A Counterexample to Modus Tollens

Yalcin, Seth

doi:10.1007/s10992-012-9228-4

Cited by 80 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…This brings us to our fourth desideratum: our theory should explain this surprising difference between simple disjunctions and disjunctions containing epistemic vocabulary. A semantics for 'or' is missing from Yalcin 2007Yalcin , 2011Yalcin , 2012a, and related papers. Hence the relevant challenge for Yalcin is to state a semantics that predicts the behavior just described.…”

Section: :12mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary

Moss

2015

S&P

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This paper motivates and develops a novel semantics for several epistemic expressions, including possibility and necessity modals and indicative conditionals. The semantics I defend constitutes an alternative to standard truth conditional theories, as it assigns sets of probability measures rather than sets of worlds as sentential semantic values. I argue that what my theory lacks in conservatism, it makes up for in strength -namely, the theory accounts for a host of distinctive and suggestive linguistic data collected and explored in this paper.Keywords: epistemic modals; indicative conditionals; dynamic semantics; modus ponens; constructive dilemma; context sensitivity; assertion; logical constants There has been much recent debate over the correct semantics for epistemic vocabulary -that is, expressions like the sentential operators in sentences such as:( 1) John might be in his office.(2) John must be in his office.(3) John is probably in his office.(4) If John is in the building, he is in his office.This paper explores a rich source of data for theories of this vocabulary. The debate over the viability of standard truth conditional theories has called attention to the distinctive behavior of epistemic vocabulary in eavesdropping * Thanks to

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Section: :12mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary

Moss

2015

S&P

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“…Yalcin (2012) independently reached this conclusion about probably on similar grounds. sensitive expressions by denying the literal and non-elliptical truth of (1b) and (1c).…”

Section: Objection #3: Ellipsismentioning

confidence: 71%

“…The near-orthodox account of conditionals in ordinary language is Kratzer's (1981;1991) restrictor analysis. And as Charlow (2013) and Yalcin (2012) observe, that analysis doesn't validate modus ponens.…”

Section: (6b)mentioning

confidence: 96%

Subjective Ought

Carr¹

2015

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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T his paper concerns the subjective ought in natural language. If you think the apple is poisoned, there's a sense in which you ought not eat the appleeven if, unbeknownst to you, the apple isn't poisoned. This ought, the subjective ought, isn't just sensitive to sources of value in the world: it's also sensitive to what information is available. The objective ought, by contrast, is insensitive to knowledge and ignorance: it's the ought from a God's-eye view.The subjective and objective ought and related expressions (should, arguably must and have to, attitude verbs like want and need, comparatives like better, and so on) aren't technical terms in philosophy. They are a part of natural language, the language we use to express intuitions in ethics, philosophy of action, and decision theory. When we investigate the relations between what we ought to do and considerations like what morality or prudence requires, what we want or intend, what we're able to do, and so on, our claims are expressed in natural language. They reflect the logical structure of natural language. And our theorizing often tacitly makes assumptions about the entailment relations between various considerations and what we ought to do.So we should get clear on how ought and related expressions work in natural language. The subjective ought, in particular, is not well understood. The recent literature on the Miners Puzzle, initiated by Kolodny and MacFarlane (2010) and developed by Charlow (2013), Cariani, Kaufmann, and Kaufmann (2013), Dowell (2012), von Fintel (2012, and Silk (2014a), discredits a widespread misconception about the subjective ought: that ought claims in natural language must obey classical inference rules like modus tollens. In fact, subjective ought provides a wealth of examples that show that those rules aren't valid. In Section 1, I summarize Kolodny and MacFarlane's argument that indicative conditionals don't obey modus ponens, and I provide some new empirical and theoretical arguments against the validity of classical inference rules for natural language conditionals.

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“…We define ϕ := ¬♦¬ϕ. We will discuss a semantics for the modal-indicative language due to Yalcin [2012]. This is a simplified A domain model for the modal-indicative language is simply a set W of worlds together with an assignment of subsets of W to proposition letters.…”

Section: Indicative Conditionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerning the notion of semantic consequence for this language, we now deviate from the standard definition of consequence used in the previous two case studies. Following Yalcin [2012Yalcin [ , p. 1019, we say that a formula ϕ is an informational consequence of a set Γ of formulas iff for every model W and information state i ⊆ W , if i ⊆ γ i ("i accepts γ") for every γ ∈ Γ, then i ⊆ ϕ i ("i accepts ϕ"). An argument from Yalcin 2007 in favor of this definition of consequence for a language with epistemic modals is that it predicts the defectiveness of sentences like "It is raining and it might not be raining", formalized as p ∧ ♦¬p.…”

Section: Indicative Conditionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Axiomatization in the Meaning Sciences

Holliday¹,

Icard²

2018

The Science of Meaning

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While much of semantic theorizing is based on intuitions about logical phenomena associated with linguistic constructions-phenomena such as consistency and entailment-it is rare to see axiomatic treatments of linguistic fragments. Given a fragment interpreted in some class of formally specified models, it is often possible to ask for a characterization of the reasoning patterns validated by the class of models. Axiomatizations provide such a characterization, often in a perspicuous and efficient manner.In this paper, we highlight some of the benefits of providing axiomatizations for the purpose of semantic theorizing. We illustrate some of these benefits using three examples from the study of modality.

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A Counterexample to Modus Tollens

Cited by 80 publications

References 35 publications

On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary

On the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic vocabulary

Subjective Ought

Axiomatization in the Meaning Sciences

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