Please join us for the (short) Award Ceremony and McGee’s lecture in BUSN 127, this Friday at 2 p.m. Contact Stefan Kaufmann for zoom information.

Vann McGee (M.I.T.):
“Terrestrial Logic”

We explore a “rules-of-inference first” methodology for logical theory. Instead of starting with truth conditions and looking for truth-preserving rules, we start out with the rules and set out to find appropriate truth conditions. We reach the conclusion that the classical rules pin down the semantic values of the logical words – “or,” “not,” “for all,” and so on – precisely. Inasmuch as, at least outside pure mathematics, human language and thought are saturated through and through with vagueness, this is, I think, a surprising outcome.

Friday, November 21, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

This Friday’s Logic Colloquium:

John Mackay (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
“Counterparts and Tolerance”
Friday, November 14, 2-4pm
Hybrid: MCHU 202 & Zoom

Contact Stefan Kaufmann for zoom access information.

Abstract:
One motivation for counterpart theory comes from a family of puzzles about identity and modal variation known as puzzles of tolerance. In these puzzles, an object could have been slightly different but could not have been radically different. It is commonly assumed, both by counterpart theorists and their critics, that the counterpart-theoretic solution to the puzzles of tolerance involves the intransitivity of counterpart relations. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake, and instead I defend a solution to the puzzles of tolerance that involves transitive counterpart relations with context-sensitive names and variables.