The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

SUMMARY Major theories of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind are examined on the basis of the fundamental questions of ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and logic. The result is the choice between language of eliminative reductionism and dualism, neither of which answers properly the relation between mind and body. In the search for a non–dualistic and non–reductive language, Wittgenstein’s notion of language–games as the representative links between language and the world is considered together with Peirce’s semeiosis of cognition. The result (...) is a redefined notion of cognition as the goal–oriented ability to instantiate strategies from the rules of the language–games. Cognition is considered within the four-dimensional languagegames: rules/strategies, primitive/complete language-games, family-resemblances/forms of life, and non-temporal continuum as the language-games’ modality. Cognition is seen as a continuum process of non–individualized elements that unites perception, volition, emotion, will and thought against the commonly accepted understandings of cognition in exclusive terms of perception and thinking. The alternative to the mind/body problem is the continuity of cognition where rules and strategies, syntax and semantics, are considered inseparable within language–games. This continuity of cognition is explained in terms of virtual (univocal) identity, replacing the old philosophical paradigm of the mind/body problem. -/- SOMMARIO Le teorie maggiori della psicologia filosofica e filosofia della mente sono esaminate a partire dalle questioni fondamentali di ontologia, metafisica, epistemologia, semantica e logica. Il risultato è la scelta tra un linguaggio riduzionista eliminativo e un dualismo che però non confronta in modo adeguato la relazione tra mente e corpo. Nella ricerca per un linguaggio non-dualistico e non-riduttivo, viene considerata la nozione del gioco linguistico di Wittgenstein come un legame rappresentativo tra il linguaggio e il mondo insieme con la semiosi cognitiva di Peirce. Il risultato è la nozione ridefinita della cognizione come abilità goal-orientata di creare le strategie dalle regole dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione è considerata entro le quattro dimensioni dei giochi linguistici: regole/strategie, giochi linguistici primitivi/completi, somiglianze di famiglia/forme di vita, e la continuità atemporale come la modalità dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione diventa un processo continuo degli elementi non-individualizzati che tende ad unificare la percezione, volizione, emozione, la volontà e il pensiero contro un concetto generalmente accettato di vedere la cognizione nei termini esclusivamente di percezione e di pensiero. L’alternativa al problema della mente/corpo è la continuità della cognizione, dove le regole e le strategie, la sintassi e la semantica, sono considerate inseparabili nei giochi linguistici. Questa continuità della cognizione è spiegata nei termini dell’identità virtuale (univoca) sostituendo un paradigma filosofico previo del problema della mente/corpo. (shrink)

Keskityn siihen miten Leibnizilla yksittäiset mielihyvän tai mielipahan tiedostamattomat havainnot voivat kasautua tai tiivistyä ja muodostaa vähitellen tunteita, joista tulemme tietoisiksi.

Sumário: 1. El caso del método científico, Alberto Oliva; 2. Un capítulo de la prehistoria de las ciencias humanas: la defensa por Vico de la tópica, Jorge Alberto Molina; 3. La figura de lo cognoscible y los mundos, Pablo Vélez León; 4. Lebenswelt de Husserl y las neurociencias, Vanessa Fontana; 5. El uso estético del concepto de mundos posibles, Jairo Dias Carvalho; 6. Realismo normativo no naturalista y mundos morales imposibles, Alcino Eduardo Bonella; 7. En la lógica de pragmatismo, Hércules (...) de Araujo Feitosa, Luiz Henrique da Cruz Silvestrini; 8 La lógica, el tiempo y el lenguaje natural: un sistema formal para tiempos de portugués, Carlos Luciano Manholi. / Temas em filosofia contemporânea II / Jonas Rafael Becker Arenhart, Jaimir Conte, Cezar Augusto Mortari (orgs.) – Florianópolis : NEL/UFSC, 2016. 167 p. : tabs. - (Rumos da epistemologia ; v. 14); ISBN 978-85-87253-27-9 (papel); ISBN 978-85-87253-26-2 (e-book). (shrink)

La noción de mundos posibles, sostiene que nuestro mundo es un mundo entre otros, un subconjunto de todas las cosas que existen. Esto implica aceptar que existen mundos estructuralmente equivalentes con sus propios lenguajes [formales], que entre sí no tienen ningún estatuto privilegiado, p.e., el mundo y lenguaje del arte o el mundo y lenguaje de la física; no obstante, la idea de aceptar otros mundos equivalentes como mundos posibles epistémica y ontológicamente legítimos para acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del (...) mundo no goza de gran aceptación. En este sentido, de entre las múltiples dimensiones de la noción de mundos posibles anotada, su dimensión lógica, es una de las más extendidas, ésta se entiende como un posible estado de cosas o un posible curso de eventos. Empero, esta concepción es la más restrictiva de la noción de mundos posibles, no sólo porque dicha noción transmuta en una especie de «técnica predictiva» que nos permite analizar y visualizar posibles escenarios de un estado de cosas o un curso de eventos, sino porque fundamentalmente, la noción de mundos posibles pierde gran parte de su potencia conceptual. Hablar de proposiciones como conjuntos de mundos posibles, no es un error, pero es limitar innecesariamente el alcance y campo de acción de la noción de mundos posibles. Si entendemos dicha noción en la versión primaría de Lewis [«Nuestro mundo actual es sólo un mundo entre otros»], sería plausible recuperar, entre otras, las dimensiones ontológica y epistémica de la noción de mundos posibles, y por ende la posibilidad objetiva de indagar en formas alternativas y legitimas de acceder y expresar lo cognoscible del mundo; en este sentido, en este trabajo me propongo: (1) retomar la noción primaria de mundos posibles de Lewis, para analizar y explicitar brevemente sus limitaciones, virtudes y requerimientos; (2) examinar las condiciones de posibilidad de un mundo; y, (3) sugerir los lineamientos epistémicos que deberían considerarse y explicitarse cuando se habla de y desde un mundo posible a la hora de expresar un enunciado. (shrink)

Preferably scientific investigations would promote true rather than false beliefs. The phenomenon of fraud represents a standing challenge to this veritistic ideal. When scientists publish fraudulent results they knowingly enter falsehoods into the information stream of science. Recognition of this challenge has prompted calls for scientists to more consciously adopt the veritistic ideal in their own work. In this paper I argue against such promotion of the veritistic ideal. It turns out that a sincere desire on the part of scientists (...) to see the truth propagated may well promote more fraud rather than less. (shrink)

Single-premise epistemic closure is the principle that: if one is in an evidential position to know that P where P entails Q, then one is in an evidential position to know that Q. In this paper, I defend the viability of opposition to closure. A key task for such an opponent is to precisely formulate a restricted closure principle that remains true to the motivations for abandoning unrestricted closure but does not endorse particularly egregious instances of closure violation. I focus (...) on two brands of epistemic theory that naturally incorporate closure restrictions. The first type holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant question. The second holds that the truth value of a knowledge ascription is relative to a relevant topic. For each approach, I offer a formalization of a leading theory from the literature and use this formalization to evaluate the theory’s adequacy in terms of a precise set of desiderata. I conclude that neither theory succeeds in meeting these desiderata, casting doubt on the viability of the underlying approaches. Finally, I offer a novel variant of the topic-sensitive approach that fares better. (shrink)

Jaakko Hintikka, in a series of talks in Brazil in 2008, defended that IF logic and paraconsistent logic are, in a sense, very similar. Having sketched the proposal of a new paraconsistent system, he maintains that several achievements of IF logic could be reproducible in paraconsistent logic. One of the major difficulties, left as a challenge, would be to formulate some truth conditions for this new paraconsistent first-order language in order to make IF logic and paraconsistent logic more inter-related. My (...) proposal is that this would demand an innovative game-theoretical semantic approach to paraconsistentism, but also that the syntax of the paraconsistent “Logics of Formal Inconsistency” can model the internal logic of Socratic elenchi. I aim to discuss these, and other points posed by Hintikka, as challenges and opportunities for paraconsistentism, paraconsistent logics and IF logics, as well as to raise some criticisms on Hintikka’s view about paraconsistency. (shrink)

Traditional logical theories are concerned with the characterization of valid reasoning. For such logical theories, the main object of investigation is the notion of entailment, a notion that is construed as a relation between two or more declarative statements, dictating when one of them can be legitimately inferred from the others. In the course of the previous century, however, and especially since the 1970s, the scope of logical theories has become much broader. In particular, logic is no longer only concerned (...) with declarative statements, but also with questions. Accordingly, the field is no longer focusing exclusively on the entailment relation that may hold between two or more statements, but also aims to characterize fundamental relations that may hold between questions, or between questions and statements. For instance, when does a statement resolve a given question? When does a statement evoke a certain question? And when does the resolution of one question depend on the resolu .. (shrink)

Questions are triggers for explicit events of ‘issue management’. We give a complete logic in dynamic-epistemic style for events of raising, refining, and resolving an issue, all in the presence of information flow through observation or communication. We explore extensions of the framework to multi-agent scenarios and long-term temporal protocols. We sketch a comparison with some alternative accounts.

An agent-centered, goal-directed, resource-bound logic of human reasoning would do well to note that individual cognitive agency is typified by the comparative scantness of available cognitive resources—information, time, and computational capacity, to name just three. This motivates individual agents to set their cognitive agendas proportionately, that is, in ways that carry some prospect of success with the resources on which they are able to draw. It also puts a premium on cognitive strategies which make economical use of those resources. These (...) latter I callscant-resource adjustment strategies,and they supply the context for an analysis of abduction. The analysis is Peircian in tone, especially in the emphasis it places on abduction’signorance-preservingcharacter. My principal purpose here is to tie abduction’s scarce-resource adjustment capacity to its ignorance preservation. (shrink)

In recent decades much literature has been produced on disagreement; the puzzling conclusion being that epistemic disagreement is, for the most part, either impossible (e.g. Aumann (Ann Stat 4(6):1236–1239, 1976)), or at least easily resolvable (e.g. Elga (Noûs 41(3):478–502, 2007)). In this paper I show that, under certain conditions, an equally puzzling result arises: that is, disagreement cannot be rationally resolved by belief updating. I suggest a solution to the puzzle which makes use of some of the principles of Hintikka’s (...) Socratic epistemology. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of inquiry. I start with some common desiderata for any theory of inquiry. I then categorize inquiry as a structured process. By focusing on its essential components, I advance a new characterization of inquiry as a combination of questioning attitudes guiding actions. Finally, I turn to the recent objection that questioning attitudes are not necessary for inquiry. I argue that inquiry is a structured process essentially constituted by questioning attitudes (...) having two precise functional roles, initiating and guiding the deployment of cognitive capacities towards an epistemic goal. (shrink)

En este artículo se analiza el caso del descubrimiento del megaterio desde una perspectiva abductiva, prestando atención al proceso de generación y selección de hipótesis de algunos de los actores involucrados en este singular acontecimiento. El análisis muestra la importancia de ciertos puntos metodológicos relacionados con la práctica y el rigor científico para proponer hipótesis plausibles.

This chapter follows Lorenzo Magnani's observation that ongoing commercialization of science and academia impoverishes human potential for discovery. The chapter reviews Magnani on affordance, wonders what is accessible when "good" affordances appear absent, and answers self-affordance. Ecologies optimized for discovery should be optimized for self-affordance. The chapter considers the role of oracle as leading vision for discovery, and proposes a naturalized account of self that is essentially propositional, in pursuit of an inner oracle, seeking salvation through routine and religious ritual. (...) This is self-abduction. Variable biological development may motivate religious self-abduction characterized by self-sacrifice for the collective good over the long term. in conclusion, the chapter affirms Magnani's call to optimize cognitive ecologies for discovery, by prioritizing religious self-abduction. (shrink)

This paper advances a version of the theory whereby logic had deep origins in democracy, by re-reading Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen. Democracy, ‘the government by debate’, called political (and scientific) attention to the inferential abilities of citizens and to politicians’ ability of taking advantage of them. Sophists, in particular, discovered that people’s inferences follow constant repeatable forms, that these forms have impact on choices and decisions concerning public good, and then by dominating them you dominate politics in democracy. With the (...) Encomium Gorgias launched these ideas, so laying the ground for Aristotle’s science of deduction. (shrink)

This thesis develops and defends a Peircean conception of the task of metaphysics and critically compares it with recent anti-metaphysical forms of pragmatism. Peirce characterises metaphysics in terms of its place within his hierarchical classification of the sciences. According to the classification, metaphysics depends on logic for principles and provides principles to the natural and social sciences. This arrangement of the sciences is defended by appeal to Peirce's account of philosophy as 'cenoscopy'. The dependence of the natural and social sciences (...) on cenoscopy is then argued for on the basis of Peirce's rejection of psychologism and in terms of the necessity of abductive inference. Peirce's position is then compared with recent forms of pragmatism. While it is less naturalistic, Peirce's position is defended on pragmatist grounds. An account of Peirce on truth is then developed. Peirce's account of truth in terms of an ideal limit of inquiry is defended as consistent with recent, more deflationary, approaches. The truth of 'abstract propositions' is a matter of local indefeasibility. These abstract propositions are related to the 'absolute truth', understood as a single non-abstract proposition. The truth of this proposition is then understood in terms of an identity theory. Two conceptions of Peircean metaphysics are presented. Both are 'abductive'. Their task is to explain the possibility of success in inquiry. However, only one proposal accepts the notion of an absolute truth. The 'absolutist' proposal is defended as an interpretation of Peirce and as a contemporary option for pragmatist philosophers. The thesis concludes by comparing recent anti-metaphysical arguments due to Huw Price with the Peircean position. Room for the absolutist proposal is defended by means of an account of recent exchanges between Price and Robert Brandom on dispositional modality. (shrink)

Discoverability: the urgent need of an ecology of human creativity from the prolific Lorenzo Magnani is worthy of direct attention. The message may be of special interest to philosophers, ethicists and organizing scientists involved in the development of AI and related technologies which are increasingly directed at reinforcing conditions against which Magnani directly warns, namely the “overcomputationalization” of life marked by the gradual encroachment of technologically “locked strategies” into everyday decision-making until “freedom, responsibility, and ownership of our destinies” are ceded (...) and we, in parallel, build a future fit for artifacts over human beings. Professional educators - teachers and administrators serious about teaching - and policy-makers including the concerned public, parents and social activists concerned about the effects of technologies on development and well-being may benefit, as well. (shrink)

The problem of closure for the traditional unstructured possible worlds model of attitudinal content is that it treats belief and other cognitive states as closed under entailment, despite apparent counterexamples showing that this is not a necessary property of such states. One solution to this problem, which has been proposed recently by several authors (Schaffer 2005; Yalcin 2018; Hoek forthcoming), is to restrict closure in an unstructured setting by treating propositional attitudes as question-sensitive. Here I argue that this line of (...) response is unsatisfying as it stands because the problem of closure is more general than is typically discussed. A version of the problem recurs for attitudes like wondering, entertaining, considering, and so on, which are directed at questions rather than propositions. For such questioning attitudes, the appeal to question-sensitivity is much less convincing as a solution to the problem of closure. (shrink)

The paper presents the content, as well as approaches to the use in the educational process of the author’s Electronic educational methodical complex (EEMC) “Construction of car”. The course is created for students of the speciality 015 Professional education (Transport, the operation and repairing of automobiles). Its content covers general topics including the study of a car engine, electrical equipment and automotive driveline. The created electronic course embraces, in addition to textual material, illustrations, dynamic models, instructions, manuals, textbooks, reference books (...) and glossaries, test material for each topic. Its possibilities of application during lectures, in the course of performing 15 laboratory works, organizing test control of knowledge, as well as for managing students’ independent study activities have been shown. Approaches to expert evaluation of the developed electronic study course by 11 criteria have been disclosed. The directions for further improvement of the content and methods of organizing the study and cognitive activity of students when using the course have been highlighted. These include the organization of level assimilation of the material, the creation of an individual educational trajectory of students. A rather high assessment of the developed author’s course received from experts allows it to be used in the system of vocational preparation specialists in the transport area of expertise. (shrink)

The nature and value of autonomy has long been debated in diverse philosophical traditions, including moral and political philosophy. Although the notion dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, it was during the Age of Enlightenment that autonomy drew much attention. Thus, as may be known, moral philosophers tended to emphasize self-regulation, particularly one’s own will to abide by universal moral laws, as the term “autonomy” originates from the Greek words “self” (auto) and “rule” (nomos). In parallel, modern epistemologists supposedly espoused (...) the idea of intellectual autonomy as self-reliance. In this classical view, an intellectually autonomous explorer of knowledge must not depend on a belief that is obtained from another’s testimony, until one can justify it to oneself. However, accompanying the growing focus on the importance of social dimensions of acquiring knowledge and understanding, recent epistemologists have doubted the classical view and have since reconsidered intellectual autonomy from distinct approaches such as social and virtue epistemology. This paper propounds an interpersonal-epistemic approach to intellectual autonomy. First, it is argued that thinking through questioning both individually and with other epistemic peers is an interpersonal-epistemic practice. Second, it is demonstrated that with particular cognitive features inherent within us, an intellectually autonomous person must think through questioning in necessary situations. This interpersonal account of intellectual autonomy can conceptually enrich intellectual autonomy by considering its relationship with not only responsibility but also with vulnerability. Specifically, regarding responsibility, an intellectually autonomous person must be responsible for his or her own actions throughout questioning processes. Regarding vulnerability, our intellectual autonomy lies in retaining autonomy with vulnerability in the plastic control of the questioning processes. (shrink)

Turingin testi, interrogatiivimalli ja tekoäly.

What role, if any, does dialectic play in Aristotle’s epistemology in the Topics? In this paper I argue that it does play a role, but a role that is independent of endoxa. In the first section, I sketch the case for thinking that dialectic plays a distinctively epistemological role—not just a methodological role, or a merely instrumental role in getting episteme. In the second section, I consider three ways it could play that role, on two of which endoxa play at (...) least a co-starring role. But in the third section, I argue that endoxa don’t play that co-starring role, by arguing for a deflationary account of what endoxa are. For that reason, the third view emerges as the most plausible; but the third view is, I’ll suggest, Platonic. (shrink)

In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel develops a subtle analysis of Megarian paradoxes: the Liar, the Veiled Man and the Sorites. In this paper, we focus on Hegel's interpretation of...

This article is a preliminary presentation of conjunctive paraconsistency, the claim that there might be non-explosive true contradictions, but contradictory propositions cannot be considered separately true. In case of true ‘p and not p’, the conjuncts must be held untrue, Simplification fails. The conjunctive approach is dual to non-adjunctive conceptions of inconsistency, informed by the idea that there might be cases in which a proposition is true and its negation is true too, but the conjunction is untrue, Adjunction fails. While (...) non-adjunctivism is a well-known option, the other view is not so much studied nowadays, but it was not unknown in the tradition, and there are some positive suggestions, in recent literature, that the position is plausible and deserves to be developed. The article compares conjunctivism, non-adjunctivism and dialetheism, then focuses on some possible justifications, costs and benefits of the conjunctive view. (shrink)

The study of defeasible reasoning unites epistemologists with those working in AI, in part, because both are interested in epistemic rationality. While it is traditionally thought to govern the formation and (with)holding of beliefs, epistemic rationality may also apply to the interrogative attitudes associated with our core epistemic practice of inquiry, such as wondering, investigating, and curiosity. Since generally intelligent systems should be capable of rational inquiry, AI researchers have a natural interest in the norms that govern interrogative attitudes. Following (...) its recent coinage, we use the term ``zetetic'' to refer to the properties and norms associated with the capacity to inquire. In this paper, we argue that zetetic norms can be modeled via defeasible inferences to and from questions---a.k.a erotetic inferences---in a manner similar to the way norms of epistemic rationality are represented by defeasible inference rules. We offer a sequent calculus that accommodates the unique features of ``erotetic defeat" and that exhibits the computational properties needed to inform the design of zetetic agents. The calculus presented here is an improved version of the one presented in Millson (2019), extended to cover a new class of defeasible erotetic inferences. (shrink)

This paper examines whether Sherlock Holmes’ “Science of Deduction and Analysis,” as reconstructed by Hintikka and Hintikka The sign of three: Peirce, Dupin, Holmes, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1983), exemplifies a logic of discovery. While the Hintikkas claimed it does, their approach remained largely programmatic, and ultimately unsuccessful. Their reconstruction must thus be expanded, in particular to account for the role of memory in inquiry. Pending this expansion, the Hintikkas’ claim is vindicated. However, a tension between the naturalistic aspirations of (...) their model and the formal apparatus they built it on is identified. The paper concludes on suggestions for easing this tension without losing the normative component of the Hintikkas’ epistemological model. (shrink)

Some fictionalist approaches to the notion of scientific model are based on the concept of game of make-believe developed by Kendall Walton, without proposing a similar interpretation of it. The distinction between authorized and unauthorized games can be one of the sources of those divergences. In relation to the distinction made by Walton, the de dicto and de re modalities of the fiction-operator reflect different epistemological engagements concerning objects which satisfy properties. This paper aims at following up on the proposals (...) formulated by Roman Frigg and Adam Toon by using some modal logic concepts, notably by defining the identities of properties in modal contexts in terms of world-lines. Applying a model to a target-system consists in transposing fictional truths into actual situations, through an extrapolation that goes beyond the games of make-believe. (shrink)

This book employs a new eco-cognitive model of abduction to underline the distributed and embodied nature of scientific cognition. Its main focus is on the knowledge-enhancing virtues of abduction and on the productive role of scientific models. What are the distinctive features that define the kind of knowledge produced by science? To provide an answer to this question, the book first addresses the ideas of Aristotle, who stressed the essential inferential and distributed role of external cognitive tools and epistemic mediators (...) in abductive cognition. This is analyzed in depth from both a naturalized logic and an ecology of cognition perspective. It is shown how the maximization of cognition, and of abducibility – two typical goals of science – are related to a number of fundamental aspects: the optimization of the eco-cognitive situatedness; the maximization of changeability for both the input and the output of the inferences involved; a high degree of information-sensitiveness; and the need to record the “past life” of abductive inferential practices. Lastly, the book explains how some impoverished epistemological niches – the result of a growing epistemic irresponsibility associated with the commodification and commercialization of science – are now seriously jeopardizing the flourishing development of human creative abduction. (shrink)

This book examines the philosophical conception of abductive reasoning as developed by Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. It explores the historical and systematic connections of Peirce's original ideas and debates about their interpretations. Abduction is understood in a broad sense which covers the discovery and pursuit of hypotheses and inference to the best explanation. The analysis presents fresh insights into this notion of reasoning, which derives from effects to causes or from surprising observations to explanatory theories. The (...) author outlines some logical and AI approaches to abduction as well as studies various kinds of inverse problems in astronomy, physics, medicine, biology, and human sciences to provide examples of retroductions and abductions. The discussion covers also everyday examples with the implication of this notion in detective stories, one of Peirce’s own favorite themes. The author uses Bayesian probabilities to argue that explanatory abduction is a method of confirmation. He uses his own account of truth approximation to reformulate abduction as inference which leads to the truthlikeness of its conclusion. This allows a powerful abductive defense of scientific realism. This up-to-date survey and defense of the Peircean view of abduction may very well help researchers, students, and philosophers better understand the logic of truth-seeking. (shrink)

We present a dynamic approach to Peirce’s original construal of abductive logic as a logic of conjecture making, and provide a new decidable, contraction-free and cut-free proof system for the dynamic logic of abductive inferences with neighborhood semantics. Our formulation of the dynamic logic of abduction follows the philosophical and scientific track that led Peirce to his late, post-1903 characterization of abductive conclusions as investigands, namely invitations to investigate propositions conjectured at the level of pre-beliefs.

This paper shows Socratic elenchus as an efficient and effective way of modeling rational knowledge seeking. Like ordinary conversations, the elenctic exchanges in the dialogues presuppose a degree of autonomy on the part of its participants. Socrates’ line of questioning often seems pertinent to a particular interlocutor because he is well aware of the fact that the interlocutor has goals and ambitions or is reputed to be an expert at something. In turn, Socrates’ line ofquestioning reflects his own goals and (...) ambitions. In Alcibiades Major Socrates is trying to turn Alcibiades towards a greater awareness of his limitations. Plato’s dialogues also force readers to consider their own solutions to the topics introduced in them. Consequently, the autonomy of a dialogue’s participants requires that interpreters not exaggerate one aspect of a dialogue’s structural features at the expense of other aspects. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a decidable single-agent modal logic for reasoning about goal-directed “knowing how”, based on ideas from linguistics, philosophy, modal logic, and automated planning in AI. We first define a modal language to express “I know how to guarantee \ given \” with a semantics based not on standard epistemic models but on labeled transition systems that represent the agent’s knowledge of his own abilities. The semantics is inspired by conformant planning in AI. A sound and complete (...) proof system is given to capture valid reasoning patterns, which highlights the compositional nature of “knowing how”. The logical language is further extended to handle knowing how to achieve a goal while maintaining other conditions. (shrink)

The Interrogative Model of Inquiry and Dynamic Epistemic Logics are two central paradigms in formal epistemology. This paper is motivated by the observation of a significant complementarity between them: on the one hand, the IMI provides a framework for investigating inquiry represented as an idealized game between an Inquirer and Nature, along with an account of the interaction between questions and inferences in information-seeking processes, but is lacking a formulation in the multi-agent case; on the other hand, DELs model various (...) operations of information change in multi-agent systems, but the field is lacking a proper integration of question and inference dynamics, along with an application to the investigation of inquiry processes. The goal of this paper is to integrate the two paradigms in such a way as to combine their respective insights. To this end, we develop a formal system called DEL $$_\mathrm{IMI }$$ IMI which aims to represent the interaction between question and inference dynamics in inquiry—as described by the IMI—in a multi-agent setting, and this in such a way as to enable an investigation of inquiry games with multi-agent dimensions. The DEL $$_\mathrm{IMI }$$ IMI system is designed to represent the possible moves of such inquiry games through three types of epistemic actions: agents addressing questions to Nature, agents addressing questions to other agents, agents drawing logical inferences. We then show how the resulting framework can be used to formally define multi-agent inquiry games. We conclude by evaluating the interest of the DEL $$_\mathrm{IMI }$$ IMI system for the IMI and DELs paradigms. (shrink)

The modern notion of the axiomatic method developed as a part of the conceptualization of mathematics starting in the nineteenth century. The basic idea of the method is the capture of a class of structures as the models of an axiomatic system. The mathematical study of such classes of structures is not exhausted by the derivation of theorems from the axioms but includes normally the metatheory of the axiom system. This conception of axiomatization satisfies the crucial requirement that the derivation (...) of theorems from axioms does not produce new information in the usual sense of the term called depth information. It can produce new information in a different sense of information called surface information. It is argued in this paper that the derivation should be based on a model-theoretical relation of logical consequence rather than derivability by means of mechanical (recursive) rules. Likewise completeness must be understood by reference to a model-theoretical consequence relation. A correctly understood notion of axiomatization does not apply to purely logical theories. In the latter the only relevant kind of axiomatization amounts to recursive enumeration of logical truths. First-order “axiomatic” set theories are not genuine axiomatizations. The main reason is that their models are structures of particulars, not of sets. Axiomatization cannot usually be motivated epistemologically, but it is related to the idea of explanation. (shrink)

Many parts of the contemporary philosophical debate have been built on the radicalization of conclusions derived from the acceptance of a certain set of classical dichotomies. It also discusses how pragmatism and abduction are currently presented to solve the problems arising from these dichotomies. For this reason, the efforts of this article have been directed to analyze the impact of this fact on the philosophy of science and logic. The starting point is that accepting abduction implies, in many ways, accepting (...) the foundations of pragmatism. Also, that the analysis of such problems from pragmatism and the particular use of abduction dissolve the dichotomies and, with it, also modify the philosophical problems related to them. Therefore, I propose to understand abduction as the right conceptual device to review the problems and debates of the twentieth century’s epistemology from a pragmatic perspective. In doing so, the aim is to propose that the current use of abduction in contemporary debates may imply a change of the philosophical perspective. (shrink)

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that moral disagreement and widespread moral bias pose a serious problem for moral intuitionism. Seneca’s view that we just recognise the good could be criticised using a similar argument. His approach to argumentation offers a way out, one that may serve as a model for a revisionary intuitionism.

The concepts of question evocation and erotetic implication play central role in Inferential Erotetic Logic. In this paper, deduction theorems for question evocation and erotetic implication are proven. Moreover, it is shown how question evocation by a finite non-empty set of declaratives can be reduced to question evocation by the empty set, and how erotetic implication based on a finite non-empty set of declaratives can be reduced to a relation between questions only.

Are knowledge and belief pivotal in science, as contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science nearly universally take them to be? I defend the view that scientists are not primarily concerned with knowing and that the methods of arriving at scientific hypotheses, models and scenarios do not commit us having stable beliefs about them. Instead, what drives scientific discovery is ignorance that scientists can cleverly exploit. Not an absence or negation of knowledge, ignorance concerns fundamental uncertainty, and is brought out by (...) retroductive inferences, which are roughly characterised as reasoning from effects to causes. I argue that recent discoveries in sciences that coped with under-structured problem spaces testify the prevalence of retroductive logic in scientific discovery and its progress. This puts paid to the need of finding epistemic justification or confirmation to retroductive methodologies. A scientist, never frightened of unknown unknowns, strives to advance the forefront of uncertainty, not that of belief or knowledge. Far from rendering science irrational, I conclude that catering well for the right conditions in which to cultivate ignorance is a key to how fertile retroductive inferences arise. (shrink)

In many natural languages, there are clear syntactic and/or intonational differences between declarative sentences, which are primarily used to provide information, and interrogative sentences, which are primarily used to request information. Most logical frameworks restrict their attention to the former. Those that are concerned with both usually assume a logical language that makes a clear syntactic distinction between declaratives and interrogatives, and usually assign different types of semantic values to these two types of sentences. A different approach has been taken (...) in recent work on inquisitive semantics. This approach does not take the basic syntactic distinction between declaratives and interrogatives as its starting point, but rather a new notion of meaning that captures both informative and inquisitive content in an integrated way. The standard way to treat the logical connectives in this approach is to associate them with the basic algebraic operations on these new types of meanings. For instance, conjunction and disjunction are treated as meet and join operators, just as in classical logic. This gives rise to a hybrid system, where sentences can be both informative and inquisitive at the same time, and there is no clearcut division between declaratives and interrogatives. It may seem that these two general approaches in the existing literature are quite incompatible. The main aim of this paper is to show that this is not the case. We develop an inquisitive semantics for a logical language that has a clearcut division between declaratives and interrogatives. We show that this language coincides in expressive power with the hybrid language that is standardly assumed in inquisitive semantics, we establish a sound and complete axiomatization for the associated logic, and we consider a natural enrichment of the system with presuppositional interrogatives. (shrink)

I. Levi has advocated a decision-theoretic account of belief revision. We argue that the game-theoretic framework of Interrogative Inquiry Games, proposed by J. Hintikka, can extend and clarify this account. We show that some strategic use of the game rules generate Expansions, Contractions and Revisions, and we give representation results. We then extend the framework to represent explicitly sources of answers, and apply it to discuss the Recovery Postulate. We conclude with some remarks about the potential extensions of interrogative games, (...) with respect to some issues in the theory of belief change. (shrink)