Three semantic relations are analyzed: the relation of implication of a question by a question and a set of declarative sentences, the relation of implication of a question by a question, and the relation of strong implication of a question by a question and a set of declarative sentences. The connections between these concepts and the concepts of relative soundness, partial answerhood and presupposition are examined. The principal results are theorems about, to speak generally, epistemic reducibility of well-posed questions to (...) sequences of implied yes-no questions. (shrink)

The concept of erotetic argument is introduced. Two relations between sets of declarative sentences and questions are analysed; and two classes of erotetic arguments are characterized.

Multiple -conclusion logic extends formal logic by allowing arguments to have a set of conclusions instead of a single one, the truth lying somewhere among the conclusions if all the premises are true. The extension opens up interesting possibilities based on the symmetry between premises and conclusions, and can also be used to throw fresh light on the conventional logic and its limitations. This is a sustained study of the subject and is certain to stimulate further research. Part I reworks (...) the fundamental ideas of logic to take account of multiple conclusions, and investigates the connections between multiple - and single - conclusion calculi. Part II draws on graph theory to discuss the form and validity of arguments independently of particular logical systems. Part III contrasts the multiple - and the single - conclusion treatment of one and the same subject, using many-valued logic as the example; and Part IV shows how the methods of 'natural deduction' can be matched by direct proofs using multiple conclusions. (shrink)

The main currently unsolved problem in the theory of argumentation concerns the function of logic in argumentation and reasoning. The traditional view simply identified logic with the theory of reasoning. This view is still being echoed in older textbooks of formal logic. In a different variant, the same view is even codified in the ordinary usage of words such as ‘logic’, ‘deduction’, ‘inference’, etc. For each actual occurrence of these terms in textbooks of formal logic, there are hundreds of uses (...) of the same idioms to describe the feats of real or fictional detectives. I have called the idea reflected by this usage the “Sherlock Holmes conception of logic and deduction.” In the history of science, we find no less a thinker than Sir Isaac Newton describing his experimental method as one of analysis or resolution and claiming to have “deduced” at least some of his laws from the “phenomena.”. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations of linguistics.

There are inferences from a sentence or a set of sentences to a question. The relation between the premises and conclusions of such inferences is sometimes called arising.