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::: center home >> events >> lunchtime >> 2015-16 >> abstracts>> Nov/Dec

November & December 2015 Lunchtime Abstracts & Details

::: Compositionality in Proof-theoretic Semantics
Heinrich Wansing
Ruhr University
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: In extensional many-valued logic, compositionality just means truth-functionality. The notion of truth is represented by a set of designated values, and semantical consequence (entailment) is defined as truth preservation from the premises of an inference to its conclusion. If falsity is understood as the absence of truth, the preservation of falsity is just the inverse of entailment viewed as truth preservation. The distinction between designated values (representing truth) and anti-designated values (representing falsity), however, has given rise to additional conceptions of entailment such as quasi-entailment and plausibility-entailment, and preservation of falsity is no longer the inverse of the preservation of truth.
The proof-theoretic counterpart of entailment is provability from a set of assumptions. In the talk I will argue that with truth and falsity as independent semantical categories, a compositional proof-theoretical account of the meaning of the logical operations requires a multiple-consequence setting, so that in addition to provability one has to employ a relation of dual provability or of disprovability. These considerations will be exemplified with an extended natural deduction framework.

 

::: G.E.M. Anscombe on the Analogical Unity of Intention in Perception and Action
Christopher Frey
University of South Carolina
Friday, November 20, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: Philosophers of action and perception have reached a consensus: the term ‘intentionality’ has significantly different senses in their respective fields. But Anscombe argues that these distinct senses are analogically united in such a way that one cannot understand the concept if one focuses exclusively on its use in one’s preferred philosophical sub-discipline. She highlights three salient points of analogy: (i) intentional objects are given by expressions that employ a “description under which;” (ii) intentional descriptions are typically vague and indeterminate; and (iii) intentional descriptions may be false. I explore these three features as they apply to both perception and action and defend Anscombe’s view that the analogical concept of intentionality is a grammatical concept. That is, there are two distinctive linguistic/social practices that involve, respectively, a special sense of the question ‘Why?’ and a special sense of the question ‘What?’ To competently ask and answer the questions that constitute these practices not only reflects, but also conveys a grammatical understanding of intentionality’s basic, formal structure.


::: Reasoning from Regularities: Science and Cognitive Science
Matthias Unterhuber, Visiting Fellow
University of Bern, Dept. of Philosophy
Friday, December 4, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: One aim of the scientific endeavor is the inquiry into the laws of our universe. In light of this, it is surprising that Bayesianism is advocated as one of the best current models of scientific inquiry since—as I shall argue—standard Bayesian accounts are ill-equipped to describe regularities let alone reasoning with regularities with exceptions. Two problems are identified. Firstly, a purely subjective account of Bayesianism is severely limited in which kind of exception structures it can describe. Secondly, it is still more puzzling how such an account could deal with the largely overlooked yet important class of regularities such as ‘mosquitoes carry Malaria’; these regularities do not require the majority of individuals to fall under the predicated property. For example, ‘mosquitoes carry Malaria’ seem perfectly fine to assert, in spite of only a minority of mosquitoes carrying Malaria. In fact, it is not Bayesianism alone that is challenged by the second problem but rather probabilistic accounts of scientific inquiry in general.



::: Homology Thinking: what is it and what are its implications?

Günter P. Wagner
Yale University
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: In this talk I will examine the thesis by Marc Ereshefsky (2012) that, in evolutionary biology, there is a third style of thinking, besides the well-known “population thinking” and “tree thinking.” Ereshefsky proposed “homology thinking” as a third approach, focused on the transformation of organismal phenotypes. I will argue that this idea is based on three biological insights: 1) multicellular organisms consist of developmentally individualized parts (sub-systems). 2) That developmental individuation entails evolutionary individuation, i.e. variational quasi-independence, and 3) these individuated body parts are inherited, though indirectly, and form lineages that are recognized as homologies. Furthermore I will argue that homology thinking transforms the conceptualization of some fundamental biological ideas such as cell types. In the discussion we may explore whether and how this conceptual framework can be productively applied outside the biological sciences, but I will not propose an answer to this question myself.

 

 

 

 
Revised 11/3/15 - Copyright 2009