This paper discusses critically what simulation models of the evolution ofcooperation can possibly prove by examining Axelrod’s “Evolution of Cooperation” and the modeling tradition it has inspired. Hardly any of the many simulation models of the evolution of cooperation in this tradition have been applicable empirically. Axelrod’s role model suggested a research design that seemingly allowed to draw general conclusions from simulation models even if the mechanisms that drive the simulation could not be identified empirically. But this research design was (...) fundamentally flawed, because it is not possible to draw general empirical conclusions from theoretical simulations. At best such simulations can claim to prove logical possibilities, i.e. they prove that certain phenomena are possible as the consequence of the modeling assumptions built into the simulation, but not that they are possible or can be expected to occur in reality I suggest several requirements under which proofs of logical possibilities can nevertheless be considered useful. Sadly, most Axelrod-style simulations do not meet these requirements. I contrast this with Schelling’s neighborhood segregation model, thecore mechanism of which can be retraced empirically. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a person’s moral judgments (about both their own and others’ actions) are constrained by the nature and extent of their relevant ignorance and, thus, that such judgments are determined in the first instance by the person’s epistemic circumstances. It has been argued, in other words, that the epistemic is logically prior to other normative (e.g., ethical, prudential, pecuniary) considerations in human decision-making, that these other normative considerations figure in decision-making only after (logically and temporally) (...) relevant ignorance has constrained the decision-maker’s menu of options. If this is right, then a person’s moral judgments in some set of circumstances should vary with their knowledge and ignorance of these circumstances. In this study, we test the hypothesis of the logical priority of the epistemic. We describe two experiments in which subjects’ knowledge and ignorance of relevant consequences were manipulated. In the second experiment, we also compared the effect of ignorance on moral judgments with that of personal force, a factor previously shown to influence moral judgments. We found broad empirical support for the armchair arguments that epistemic considerations are logically prior to normative considerations. (shrink)

The traditional possible-worlds model of belief describes agents as ‘logically omniscient’ in the sense that they believe all logical consequences of what they believe, including all logical truths. This is widely considered a problem if we want to reason about the epistemic lives of non-ideal agents who—much like ordinary human beings—are logically competent, but not logically omniscient. A popular strategy for avoiding logical omniscience centers around the use of impossible worlds: worlds that, in one way or another, (...) violate the laws of logic. In this paper, we argue that existing impossible-worlds models of belief fail to describe agents who are both logically non-omniscient and logically competent. To model such agents, we argue, we need to ‘dynamize’ the impossible-worlds framework in a way that allows us to capture not only what agents believe, but also what they are able to infer from what they believe. In light of this diagnosis, we go on to develop the formal details of a dynamic impossible-worlds framework, and show that it successfully models agents who are both logically non-omniscient and logically competent. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a prevailing view by which logical terms determine forms of sentences and arguments and therefore the logical validity of arguments. This view is common to those who hold that there is a principled distinction between logical and nonlogical terms and those holding relativistic accounts. I adopt the Tarskian tradition by which logical validity is determined by form, but reject the centrality of logical terms. I propose an alternative framework for logic (...) where logical terms no longer play a distinctive role. This account employs a new notion of semantic. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the thesis that logic is not special. In this paper, I consider, and reject, a challenge to this thesis. According to this challenge, there are basic logical principles, and part of what makes such principles basic is that they are epistemically exceptional. Thus, according to this challenge, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to reject anti-exceptionalism about logic. I argue that this challenge fails, and that the exceptionalist positions motivated by it are (...) thus unfounded. I make this case by disambiguating two senses of ‘basic’ and showing that, once this disambiguation is taken into account, the best reason we have for thinking that there are basic principles actually implies that those principles do not require a special epistemology. Consequently, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to accept, rather than reject, anti-exceptionalism concerning the epistemology of logic. I conclude by explaining how an abductivist, anti-exceptionalist approach to the epistemology of logic can accommodate the notion of basic logical principles. (shrink)

In the literature on supervaluationism, a central source of concern has been the acceptability, or otherwise, of its alleged logical revisionism. I attack the presupposition of this debate: arguing that when properly construed, there is no sense in which supervaluational consequence is revisionary. I provide new considerations supporting the claim that the supervaluational consequence should be characterized in a ‘global’ way. But pace Williamson (1994) and Keefe (2000), I argue that supervaluationism does not give rise to counterexamples to familiar (...) inference-patterns such as reductio and conditional proof. (shrink)

It has been argued recently that classical theism and Lewisian modal realism are incompatible theses. The most substantial argument to this effect takes the form of a trilemma. It argues that no sense can be made of God’s being a necessary being in the modal realistic picture, on pain of, among other things, modal collapse. The question of this essay is: Is that so? My goal here is to detail the reasons that have been offered in support of this contention (...) and then defend the coherence of theistic modal realism from the trilemma. I call my reply to the argument an “Anselmian-Thomistic” defense, since it appeals to resources from classical medieval philosophy, especially from Anselm and Aquinas. (shrink)

This paper examines the evolution of Husserl’s philosophy of nonintuitive intentions. The analysis has two stages. First, I expose a mistake in Husserl’s account of non-intuitive acts from his 1901 Logical Investigations. I demonstrate that Husserl employs the term “signitive” too broadly, as he concludes that all non-intuitive acts are signitive. He states that not only meaning acts, but also the contiguity intentions of perception are signitive acts. Second, I show how Husserl, in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth (...) Logical Investigation, amends his 1901 theory of non-intuitive acts, which he now calls “empty” intentions. He there accurately distinguishes empty meaning acts from the empty intentions of perception. In the conclusion, I reveal how Husserl’s alterations to his theory of non-intuitive intentions can inform our understanding of a larger shift in his philosophy. (shrink)

The paper presents a new approach to the history of analytic philosophy. Instead of exploring different kinds of analysis (Michael Beaney), or to marry analytic philosophy to the analytic / synthetic distinction (Scott Soames), we turn attention to the fact that it was rooted in two different types of logical constructing. The discrepancy between the two concepts of logical constructing produced much unclarity in our understanding of analytic philosophy.

Judgment aggregation theory, or rather, as we conceive of it here, logical aggregation theory generalizes social choice theory by having the aggregation rule bear on judgments of all kinds instead of merely preference judgments. It derives from Kornhauser and Sager’s doctrinal paradox and List and Pettit’s discursive dilemma, two problems that we distinguish emphatically here. The current theory has developed from the discursive dilemma, rather than the doctrinal paradox, and the final objective of the paper is to give the (...) latter its own theoretical development along the line of recent work by Dietrich and Mongin. However, the paper also aims at reviewing logical aggregation theory as such, and it covers impossibility theorems by Dietrich, Dietrich and List, Dokow and Holzman, List and Pettit, Mongin, Nehring and Puppe, Pauly and van Hees, providing a uniform logical framework in which they can be compared with each other. The review goes through three historical stages: the initial paradox and dilemma, the scattered early results on the independence axiom, and the so-called canonical theorem, a collective achievement that provided the theory with its specific method of analysis. The paper goes some way towards philosophical logic, first by briefly connecting the aggregative framework of judgment with the modern philosophy of judgment, and second by thoroughly discussing and axiomatizing the ‘general logic’ built in this framework. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes three goals. First, the essay demonstrates that Edmund Husserl’s theory of meaning consciousness from his 1901 Logical Investigations is internally inconsistent and falls apart upon closer inspection. I show that Husserl, in 1901, describes non-intuitive meaning consciousness as a direct parallel or as a ‘mirror’ of intuitive consciousness. He claims that non-intuitive meaning acts, like intuitions, have substance and represent their objects. I reveal that, by defining meaning acts in this way, Husserl cannot account for our (...) experiences of countersensical, absurd, or impossible meanings. Second, I examine how Husserl came to recognize this 1901 mistake in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. I discuss how he accordingly reformulates his understanding of non-intuitive meaning acts from the ground up in those Revisions, where this also allows for him to properly account for the experience of impossible meanings. Instead of describing them as mirrors of intuitions, Husserl takes non-intuitive meaning acts to be modifications of intuitions, where they have no substance and do not represent their objects. Finally, in the conclusion to this essay, I demonstrate how this fundamental change to his understanding of meaning consciousness forced Husserl to revise other central tenets of his philosophy, such that the trajectory of his thought can only be properly understood in light of these revisions to his theory of non-intuitive meaning consciousness. (shrink)

According to a theorem recently proved in the theory of logical aggregation, any nonconstant social judgment function that satisfies independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) is dictatorial. We show that the strong and not very plausible IIA condition can be replaced with a minimal independence assumption plus a Pareto-like condition. This new version of the impossibility theorem likens it to Arrow’s and arguably enhances its paradoxical value.

This paper is partly inspired by a well-known debate between Ruth Barcan Marcus, Terence Parsons and W. V. 0. Quine in the sixties> concerning the extent to which Quantified Modal Logic is committed to Essentialism; the issue nevertheless goes back to the origins of "analytic philosophy'', to the reflections of Frege, Russell, and the earlier Wittgenstein on the nature of logic. By elaborating on a suggestion by Quine, we purport to show that there is a relevant and interesting way to (...) look at the ontological commitments of logical systems such that they are stronger than they are usually taken to be. (shrink)

According to a prevalent view among philosophers formal logic is the philosopher’s main tool to assess the validity of arguments, i.e. the philosopher’s ars iudicandi. By drawing on a famous dispute between Russell and Strawson over the validity of a certain kind of argument – of arguments whose premises feature definite descriptions – this paper casts doubt on the accuracy of the ars iudicandi conception. Rather than settling the question whether the contentious arguments are valid or not, Russell and Strawson, (...) upon discussing the proper logical analysis of definite descriptions, merely contrast converse informal validity assessments rendered explicit by nonequivalent logical for-malizations. (shrink)

There are two ways of thinking about instants of time: "spatial" accounts emphasize the similarities between instants and places; "modal" accounts focus on the parallels between times and possible worlds. My aim in this paper is to draw attention to one respect in which times are more similar to possible worlds than they are to places.

This essay critically assesses Roman Ingarden’s 1915 review of the second edition of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations. I elucidate and critique Ingarden’s analysis of the differences between the 1901 first edition and the 1913 second edition. I specifically examine three tenets of Ingarden’s interpretation. First, I demonstrate that Ingarden correctly denounces Husserl’s claim that he only engages in an eidetic study of consciousness in 1913, as Husserl was already performing eidetic analyses in 1901. Second, I show that Ingarden is (...) misguided, when he asserts that Husserl had fully transformed his philosophy into a transcendental idealism in the second edition. While Husserl does appear to adopt a transcendental phenomenology by asserting–in his programmatic claims–that the intentional content and object are now included in his domain of research, he does not alter his actual descriptions of the intentional relationship in any pertinent manner. Third, I show Ingarden correctly predicts many of the insights Husserl would arrive at about logic in his late philosophy. This analysis augments current readings of the evolution of Ingarden’s philosophy, by more closely examining the development of his largely neglected early thought. I execute this critical assessment by drawing both from Husserl’s later writings and from recent literature on the Investigations. By doing so, I hope to additionally demonstrate how research on the Investigations has matured in the one hundred years since the release of that text, while also presenting my own views concerning these difficult interpretative issues. (shrink)

According to the truth-functional analysis of conditions, to be ‘necessary for’ and ‘sufficient for’ are converse relations. From this, it follows that to be ‘necessary and sufficient for’ is a symmetric relation, that is, that if P is a necessary and sufficient condition for Q, then Q is a necessary and sufficient condition for P. This view is contrary to common sense. In this paper, I point out that it is also contrary to a widely accepted ontological view of conditions, (...) according to which if P is a necessary and sufficient condition for Q, then Q is in no sense a condition for P; it is a mere consequence of P. (shrink)

This paper offers a more comprehensive and accurate picture of Edmund Husserl’s semiotics. I not only clarify, as many have already done, Husserl’s theory of signs from the 1901 Logical Investigations, but also examine how he transforms that element of his philosophy in the 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. Specifically, the paper examines the evolution of two central tenets of Husserl’s semiotics. I first look at how he modifies his classification of signs. I disclose why he (...) revised his 1901 distinction between indicators and expressions, instead claiming in 1913/14 that the divisions should be drawn between indicators, signals, and categorial signs. Second, I elucidate why Husserl overturned his conclusion from the Investigations, that signs execute their signitive operations in three steps, because he recognizes that categorial signs and their meant object are experienced all at once. By exploring the transformation of these two tenets of Husserl’s semiotics, we will see that he conceived of the First Investigation only as a starting or jumping off point for future analyses of signitive experience, rather than as his final account. This analysis will further reveal novel insights about Husserl’s understanding of intersubjectivity, passivity, and temporality. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss three examples of the appropriation of Kuhn’s ideas in philosophy of science. First we deal with classical logical empiricism. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the arch-logical empiricist Carnap considered Kuhn’s socio-historical account as a useful complementation, and not as a threat of the philosophy of science of logical empiricism. As a second example we consider the attempt of the so-called struc- turalist philosophy of science to provide a “rational reconstruction” of Kuhn’s approach. Finally, we (...) will deal with Friedman’s proposal to apply Kuhn’s ideas to the formulation of a modernized, historically enlightened Kantian approach that is based on the concept of a non-apodictic constitutive and historically moving a priori. (shrink)

This paper responds to the generous comments by Alexander Klein and Cheryl Misak on my “American Pragmatism and the Vienna Circle: The Early Years”. First, besides offering some clarification of my original thesis, I argue that Jerusalem was not liable to the anti-Spencerian criticisms by James that Klein adduces in the course of defending James against the charge of psychologism. Then I investigate the impact of Wittgenstein’s Ramsey-derived pragmatism, importantly foregrounded by Misak, on the Vienna Circle and argue that it (...) was mainly limited to Schlick but not recognized as pragmatist, also leaving unaffected the impact of James’s pragmatism on Frank, Hahn and Neurath specified in my original paper. That said, Klein’s and Misak’s comments add significantly to our understanding of long-neglected transatlantic philosophical connections in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

Many epistemologists hold that an agent can come to justifiably believe that p is true by seeing that it appears that p is true, without having any antecedent reason to believe that visual impressions are generally reliable. Certain reliabilists think this, at least if the agent’s vision is generally reliable. And it is a central tenet of dogmatism (as described by James Pryor) that this is possible. Against these positions it has been argued (e.g. by Stewart Cohen and Roger White) (...) that this violates some principles from probabilistic learning theory. To see the problem, let’s note what the dogmatist thinks we can learn by paying attention to how things appear. (The reliabilist says the same things, but we’ll focus on the dogmatist.). (shrink)

The notion of a partition on a set is mathematically dual to the notion of a subset of a set, so there is a logic of partitions dual to Boole's logic of subsets (Boolean logic is usually mis-specified as "propositional" logic). The notion of an element of a subset has as its dual the notion of a distinction of a partition (a pair of elements in different blocks). Boole developed finite logical probability as the normalized counting measure on elements (...) of subsets so there is a dual concept of logical entropy which is the normalized counting measure on distinctions of partitions. Thus the logical notion of information is a measure of distinctions. Classical logical entropy naturally extends to the notion of quantum logical entropy which provides a more natural and informative alternative to the usual Von Neumann entropy in quantum information theory. The quantum logical entropy of a post-measurement density matrix has the simple interpretation as the probability that two independent measurements of the same state using the same observable will have different results. The main result of the paper is that the increase in quantum logical entropy due to a projective measurement of a pure state is the sum of the absolute squares of the off-diagonal entries ("coherences") of the pure state density matrix that are zeroed ("decohered") by the measurement, i.e., the measure of the distinctions ("decoherences") created by the measurement. (shrink)

This article provides the foundation for a new predictive theory of animal learning that is based upon a simple logical model. The knowledge of experimental subjects at a given time is described using logical equations. These logical equations are then used to predict a subject’s response when presented with a known or a previously unknown situation. This new theory suc- cessfully anticipates phenomena that existing theories predict, as well as phenomena that they cannot. It provides a theoretical (...) account for phenomena that are beyond the domain of existing models, such as extinction and the detection of novelty, from which “external inhibition” can be explained. Examples of the methods applied to make predictions are given using previously published results. The present theory proposes a new way to envision the minimal functions of the nervous system, and provides possible new insights into the way that brains ultimately create and use knowledge about the world. (shrink)

This interesting and imaginative monograph is based on the author’s PhD dissertation supervised by Saul Kripke. It is dedicated to Timothy Smiley, whose interpretation of PRIOR ANALYTICS informs its approach. As suggested by its title, this short work demonstrates conclusively that Aristotle’s syllogistic is a suitable vehicle for fruitful discussion of contemporary issues in logical theory. Aristotle’s syllogistic is represented by Corcoran’s 1972 reconstruction. The review studies Lear’s treatment of Aristotle’s logic, his appreciation of the Corcoran-Smiley paradigm, and his (...) understanding of modern logical theory. In the process Corcoran and Scanlan present new, previously unpublished results. Corcoran regards this review as an important contribution to contemporary study of PRIOR ANALYTICS: both the book and the review deserve to be better known. (shrink)

I argue for a kind of logical pluralism on the basis of a difficulty with defining the meaning of negation in the framework of Dummett's and Prawitz' proof-theoretic semantics.

When some P implies some Q, this should have some impact on what attitudes we take to P and Q. In other words: logical consequence has a normative import. I use this idea, recently explored by a number of scholars, as a stepping stone to a bolder view: that relations of logical consequence can be identified with norms on our propositional attitudes, or at least that our talk of logical consequence can be explained in terms of such (...) norms. I investigate the prospects of such a cognitive norm account of logical consequence. I go over the challenges involved in finding a plausible bridge principle connecting logical consequence to cognitive norms, in particular a biconditional principle that gives us not only necessary but sufficient conditions for logical consequence in terms of norms on propositional attitudes. Then, on the assumption that an adequate norm can be found, I consider what the philosophical merits of such a cognitive norm account would be, and what theoretical commitments it would generate. (shrink)

Is a naturalistic account of reference possible? Here is a simple argument to the effect that it is not: Let R be the relation that allegedly naturalizes reference, and consider the predicate "being an object that does not stand in the relation R to this expression". Call this predicate "P". On the face of it, P is a counterexample to the alleged naturalization, since it appears to refer to all and only those objects that do not stand in the relation (...) R to it. Actually, an argument like this was advanced more than twenty years ago by the late Paolo Casalegno. Although for various reasons it has not been given due attention by the philosophical community, the argument is interesting in its structure and remarkable in its conclusion. In this paper I shall reconstruct it in detail and discuss it. Then, I shall show that the argument fails, since, contrary to what Casalegno claimed, under certain conditions P is paradoxical, hence not a referring expression. My rejection builds on the fundamental distinction between simple and compound expressions, namely on the compositional structure of natural languages. If I am right, whether any attempt at naturalizing reference that takes care of this distinction will succeed remains an open empirical question. (shrink)

This article explores the question of how the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School promoted values that can be regarded as components of so-called logical culture. The author argues that these values are strictly connected with science. With references to Łukasiewicz, Czeżowski, and Kotarbiński,the article explores how values shape the logical culture and determines society as directed towards values. The article connects the meta-philosophical perspective with the philosophical one.

In Appearance and Explanation, McCain and Moretti propose a novel internalist account of epistemic justification called phenomenal explanationism, which combines phenomenal conservatism and explanationism. I argue that the current version of phenomenal explanationism faces a dilemma: either it omits the awareness requirement but implies an implausible form of logical-mathematical omniscience, or it preserves the requirement but leads to a vicious regress. I suggest how phenomenal explanationism might be revised to avoid this dilemma.

In appearance, Husserl’s writings seem not to have had any influence on linguistic research, nor does what the German philosopher wrote about language seem to be worth a place in the history of linguistics. The purpose of the paper is exactly to contrast this view, by reassessing both the position and the role of Husserl’s early masterpiece — the Logical Investigations — within the history of linguistics. To this end, I will focus mainly on the third (On the theory (...) of wholes and parts) and fourth (The distinction between independent and non-independent meanings) Investigations, paying special attention to Husserl’s mereology and to the idea of a general pure grammar. The paper tries to situate the third and fourth Logical Investigation within the general context of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century linguistics and furthermore attempts to show the historical and theoretical importance of the Logical Investigations for the birth and the development of one of the most important linguistic “schools” of the twentieth century, namely structural linguistics. (shrink)

Starting from certain metalogical results, I argue that first-order logical truths of classical logic are a priori and necessary. Afterwards, I formulate two arguments for the idea that first-order logical truths are also analytic, namely, I first argue that there is a conceptual connection between aprioricity, necessity, and analyticity, such that aprioricity together with necessity entails analyticity; then, I argue that the structure of natural deduction systems for FOL displays the analyticity of its truths. Consequently, each philosophical approach (...) to these truths should account for this evidence, i.e., that first-order logical truths are a priori, necessary, and analytic, and it is my contention that the semantic account is a better candidate. (shrink)

I outline the theoretical framework of, and three research programs within American speculative philosophy of science during the period 1900-1931. One program applies verificationism to research in psychology, one investigates the methodology of research programs, and one analyses scientific explanation and other scientific concepts. The primary sources for my outline are works by Morris Raphael Cohen, Grace Andrus de Laguna, Theodore de Laguna, Edgar Arthur Singer Jr., Harold Robert Smart, and Marie Collins Swabey. I also use my outline to provide (...) a partial comparison of American speculative philosophy of science and 1930s logical positivism. My comparison suggests that logical positivism was a proposal for substantially narrowing down and winding back American philosophy of science and was based on positions that were already problematized in the American context. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Goff's view that universal consciousness grounds logical laws such as the law of non-contradiction cannot be true on the grounds that we cannot guarantee the classical logic loving nature of universal consciousness that Goff desires in order to ground logical laws. I will present three arguments to show this.

This paper presents an attempt to bridge the gap between logical and cognitive treatments of strategic reasoning in games. There have been extensive formal debates about the merits of the principle of backward induction among game theorists and logicians. Experimental economists and psychologists have shown that human subjects, perhaps due to their bounded resources, do not always follow the backward induction strategy, leading to unexpected outcomes. Recently, based on an eye-tracking study, it has turned out that even human subjects (...) who produce the outwardly correct ‘backward induction answer’ use a different internal reasoning strategy to achieve it. The paper presents a formal language to represent different strategies on a finer-grained level than was possible before. The language and its semantics help to precisely distinguish different cognitive reasoning strategies, that can then be tested on the basis of computational cognitive models and experiments with human subjects. The syntactic framework of the formal system provides a generic way of constructing computational cognitive models of the participants of the Marble Drop game. (shrink)

In this essay I focus on the idea of the univocity of being, championed by Duns Scotus and given prominence more recently by Deleuze. Although I am interested in how this idea can be established, my primary concern is with something more basic: how the idea can even be properly thought. In the course of exploring this issue, which I do partly by borrowing some ideas about logical syntax from Wittgenstein's Tractatus, I try to show how there can be (...) dialogue between analytic philosophers and those of other traditions. (shrink)

This essay examines the possibility that phenomenological laws might be implemented by a computational mechanism by carefully analyzing key passages from the Prolegomena to Pure Logic. Part I examines the famous Denkmaschine passage as evidence for the view that intuitions of evidence are causally produced by computational means. Part II connects the less famous criticism of Avenarius & Mach on thought-economy with Husserl's 1891 essay 'On the Logic of Signs (Semiotic).' Husserl is shown to reaffirm his earlier opposition to associationist (...) (Humean) and adaptationist (Darwinian) explanations of our thought-machine on the ground that they cannot reconstruct the notion of truth and its syntactic mental preservation in symbolic thought-trains. Part III reveals Husserl's interesting commitment to the idea that descriptive sciences necessarily transform into explanatory sciences on pain of contradicting the essence of science as a rational ideal. Since explanation in relation to phenomenology means causal explanation, and causal explanation in the form of the Denkmaschine accounts for phenomenological intuition, it is inferred that the rationally compelling ideal of explanatory science requires a computationalist reading of the subsequent logical investigations. (shrink)

Traditionally, pronouns are treated as ambiguous between bound and demonstrative uses. Bound uses are non-referential and function as bound variables, and demonstrative uses are referential and take as a semantic value their referent, an object picked out jointly by linguistic meaning and a further cue—an accompanying demonstration, an appropriate and adequately transparent speaker’s intention, or both. In this paper, we challenge tradition and argue that both demonstrative and bound pronouns are dependent on, and co-vary with, antecedent expressions. Moreover, the semantic (...) value of a pronoun is never determined, even partly, by extra-linguistic cues; it is fixed, invariably and unambiguously, by features of its context of use governed entirely by linguistic rules. We exploit the mechanisms of Centering and Coherence theories to develop a precise and general meta-semantics for pronouns, according to which the semantic value of a pronoun is determined by what is at the center of attention in a coherent discourse. Since the notions of attention and coherence are, we argue, governed by linguistic rules, we can give a uniform analysis of pronoun resolution that covers bound, demonstrative, and even discourse bound readings. Just as the semantic value of the first-person pronoun ‘I’ is conventionally set by a particular feature of its context of use—namely, the speaker—so too, we will argue, the semantic values of other pronouns, including ‘he’, are conventionally set by particular features of the context of use. (shrink)

Inquiry into the meaning of logical terms in natural language (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’) has generally proceeded along two dimensions. On the one hand, semantic theories aim to predict native speaker intuitions about the natural language sentences involving those logical terms. On the other hand, logical theories explore the formal properties of the translations of those terms into formal languages. Sometimes, these two lines of inquiry appear to be in tension: for instance, our best logical investigation (...) into conditional connectives may show that there is no conditional operator that has all the properties native speaker intuitions suggest if has. Indicative conditionals have famously been the source of one such tension, ever since the triviality proofs of both Lewis (1976) and Gibbard (1981) established conclusions which are in prima facie tension with ordinary judgments about natural language indicative conditionals. In a recent series of papers, Branden Fitelson has strengthened both triviality results (Fitelson 2013, 2015, 2016), revealing a common culprit: a logical schema known as IMPORT-EXPORT. Fitelson’s results focus the tension between the logical results and ordinary judgments, since IMPORT-EXPORT seems to be supported by intuitions about natural language. In this paper, we argue that the intuitions which have been taken to support IMPORT-EXPORT are really evidence for a closely related, but subtly different, principle. We show that the two principles are independent by showing how, given a standard assumption about the conditional operator in the formal language in which IMPORT-EXPORT is stated, many existing theories of indicative conditionals validate one, but not the other. Moreover, we argue that once we clearly distinguish these principles, we can use propositional anaphora to show that IMPORT-EXPORT is in fact not valid for natural language indicative conditionals (given this assumption about the formal conditional operator). This gives us a principled and independently motivated way of rejecting a crucial premise in many triviality results, while still making sense of the speaker intuitions which appeared to motivate that premise. We suggest that this strategy has broad application and an important lesson: in theorizing about the logic of natural language, we must pay careful attention to the translation between the formal languages in which logical results are typically proved, and natural languages which are the subject matter of semantic theory. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, I examine in detail Edmund Husserl’s earliest philosophy of surrogates, as it is found in his 1890 “On the Logic of Signs ”. I analyze his psychological and logical investigations of surrogates, where the former is concerned with explaining how these signs function and the latter with how they do so reliably. His differentiation of surrogates on the basis of their genetic origins and degrees of necessity is discussed. Second, the historical importance of (...) this text is disclosed by showing how Semiotic serves as both the inspiration for, and the foil to, Husserl’s 1901 First Logical Investigation. Husserl not only adopts the idea that linguistic signs can function via association, but also maintains that such signs can motivate me to execute one of two experiences. The key difference between the texts is that Husserl abandons his theory of surrogates in 1901, instead holding that I can experience absent objects by means of empty intentions. The reasons why Husserl found it necessary to transform this tenet of his philosophy are discussed at length. (shrink)

In this article I develop a new problem for the doctrine of the Trinity that I call the Problem of Triunity. Rather than proceeding from the fact that God is one and the persons are many, as the traditional problem of the Trinity does, the problem of triunity proceeds from the fact that, in one sense or another, God is many, and yet each divine person on his own is just one.

This paper proposes substitutional definitions of logical truth and consequence in terms of relative interpretations that are extensionally equivalent to the model-theoretic definitions for any relational first-order language. Our philosophical motivation to consider substitutional definitions is based on the hope to simplify the meta-theory of logical consequence. We discuss to what extent our definitions can contribute to that.

In this paper, I provide a new reading of Wittgenstein’s N operator, and of its significance within his early logical philosophy. I thereby aim to resolve a longstanding scholarly controversy concerning the expressive completeness of N. Within the debate between Fogelin and Geach in particular, an apparent dilemma emerged to the effect that we must either concede Fogelin’s claim that N is expressively incomplete, or reject certain fundamental tenets within Wittgenstein’s logical philosophy. Despite their various points of disagreement, (...) however, Fogelin and Geach nevertheless share several common and problematic assumptions regarding Wittgenstein’s logical philosophy, and it is these mistaken assumptions which are the source of the dilemma. Once we recognize and correct these, and other, associated expository errors, it will become clear how to reconcile the expressive completeness of Wittgenstein’s N operator, with several commonly recognized features of, and fundamental theses within, the Tractarian logical system. (shrink)

Dutch Book Arguments (DBAs) have been invoked to support various requirements of rationality. Some are plausible: probabilism and conditionalization. Others are less so: credal transparency and reflection. Anna Mahtani has argued for a new understanding of DBAs which, she claims, allow us to keep the DBAs for probabilism (and perhaps conditionalization) and reject the DBAs for credal transparency and reflection. I argue that Mahtani’s new account fails as (a) it does not support highly plausible requirements of rational coherence and (b) (...) it does not, even setting aside the first objection, succeed in undermining the DBAs for credal transparency or reflection. (shrink)

In the theory of meaning, it is common to contrast truth-conditional theories of meaning with theories which identify the meaning of an expression with its use. One rather exact version of the somewhat vague use-theoretic picture is the view that the standard rules of inference determine the meanings of logical constants. Often this idea also functions as a paradigm for more general use-theoretic approaches to meaning. In particular, the idea plays a key role in the anti-realist program of Dummett (...) and his followers. In the theory of truth, a key distinction now is made between substantial theories and minimalist or deflationist views. According to the former, truth is a genuine substantial property of the truth-bearers, whereas according to the latter, truth does not have any deeper essence, but all that can be said about truth is contained in T-sentences (sentences having the form: ‘P’ is true if and only if P). There is no necessary analytic connection between the above theories of meaning and truth, but they have nevertheless some connections. Realists often favour some kind of truth-conditional theory of meaning and a substantial theory of truth (in particular, the correspondence theory). Minimalists and deflationists on truth characteristically advocate the use theory of meaning (e.g. Horwich). Semantical anti-realism (e.g. Dummett, Prawitz) forms an interesting middle case: its starting point is the use theory of meaning, but it usually accepts a substantial view on truth, namely that truth is to be equated with verifiability or warranted assertability. When truth is so understood, it is also possible to accept the idea that meaning is closely related to truth-conditions, and hence the conflict between use theories and truth-conditional theories in a sense disappears in this view. (shrink)

Analytic theologians have proposed numerous “solutions” to the Logical Problem of the Trinity (LPT), mostly versions of Social Trinitarianism (ST) and Relative Identity Trinitarianism (RI). Both types of solution are controversial, but many hold out hope that further “Trinitarian theorizing” may yield some as yet unimagined, and somehow importantly different, solution to the LPT. I first give a precise definition of the LPT and of what would count as a solution to it. I then show how, though there are (...) infinitely many possible solutions, all solutions can be grouped together into a finite, exhaustive taxonomy, based precisely on those features which make them either controversial, heretical, or inconsistent. The taxonomy reveals why ST and RI have been the major proposed solutions, and also proves that there can be no importantly different, new solutions to the LPT. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two goals. First, the essay elucidates Husserl’s descriptions of meaning consciousness from the 1901 Logical Investigations. I examine Husserl’s observations about the three ways we can experience meaning and I discuss his conclusions about the structure of meaning intentions. Second, the paper explores how Husserl reworked that 1901 theory in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Investigation. I explore how Husserl transformed his descriptions of the three intentions involved in meaningful experience. By doing so, Husserl not (...) only recognized intersubjective communication as the condition of possibility of linguistic meaning acts, but also transformed his account of the structure of both signitive and intuitive acts. In the conclusion, I cash out this analysis, by showing how, on the basis of these new insights, Husserl reconstructs his theory of fulfillment. (shrink)