The combination of quantifiers with a semantics for epistemic operators in a modal framework is one of the major contributions of Hintikka in intensional logic. Hintikka’s starting point is his diagnosis of the failure of existential generalization and the substitution of identicals in terms of referential multiplicity. In this paper, I introduce Hintikka as a free logician. Indeed, Hintikka’s first-order epistemic logic is grounded on a logic free of ontological presuppositions with respect to singular terms. It is also a logic (...) free of presuppositions of uniqueness of reference. After having focused on the use of quantifiers and singular terms in Hintikka’s epistemic logic, I discuss some consequences from a semantico-logical perspective, but also from a philosophical one. By arguing against the so-called contingent a priori truths defended by Kripke, I conclude with a proposal in favour of Hintikka’s non-rigid interpretation of proper names. (shrink)

Even when inconsistencies are present in our premise set, we can sensibly distinguish between good and bad arguments relying on these premises. In making this distinction, the inconsistency-adaptive approach of Batens strikes a particularly nice balance between inconsistency-tolerance and inferential strength. In this paper, we use the machinery of Batens’ approach to extend the paraconsistent approach to dialogical logic as developed by Rahman and Carnielli. In bringing these frameworks closer together, we obtain a dynamic mechanism for the systematic study of (...) dialogues in which two parties exchange arguments over a central claim, in the possible presence of inconsistencies. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique sur la non-existence est une thématique qui a été abordée au commencement même de la philosophie et qui suscite, depuis la publication en 1905 de « On Denoting » par Russell, les plus vifs débats en philosophie analytique. Cependant, le débat féroce sur la sémantique des noms propres et des descriptions définies qui surgirent suite à la publication du « On Referring » par Strawson en 1950 n’engagea pas d’étude systématique de la sémantique des fictions. En fait, (...) le développement systématique d’un lien qui articule approches logiques, philosophiques et littéraires de la fiction devait attendre les travaux de John Woods publiés en 1974 dans son livre The Logic of Fiction : A Philosophical Sounding of Deviant Logic. Un des enjeux les plus excitants du livre de Woods se situe au niveau de l’interaction entre les points de vue internalistes ou interne-à-l’histoire (principalement pragmatiques) et les points de vue externalistes ou externe-à-la-fiction (principalement sémantiques). Sur ce point, Woods fut le premier à formuler une sémantique pour l’opérateur de fiction à lire comme « selon l’histoire… » en relation à la notion logique de portée, ce qui permettait l’étude de l’internalisme et de l’externalisme. Suite au livre de Woods, loin de s’essouffler, les débats trouvaient une nouvelle impulsion. Le fait pertinent pour notre article est que la tradition phénoménologique également, l’étude de la fiction a joué un rôle central. En effet, l’une des problématiques les plus sujettes à controverses dans l’intentionnalité est celle de l’indépendance à l’existence, c’est-à-dire le fait que les actes intentionnels n’ont pas besoin d’être forcément dirigés vers un objet existant. Influencée par les travaux de Roman Ingarden (1893-1970), l’un des plus importants disciples de Husserl, Amie L. Thomasson développe le concept phénoménologique de dépendance ontologique en vue d’expliquer les processus de références inter- et transfictionnels – dans le contexte de l’interprétation littéraire par exemple. L’enjeu essentiel de cet article est de proposer une reconstruction multimodale bi-dimensionnelle de la théorie des personnages fictionnels de Ingarden-Thomasson. Cette théorie qui entend prendre au sérieux le fait que les fictions sont des créations montre la voie pour une articulation entre les approches internalistes et externalistes. Nous motivons certains changements quant à l’approche artéfactuelle - incluant une sémantique appropriée pour l’opérateur de fictionalité qui, nous l’espérons, éveillera l’intérêt des théoriciens de la littérature. L’article est à d’autres égards un panorama de la façon dont différents concepts d’intentionnalité pourraient fonder différentes sémantiques formelles pour la fictionalité. Nous proposerons enfin un cadre dialogique qui est une extension modale d’un certain système de preuve développé par Matthieu Fontaine et Juan Redmond. Le cadre dialogique développe la contrepartie inférentielle de la sémantique bi-dimensionnelle introduite par Shahid Rahman et Tero Tulenheimo dans un article récent. (shrink)

Mirativity is a grammatical category or a linguistic strategy that makes explicit the surprising aspect of a piece of information. Different mirativity strategies appear in different languages. Evidentiality is a grammatical category that explicitly expresses the source of information, i.e. if something has been seen, heard or inferred. Whether mirativity forms part of evidentiality is an open question. An agent makes use of a mirativity marker when she or he expresses something about a surprising fact with respect to her or (...) his background knowledge. But there are different kinds of mirativity markers. Some of them are simple and direct and others, more complex, involve inferential processes. Here, we focus on complex mirativity and we compare it with inferred evidentials and deferred realizations. Our proposal goes beyond the purely linguistic analysis, since we try to interpret mirativity, and its role in interaction, as forming part of or involving a particular kind of inference, namely abduction. Mirativity can be used to express the surprising state that triggers an abductive reasoning but it can also encapsulate its result in such a way that it can be understood in relation to evidentiality. Thus, at least in some cases of complex mirativity, mirativity may convey indication about the source of information. Interesting for studies on dialogue is that they also indicate the degree of commitment of the speakers with the content of their own utterances. (shrink)

In her book Fiction and Metaphysics (1999) Amie Thomasson, influenced by the work of Roman Ingarden, develops a phenomenological approach to fictional entities in order to explain how non-fictional entities can be referred to intrafictionally and transfictionally, for example in the context of literary interpretation. As our starting point we take Thomasson’s realist theory of literary fictional objects, according to which such objects actually exist, albeit as abstract and artifactual entities. Thomasson’s approach relies heavily on the notion of ontological dependence, (...) but its precise semantics has not yet been developed. Moreover, the modal approach to the notion of ontological dependence underlying the Artifactual Theory has recently been contested by several scholars. The main aims of this paper are (i) to develop a semantic approach to the notion of ontological dependence in the context of the Artifactual Theory of fiction, and in so doing bridge a number of philosophical and logical gaps; (ii) to generalize Thomasson’s categorial theory of ontological dependence by reconstructing ontological categories of entities purely in terms of different structures of ontological dependence, rather than in terms of the basic kinds of entities the categorical entities depend on. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to offer a solution compatible with Graham Priest’s Noneism and Amie Thomasson’s Artifactual theory which stresses the epistemic features of the notion of individuality in fiction in a framework where individuals are conceived of as functions (the framework is known as the world-lines-semantics of Hintikka). According to our view, it is the endorsement of a reader’s perspective that extends the range of the values of the functions (individuals) and that offers an alternative solution (...) to cases of identity inside and outside the scope of a fictionality (or representation) operator. More technically, this proposal can be seen as both extending the notion of individuality of the Artifactual theory and furnishing an epistemic twist to Priest’s principle of freedom. (shrink)

How to interpret singular terms in fiction? In this paper, we address this semantic question from the perspective of the Artifactual Theory of Fiction (ATF). According to the ATF, fictional characters exist as abstract artifacts created by their author, and preserved through the existence of copies of an original work and a competent readership. We pretend that a well-suited semantics for the ATF can be defined with respect to a modal framework by means of Hintikka’s world lines semantics. The question (...) of the interpretation of proper names is asked in relation to two inference rules, problematic when applied in intensional contexts: the Substitution of Identicals and Existential Generalization. The former fails because identity is contingent. The latter because proper names are not necessarily linked to well-identified individuals. This motivates a non-rigid interpretation of proper names in fiction, although cross-fictional reference (e.g. to real entities) is made possible by the interpretative efforts of the reader. (shrink)

Al acercarnos al razonamiento médico debemos tener en cuenta no sólo el razonamiento clínico, sino también el razonamiento del médico en el ámbito de las investigaciones biomédicas. Además, el razonamiento clínico involucra no sólo el diagnostico, sino también la terapia, la monitorización y aspectos más generales de la investigación médica como procesos fundamentales. En todos estos casos tenemos esquemas inferenciales que pasan de la introducción de hipótesis abductivas, a la predicción deductiva de las consecuencias y la comprobación inductiva mediante pruebas (...) empíricas. Sin embargo, no siempre estos esquemas de razonamiento siguen este orden, sino que a veces las abducciones son seguidas de otras abducciones. En este artículo, proponemos un análisis del razonamiento médico basado en el modelo Gabbay y Woods de la abducción y el modelo Select and Test de Magnani para dar cuenta del uso de las hipótesis abductivas. Concluimos con una discusión de la introducción de las hipótesis en relación con el debate sobre las evidencias estadístico-probabilísticas y mecanicista en las ciencias biomédicas, y la tesis abogada por Russo y Williamson sobre su complementariedad. Nos diferenciamos de ellos en que consideramos los mecanismos como hipótesis abductivas que sirven para guiar la experimentación. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

The main aim of the paper is to offer a solution compatible with Graham Priest’s Noneism and Amie Thomasson’s Artifactual theory which stresses the epistemic features of the notion of individuality in fiction in a framework where individuals are conceived of as functions (the framework is known as the world-lines-semantics of Hintikka). According to our view, it is the endorsement of a reader’s perspective that extends the range of the values of the functions (individuals) and that offers an alternative solution (...) to cases of identity inside and outside the scope of a fictionality (or representation) operator. More technically, this proposal can be seen as both extending the notion of individuality of the Artifactual theory and furnishing an epistemic twist to Priest’s principle of freedom. (shrink)

The negative particles lā/ ’al in Ugaritic change from positive to negative in modal contexts, conditional, questions, disjunctions, etc. They have usually been studied from a Semitic and linguistic points of view. On the basis of their occurrence in Ugaritic texts, we pretend to explain their uncommon behaviour from a philosophical and logico-semantic perspective. Is it possible to translate this linguistic structure in our Modern languages? Starting from a general view of their use in Ugaritic language, we claim that this (...) phenomenon can be more clearly understood in relation to modality. We interpret these negation as a negative evidential paradigm and we explain how they change in different contexts. Methodologically, we make use of formal tools of Dynamic Epistemic Logic in order to provide a more fine-grained understanding of these negations, and their dynamics. (shrink)

It is acknowledged by proponents of the Artifactual Theory of Fiction that literary works sometimes involve real or immigrant characters. However, their conception of cross-fictional identity faces serious difficulties. In this paper, we set the problem in the context of a modal framework, in relation to quantification across a plurality of possible worlds. Quantification is explained in terms of Hintikka’s notion of world lines; i.e. the possible values of bound variables are individuals that are not reduced to their manifestations. We (...) finally offer another understanding of identity across weakly impermeable domains, in a way compatible with the Artifactual Theory of Fiction. (shrink)

This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important and innovative changes in theories and concepts. Gathering revised contributions presented at the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning, held on October 24–26 2018 in Seville, Spain, the book is divided into three main parts. The first focuses on models, reasoning, and representation. It highlights key theoretical concepts from an applied perspective, and addresses issues concerning information visualization, experimental (...) methods, and design. The second part goes a step further, examining abduction, problem solving, and reasoning. The respective papers assess different types of reasoning, and discuss various concepts of inference and creativity and their relationship with experimental data. In turn, the third part reports on a number of epistemological and technological issues. By analyzing possible contradictions in modern research and describing representative case studies, this part is intended to foster new discussions and stimulate new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the fields of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of the latest theories and applications of model-based reasoning. (shrink)