Sesión extraordinaria del Seminario (22-10-2009): Paul Gochet

Fecha / Date: 22-10-2009.

Hora / Time: 12:00 h.

Lugar / Location: Seminario de Lógica de la Facultad de Filosofía - Universidad de Sevilla.

Ponente / Lecturer: Paul Gochet (Universidad de Lieja).

Título / Tittle: The logic of intentionality and adverbial constructions.

Resumen / Abstract:
Intentional verbs like «desire» seem to violate standard inference rules. For instance, the following inference seems to be invalid: «If A dies without suffering, A dies. Therefore if A wants to die without suffering A wants to die». To account for this anomaly, Priest puts forward a formal semantics which accommodates open worlds which are not closed under entailment. It might be claimed however that a linguistic account of the above piece of reasoning which displays the underlying presuppositions involved might save us from treating intentional notions as «pretty anarchic». Not all inferences in which «wants» occurs essentially raise problems. Think of the following inference: «If B’s murderer is identified and captured by the police then B’s murderer is identified by the police. Therefore if the police want to identify and capture B’s murderer, the police wants to identify B’s murderer». The crucial difference between the two inferences lies in the adverbial construction («dies without suffering») which occurs in the former but not in the latter.