The 2019/20 UConn Logic Group

Scholar of Consequence

Chris Kennedy (Chicago)

will present the Annual Logic Lecture.

Details to follow.

https://logic.uconn.edu/annual-logic-lecture/

The Cognitive Science Colloquium Series is proud to present Aaron Shield, Ph.D.

Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Miami University of Ohio

Sign Language and Autism at Miami (SL@M) Lab

Friday, November 1st, 4pm, Oak Hall 117

Dr. Shield will provide a talk entitled “Insights into cognitive and linguistic processes from research on autism and sign language”

Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss how research into the signed languages of the deaf has the power to illuminate big questions about human language. By comparing spoken and signed languages, we gain a better understanding of what language is, how children learn languages, and how to best characterize and treat language disorders. In particular, I will show how research into the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sheds new light on various questions about acquisition, such as how children imitate linguistic forms, how children use pronouns and other words that refer to self and other, and how language exposure may affect other aspects of cognition.

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Shield, please contact Dr. Eigsti: inge-marie.eigsti@uconn.edu

TBA

This week: Steve Núñez, "Sonic Resistance: Sorrow Songs, Contours of Hip-Hop and Trap, and Interest-Relative Theory of Catharsis"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Join us for a talk by Sean Morris (MSU Denver) in the history of analytic philosophy!

“Explication: Carnapian and Quinean”

All welcome!

https://rossberg.philosophy.uconn.edu/histanalytic/

Join us in the Logic Colloquium for a talk by

Pauline Jacobson (Brown)

"Variable Free Semantics: Putting competition effects where they belong"

Abstract:

This talk will have two parts. First I will discuss the approach to semantics making no use of variable names, indices, or assignment functions that I have advocated in a series of papers (see especially Jacobson, 1999, Linguistics and Philosophy and 2000, Natural Language Semantics, also exposited in Jacobson 2014 textbook Compositional Semantics, OUP). There are a number of theoretical and empirical advantages to this approach, which will be just briefly reviewed. To mention the most obvious theoretical advantage: the standard use of variable names and indices in semantics requires meanings to be relativized to assignment functions (assignments of values to the variable names), adding a layer to the semantic machinery. This program eliminates this and treats all meanings as 'healthy' model theoretic objects (the meaning of a pronoun, for example, is simply the identity function on individuals, not a function from assignments to individuals). I will then show a new empirical payoff, which concerns competition effects found in ellipsis constructions. These competition effects have gone under the rubric of MaxElide in the linguistics literature. One example centers on the contrast in (1) (on the reading where each candidates hope is about their own success):

(1) a. Harris is hoping that South Carolina will seal the nomination for her, and Warren is too. (= 'hoping that it will seal nomination for her (Warren)')
b. ?*Harris is hoping that South Carolina will seal the nomination for her, and Warren is also hoping that it will (='seal the nomination for her (Warren)')

The 'standard' wisdom is there is a constraint in the grammar that when material is 'missing' (or, 'elided') if a bigger constituent can be elided, the bigger ellipsis is required. Why the grammar should contain such a constraint is a total mystery; moreover I and others have argued elsewhere that grammatical competition constraints represent a real complication in the grammar. When there are competition effects they should be located in speakers and hearers (we know that speakers and hearers do compute alternatives - Gricean reasoning, for example, is based on that assumption). Under the variable free account, the missing material in (1a) is of a different type than that in (1b). In (1a), the listener need only supply the property 'be an x such that x hopes that SC will seal nomination for x' which is the meaning of the VP in the first clause. In (1b) what must be supplied is the 2-place relation 'seal the nomination for' (note that this is in part because the pronoun her in the first clause is not a variable, and so [[seal the nomination for her]] is the function from an individual x to the property of sealing the nomination for x, which in turn is the two place relation named above. The competition effect is t

This week: Stephen Finlay (USC), Reasons as Evidence AND Explanations"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Discussing Alex Byrne's "Transparency and Self-Knowledge"

Join us in the Logic Colloquium:

Steven Dalglish (OSU)

"How to Deal with Semantic Paradox (Hint: Accept Defeat)"

Abstract:

I contend that semantic paradox shows we should regard the rules of inference for semantic notions as defeasible. Truth is a prominent semantic notion for which semantic paradox poses a problem, and so a first step in solving semantic paradox is handling a semantic notion of truth. This talk investigates how defeasible rules of inference for a semantic notion of truth can form the basis for a successful truth-conditional theory of meaning. I start by using Default Logic for representing the rules of inference for a truth predicate as defeasible, before adding preferences over rules and modifying the criteria for defeat.

All welcome!

https://logic.uconn.edu/calendar/

ECOM's Inaugural Graduate Conference, "Kinds of Knowledge", Nov 15-16. Alex Byrne and Kristin Andrews Keynote Speakers. CFP available.

Will be updated

Will be updated.

(See Nov 15)

This week: Marcus Rossberg, "Is-Ought Inferences"

A series of informal talks by philosophy faculty and graduate students. For a description and how to sign up, see http://philosophy.uconn.edu/brown-bags/.

Join us for a talk by Martin Pleitz (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany).

Martin Pleitz:

"A Dynamic Solution to the Liar Paradox"

The Liar paradox arises when we combine the assumption that a sentence can refer to itself with our naïve notion of truth and apply our unrevised logic. Most current approaches to the Liar paradox focus on revising our notion of truth and logic because nowadays almost everyone is convinced that there are self-referential sentences. I will argue against this conviction. My argument starts from observations about the metaphysics of expressions: A meaningful expression is based in a syntactic expression which in turn is based in a non-semiotic object, and these are pairwise distinct. As all objects of this three-fold ontology exist only relative to contexts, we can import ideas from tense logic about how existence and reference can interact in a contextualist metaphysics. Semantico-metaphysical reasoning then shows that in this dynamic setting, an object can be referred to only after it has started to exist. Hence the self-reference needed in the Liar paradox cannot occur, after all. As this solution is contextualist, it evades the expressibility problems of other proposals.

All welcome!

https://logic.uconn.edu/