. The study findings suggest that cute avatar design can serve as a powerful tool for promoting positive interactions in computer-mediated communication, especially in cultures that highly value cuteness, such as Japan. However, the subjective nature of cuteness is evident as attitudes toward cuteness varied significantly across cultures and individuals. This research highlights the significance of cultural diversity and emphasizes the importance of considering cuteness as a crucial aspect of artificial intelligence design, particularly when creating avatars intended to elicit positive emotions from users. Therefore, designers should be mindful of potential cultural and individual differences in the perception of cuteness while developing avatars for various applications. (shrink)

To model behavioral and neural correlates of language comprehension in naturalistic environments, researchers have turned to broad‐coverage tools from natural‐language processing and machine learning. Where syntactic structure is explicitly modeled, prior work has relied predominantly on context‐free grammars (CFGs), yet such formalisms are not sufficiently expressive for human languages. Combinatory categorial grammars (CCGs) are sufficiently expressive directly compositional models of grammar with flexible constituency that affords incremental interpretation. In this work, we evaluate whether a more expressive CCG provides a better (...) model than a CFG for human neural signals collected with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants listen to an audiobook story. We further test between variants of CCG that differ in how they handle optional adjuncts. These evaluations are carried out against a baseline that includes estimates of next‐word predictability from a transformer neural network language model. Such a comparison reveals unique contributions of CCG structure‐building predominantly in the left posterior temporal lobe: CCG‐derived measures offer a superior fit to neural signals compared to those derived from a CFG. These effects are spatially distinct from bilateral superior temporal effects that are unique to predictability. Neural effects for structure‐building are thus separable from predictability during naturalistic listening, and those effects are best characterized by a grammar whose expressive power is motivated on independent linguistic grounds. (shrink)

The compelling, widely-accepted Satisfaction-is-Truth Principle says that if S wants p, then S has a desire that's satisfied in exactly the worlds where p is true. We reject the Principle; an agent may want p without having a desire that's satisfied when p obtains in any old way. Fara (2013) and Lycan (2012, ms) also reject the Principle, but they rely on contested intuitions about when agents get what they want. We instead appeal to—and shed new light on—the dispositional role (...) of desire. (shrink)

"A CRC title, part of the Taylor & Francis imprint, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group, the academic division of T&F Informa plc.".

At the basis of tireless efforts to explain the nature of law lies the question of how judges should decide cases. Therefrom arises a need for a theory that would clarify the role of the courts and, moreover, provide guidance to them on reaching judgments. The history of legal theory abounds with various attempts to offer a generally acceptable answer to the question raised. The fervor of debate and the perpetual dissatisfaction with offered solutions prompted the thought of untamable arbitrariness (...) of judges. In the contemporary debate the significance of argumentation is particularly emphasized as a link of the court procedure which provides reasonableness and therewith justification and persuasiveness of the decision. Before going into the matter, I will indicate in broad strokes which areas of legal theory do argumentation and interpretation belong to. The purpose of setting a conceptual framework is to prevent losing sight of the whole as well as to limit the scope of discourse to a certain section of legal issues. The second part deals with the concept of argumentation in general and some specific features of the argumentation in law. The third part examines the role of legal interpretation and draws a clear distinction between the interpretation as a process and the interpretation as a result. At the end of the discussion I shall put forward a thesis that the interpretation as a process is argumentation, while the interpretation as a result is an argument in the justification of judgment. nema. (shrink)

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

Very often moral disagreements can be resolved by appealing to factual considerations because in these cases the parties to the dispute agree as to which factual considerations are relevant. They agree, that is, with respect to their basic moral standards. Hence, when their disagreement about the non-moral facts is resolved, so is their moral disagreement. But sometimes moral disagreement persists in spite of agreement on factual considerations. When this happens, and when neither party is guilty of illogical thinking, we have (...) a case of moral deadlock. (shrink)

Understanding natural phenomena is an important aim of science. Since the turn of the millennium the notion of scientific understanding has been a hot topic of debate in the philosophy of science. A bone of contention in this debate is the role of truth and representational accuracy in scientific understanding. So-called factivists and non-factivists disagree about the extent to which the theories and models that are used to achieve understanding must be true or accurate. In this paper we address this (...) issue by examining a case from the practice of synthetic chemistry. We investigate how understanding is obtained in this field by means of an in-depth analysis of the famous synthesis of periplanone B by W. Clark Still. It turns out that highly idealized models—that are representationally inaccurate and sometimes even inconsistent—and qualitative concepts are essential for understanding the synthetic pathway and accordingly for achieving the synthesis. We compare the results of our case study to various factivist and non-factivist accounts of how idealizations may contribute to scientific understanding and conclude that non-factivism offers a more plausible interpretation of the practice of synthetic chemistry. Moreover, our case study supports a central thesis of the non-factivist theory of scientific understanding developed by De Regt, namely that scientific understanding requires intelligibility rather than representational accuracy, and that idealization is one way to enhance intelligibility. (shrink)

The article provides a critical review of the books Rijec je o slici by Jagor Bucan and Slika i rec by the Serbian Society for Aesthetics. From the titles it is already evident that they share the same topic. The paper points out the similarities between the two texts on both what is present and what is absent in them, which also seems important for understanding the theoretical problems they deal with.

This is a companion to a paper by the authors entitled “Gödel’s natural deduction,” which presented and made comments about the natural deduction system in Gödel’s unpublished notes for the elementary logic course he gave at the University of Notre Dame in 1939. In that earlier paper, which was itself a companion to a paper that examined the links between some philosophical views ascribed to Gödel and general proof theory, one can find a brief summary of Gödel’s notes for the (...) Notre Dame course. In order to put the earlier paper in proper perspective, a more complete summary of these interesting notes, with comments concerning them, is given here. (shrink)

By and large, contemporary news stories are stories about a particular nation, told to an audience that is seen and addressed in national terms. However, the understanding of the exact ways in which national imagination becomes engrained in the narrative conventions of news reporting is still rather limited, in particular when it comes to audiovisual genres. This article aims to fill a part of this blank by examining the links between national imagination and the narrative conventions of television news. Building (...) on existing debates about different modes of news reporting, the article distinguishes two distinct sets of narrative conventions at work in television news: one typically found in routine reporting, the other characteristic of crisis and celebratory reporting. It is argued that each of these two sets of conventions is tied to a different form of nationalism, and normally arises in a different political climate. Links between national imagination and narrative conventions vary accordingly. To demonstrate this, the article provides a comparative analysis of narrative structures in selected samples of television news bulletins broadcast in the early 1990s in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The concluding section reflects on the external validity of the chosen case study and surveys supportive evidence from four other relevant cases, drawn from the UK and Israel. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is Charles Morris’ semiotic theory that has as one of its major projects the unification of all sciences of signs. However, since the above project has proven to be unsuccessful, we will try to examine here the reasons that led to this. Accordingly, we will argue that to transcend the particularities of individual disciplines that he wanted to unify, Morris had to make certain ontological assumptions, instead of theoretical and methodological ones, that they could share. (...) However, because the 'sign' as an ontological category could in our view only be established if we follow the principles of the pragmatic philosophical tradition, we will try to show that the reasons for this failure should be primarily sought in different effects that consistent application of the pragmatic principles has in each of them (primarily in linguistics and the philosophy of language). On the other hand, this should enable us to draw several important conclusions regarding Morris’ project: namely, that his failure does not have to mean giving up semiotics as a potentially key discipline in approaching some fundamental philosophical problems, but also that it would demand return to the original semiotics developed in Peirce’s works. (shrink)

This paper deals with Schaffer’s distinction between metaphysical structures, as well as his appeal for revival of neo-Aristotelian approaches that imply ordered structure, based on the criticism of Quine’s method that, in his view, implies flat metaphysical structure. However, although we believe that Schaffer’s distinction between metaphysical structures is an interesting and, basically, acceptable view, we will try to show that Schaffer’s arguments are not convincing enough to persuade us to abandon Quine’s method and adopt the Aristotelian metaphysical model. Moreover, (...) when mistakes that Schaffer makes are corrected and Quine’s method is given due attention, we will see that this can enable us a more tenable interpretation of the concepts that Schaffer speaks of (metaphysical structures), but also – as in his case – to draw certain conclusions that go beyond objectives of classification as such. (shrink)

Algorithms wield increasing control over our lives—over which jobs we get, whether we're granted loans, what information we're exposed to online, and so on. Algorithms can, and often do, wield their power in a biased way, and much work has been devoted to algorithmic bias. In contrast, algorithmic neutrality has gone largely neglected. I investigate three questions about algorithmic neutrality: What is it? Is it possible? And when we have it in mind, what can we learn about algorithmic bias?

Decision theory and folk psychology both purport to represent the same phenomena: our belief-like and desire- and preference-like states. They also purport to do the same work with these representations: explain and predict our actions. But they do so with different sets of concepts. There's much at stake in whether one of these two sets of concepts can be accounted for with the other. Without such an account, we'd have two competing representations and systems of prediction and explanation, a dubious (...) dualism. Folk psychology structures our daily lives and has proven fruitful in the study of mind and ethics, while decision theory is pervasive in various disciplines, including the quantitative social sciences, especially economics, and philosophy. My interest is in accounting for folk psychology with decision theory -- in particular, for believe and wanting, which decision theory omits. Many have attempted this task for belief. (The Lockean Thesis says that there is such an account.) I take up the parallel task for wanting, which has received far less attention. I propose necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in terms of decision theory, for when you're truly said to want; I give an analogue of the Lockean Thesis for wanting. My account is an alternative to orthodox accounts that link wanting to preference (e.g. Stalnaker (1984), Lewis (1986)), which I argue are false. I argue further that want ascriptions are context-sensitive. My account explains this context-sensitivity, makes sense of conflicting desires, and accommodates phenomena that motivate traditional theses on which 'want' has multiple senses (e.g. all-things-considered vs. pro tanto). (shrink)

According to the Desiderative Lockean Thesis, there are necessary and sufficient conditions, stated in the terms of decision theory, for when one is truly said to want. What one is truly said to want, it turns out, varies remarkably by context—and to an underappreciated degree. To explain this context-sensitivity—and closure properties of wanting—I advance a Desiderative Lockean view that is distinctive in having two context-sensitive parameters.