Denis Bonnay

Philosophy of mathematics deals both with ontological issues (what is it that mathematics studies?) and epistemological issues (how is mathematical knowledge possible?). This chapter reviews the main answers given to these two sets of issues, stressing how interrelated they are. It starts from the classical opposition between empiricist, rational, and critical approaches to set the sage and poses the question of mathematics’ relationship with experience as well as the one of the respective roles of intuition and logical principles. A detailed account of two anti-realist programs (finitism and intuitionism) is provided. Arguments in favor of realism are presented, and distinct realist views are distinguished. Having confronted the epistemological difficulties of various realist views, the last part of the chapter deals with naturalist perspectives and mathematical structuralism.

In this chapter, I argue in favor of a new approach to collective beliefs in unorganized groups, in terms of doxastic clustering. When a group does not have dedicated mechanisms for production of collective beliefs, and when individual beliefs of members of the group are diverse, it does not make much sense to attribute to the group some average beliefs or any other kind of collective beliefs produced by aggregating individual beliefs. Rather, beliefs are meaningfully attributed to coherent subgroups of individuals who share similar opinions. In this case, attribution of collective beliefs involves both clustering, that is partitioning the group into coherent doxastic units, and aggregation, that is aggregating individual opinions within coherent clusters. Adapting standard judgment aggregation theory, I propose a formal framework for doxastic clustering and provide an axiomatic characterization of majoritarian intra-cluster aggregation.

One of the major aims of science, it is commonly held, is to provide explanations. Philosophers of science have tried to understand what it is to provide a scientific explanation, what distinguishes good from bad explanations, and why explanations are valuable. This chapter goes through the main answers that have been elaborated in the last decades. It starts with a detailed discussion of the famous deductive-nomological (DN) model of explanation proposed by Hempel and Oppenheim. Then, the two main rivals to the DN model, the causal theory and the unificationist theory, are introduced and discussed. Some other contemporary approaches are sketched out in the closing section.

Philosophy of science studies the methods, theories, and concepts used by scientists. It mainly developed as a field in its own right during the twentieth century and is now a diversified and lively research area. This book surveys the current state of the discipline by focusing on central themes such as confirmation of scientific hypotheses, scientific explanation, causality, the relationship between science and metaphysics, scientific change, the relationship between philosophy of science and science studies, the role of theories and models, and unity of science. These themes define general philosophy of science. The book also presents subdisciplines in the philosophy of science dealing with the main sciences: logic, mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, cognitive science, linguistics, social sciences, and economics. Although it is common to address the specific philosophical problems raised by physics and biology in such a book, the place assigned to the philosophy of special sciences is much more unusual. Most authors collaborate on a regular basis in their research or teaching and share a common vision of philosophy of science and its place within philosophy and academia in general. The chapters have been written in close accordance with the three editors, thus achieving strong unity of style and tone.

We discuss two interpretations of two-dimensional semantics (2DMS) due to D. Chalmers and R. Stalnaker. The main problem with both interpretations of the formal framework is the relinquishng of rigidity for terms. They are in a sense unfaithful to an agent's beliefs. We present alternative principles to capture what we take to be agents's beliefs, namely: the principles of hyper-rigidity and backward reference to actuality. We propose then to go back to a one-dimensional semantics which affords a satisfactory model of beliefs reports. Our proposal, like 2DMS, addresses typical problems of representation for beliefs and epistemological difficulties related to modal knowledge.

Le Précis de philosophie des sciences vise à présenter, de manière pédagogique, l'état actuel des grandes questions et des grands domaines de la philosophie des sciences. C'est un ouvrage de niveau "intermédiaire", entre les ouvrages d'initiation et les ouvrages de recherche. Il peut être utilisé comme manuel pour des cours de philosophie des sciences au niveau Master, ainsi que dans le cadre de la préparation aux nouvelles épreuves d'épistémologie des CAPES scientifiques. Il a notamment pour vocation de servir de support de cours pour des enseignements en épistémologie et philosophie des sciences de niveau L3, M1 et M2.

Computer vision is one of AI’s most successful fields. In the last twenty years, machines have become increasingly good at extracting information from images and at identifying objects. But does this mean that machines really can see, or is computer vision just a fancy metaphor for object detection? This paper aims to provide a reasoned answer to the question. First, three criteria for vision attribution are reviewed and it is argued that a functionalist criterion, in terms of exploitable internal representations based on visual stimuli, fares better than behaviourist or phenomenological ones. The functionalist criterion is then applied to vision algorithms based on neural networks and it is argued that such machines can indeed see, insofar as neural networks are precisely trained to generate representations of the visual data they are fed with. Those representations present the specific traits associated with successful training: They are hierarchical, robust, and versatile. We argue that these properties may be used as further constraints on representational devices in general, helping to solve some of the classical issues faced by teleosemantic theories of representation such as that expounded by Dretske.

We take Carnap’s problem to be to what extent standard consequence relations in various formal languages fix the meaning of their logical vocabulary, alone or together with additional constraints on the form of the semantics. This paper studies Carnap’s problem for basic modal logic. Setting the stage, we show that neighborhood semantics is the most general form of compositional possible worlds semantics, and proceed to ask which standard modal logics (if any) constrain the box operator to be interpreted as in relational Kripke semantics. Except when restricted to finite domains, no modal logic characterizes all the Kripkean interpretation of P. Moreover, we show that, in contrast with the case of first-order logic, the obvious requirement of permutation invariance is not adequate in the modal case. After pointing out some known facts about modal logics that nevertheless force the Kripkean interpretation, we focus on another feature often taken to embody the gist of modal logic: locality. We show that invariance under point-generated subframes (properly defined) does single out the Kripkean interpretations, but only among topological interpretations, not in general. Finally, we define a notion of bisimulation invariance — another aspect of locality — that, together with a reasonable closure condition, gives the desired general result. Along the way, we propose a new perspective on normal neighborhood frames as filter frames, consisting of a set of worlds equipped with an accessibility relation, and a free filter at every world.

The thesis that truth is a logical notion has been stated repeatedly by deflationists in philosophical discussions on the nature of truth. However, to prove the point, one would need to show that the truth predicate does classify as logical according to some reasonable criterion of logicality. Following Tarski, invariance criteria have been considered to provide an adequate rendering of the generality and formality of logic. In this article, we show how the deflationist can use invariance criteria in support of her claim that deflationary truth is a logical notion.

Jeffrey conditioning tells an agent how to update her priors so as to grant a given probability to a particular event. Weighted averaging tells an agent how to update her priors on the basis of testimonial evidence, by changing to a weighted arithmetic mean of her priors and another agent’s priors. We show that, in their respective settings, these two seemingly so different updating rules are axiomatized by essentially the same invariance condition. As a by-product, this sheds new light on the question how weighted averaging should be extended to deal with cases when the other agent reveals only parts of her probability distribution. The combination of weighted averaging and Jeffrey conditioning is a comprehensive updating rule to deal with such cases, which is again axiomatized by invariance under embedding. We conclude that, even though one may dislike Jeffrey conditioning or weighted averaging, the two make a natural pair when a policy for partial testimonial evidence is needed.

The dual character of invariance under transformations and definability by some operations has been used in classical works by, for example, Galois and Klein. Following Tarski, philosophers of logic have claimed that logical notions themselves could be characterized in terms of invariance. In this article, we generalize a correspondence due to Krasner between invariance under groups of permutations and definability in L∞∞ so as to cover the cases that are of interest in the logicality debates, getting McGee’s theorem about quantifiers invariant under all permutations and definability in pure L∞∞ as a particular case. We also prove some optimality results along the way, regarding the kinds of relations which are needed so that every subgroup of the full permutation group is characterizable as a group of automorphisms.

What is a logical constant? In which terms should we characterize the meaning of logical words like “and”, “or”, “implies”? An attractive answer is: in terms of their inferential roles, i.e. in terms of the role they play in building inferences. More precisely, we favor an approach, going back to Dosen and Sambin, in which the inferential role of a logical constant is captured by a double line rule which introduces it as reflecting structural links (for example, multiplicative conjunction reflects comma on the right of the turnstyle). Rule-based characterizations of logical constants are subject to the well known objection of Prior’s fake connective, tonk. We show that some double line rules also give rise to such pseudo logical constants. But then, we are able to find a property of a double line rules which guarantee that it defines a genuine logical constant. Thus we provide an alternative answer to Belnap’s requirement of conservatity in terms of a local requirement on double line rules.

Standard Kripke models are inadequate to model situations of inexact knowledge with introspection, since positive and negative introspection force the relation of epistemic indiscernibility to be transitive and euclidean. Correlatively, Williamson’s margin for error semantics for inexact knowledge invalidates axioms 4 and 5. We present a new semantics for modal logic which is shown to be complete for K45, without constraining the accessibility relation to be transitive or euclidean. The semantics corresponds to a system of modular knowledge, in which iterated modalities and simple modalities are not on a par. We show how the semantics helps to solve Williamson’s luminosity paradox, and argue that it corresponds to an integrated model of perceptual and introspective knowledge that is psychologically more plausible than the one defended by Williamson. We formulate a generalized version of the semantics, called token semantics, in which modalities are iteration-sensitive up to degree n and insensitive beyond n. The multi-agent version of the semantics yields a resource-sensitive logic with implications for the representation of common knowledge in situations of bounded rationality.

In this paper we compare different models of vagueness viewed as a specific form of subjective uncertainty in situations of imperfect discrimination. Our focus is on the logic of the operator “clearly” and on the problem of higher-order vagueness. We first examine the consequences of the notion of intransitivity of indiscriminability for higher-order vagueness, and compare several accounts of vagueness as inexact or imprecise knowledge, namely Williamson’s margin for error semantics, Halpern’s two-dimensional semantics, and the system we call Centered semantics. We then propose a semantics of degrees of clarity, inspired from the signal detection theory model, and outline a view of higher-order vagueness in which the notions of subjective clarity and unclarity are handled asymmetrically at higher orders, namely such that the clarity of clarity is compatible with the unclarity of unclarity.

La logique est une théorie normative du raisonnement, qui vise à caractériser la classe des arguments déductifs valides en déterminant si la conclusion est conséquence logique des prémisses. Mais, selon la définition sémantique devenue classique, la caractérisation de la relation de conséquence logique dépend elle-même de la caractérisation de la classe des mots logiques, ces mots qui, comme « non », « et », « tous » ou « certains » servent à articuler nos raisonnements. J’examine dans cet article à quelles conditions une analyse conceptuelle des propriétés sémantiques des mots logiques permet d’éclairer et de compléter une analyse conceptuelle des propriétés distinctives de la relation de conséquence logique.Logic is a normative theory of reasoning, which aims at characterizing the class of deductively valid arguments by determining whether a given conclusion logically follows from certain premisses. According to the standard semantic definition, the characterization of the relation of logical consequence depends itself on a characterization of the class of the so-called logical constants, those words, such as « not », « and », « all » or « some » which provide the logical structure of our arguments. In this paper, I shall make precise the conditions under which a conceptual analysis of the semantic properties of logical constants can complete, and shed light upon, a conceptual analysis of the distinctive properties of logical consequence.

Quine est célèbre pour sa critique de la notion d’analyticité, mais il en a également proposé des substituts définissables en termes behavioristes. Cet article examine la question de savoir si de tels substituts peuvent ou non jouer un rôle épistémologique, en les comparant avec des tentatives récentes de réhabilitation de l’a priori. Il apparaît que la caractérisation de ce qu’est une définition acceptable en termes behavioristes est cruciale, et qu’un élargissement de la classe des comportements linguistiques pertinents peut ouvrir la voie à une réhabilitation substantielle de l’analyticité.Quine is famous for his critics against the notion of analyticity used in epistemology and philosophy of science by philosophers of the Vienna circle. However, Quine has also proposed alternative definitions of the notion, which would be acceptable from a behaviorist perspective. In this paper, I address the question whether such alternative definitions can play any epistemologically significant role, by comparing them with recent attempts at a new defense of a priori knowledge. The upshot is that the answer cruccially depends on what is an acceptable definition in a behaviorist perspective. It might well be that an epistemologically significant notion of analyticity can be based upon a broad enough characterization of linguistic behavior.

Providing a principled characterization of the distinction between logical and non-logical expressions is a longstanding issue in the philosophy of logic. In the Logical Syntax of Language, Carnap proposes a syntactic solution to this problem, which aims at grounding the claim that logic and mathematics are analytic. Roughly speaking, his idea is that logic and mathematics correspond to the largest part of science for which it is possible to completely specify by "syntactic" means which sentences are valid and which are not. Despite a renewed interest in the philosophical benefits of analyticity, both inside and outside of Carnap scholarship, Carnap's definition of logical expressions seems to have drawn too little attention. I shall argue that it is worth a second look. More precisely, my aim will be to defend this idea against some technical problems faced by Carnap's way of implementing it and against Quinean attacks on syntax-based conventionalism. Section 1 presents Carnap's definition in the context of Logical Syntax of Language, that is, how exactly the definition works, and why Carnap needs it. In section 2, I review three challenges that have been raised in the literature, and I propose to revise the definition accordingly. I argue that its modified version is immune to the previous challenges, and, to some extent, immune to new challenges as well. In the last section, I suggest that the definition has a philosophical interest of its own, because standard Quinean objections are not as conclusive as one might think when attention is paid to the fact that Carnap requires complete syntactic specification of validities.

Williamson's margin for error semantics for knowledge implies that knowledge cannot systematically imply knowledge of one's knowledge. Each new iteration of knowledge requires what is known to remain true in worlds that are further and further away from the initial context of evaluation, including worlds where the proposition can no longer be true. In previous work, it was argued that this tension can be solved by means of a richer, two-dimensional semantics for knowledge, called Centered Semantics. This chapter shows that Centered Semantics can be translated into a standard semantics with actuality operators. It discusses the contextualist implications of the semantics, in particular, regarding the knowledge a subject might have of her margins of error.

The standard relation of logical consequence allows for non-standard interpretations of logical constants, as was shown early on by Carnap. But then how can we learn the interpretations of logical constants, if not from the rules which govern their use? Answers in the literature have mostly consisted in devising clever rule formats going beyond the familiar what follows from what. A more conservative answer is possible. We may be able to learn the correct interpretations from the standard rules, because the space of possible interpretations is a priori restricted by universal semantic principles. We show that this is indeed the case. The principles are familiar from modern formal semantics: compositionality, supplemented, for quantifiers, with topic-neutrality.

Since the ground-breaking contributions of M. Dummett (Dummett 1978), it is widely recognized that anti-realist principles have a critical impact on the choice of logic. Dummett argued that classical logic does not satisfy the requirements of such principles but that intuitionistic logic does. Some philosophers have adopted a more radical stance and argued for a more important departure from classical logic on the basis of similar intuitions. In particular, J. Dubucs and M. Marion (?) and (Dubucs 2002) have recently argued that a proper understanding of anti-realism should lead us to the so-called substructural logics (see (Restall 2000)) and especially linear logic. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize this proposal. We will raise two kinds of issues for the radical anti-realist. First, we will stress the fact that it is hard to live without structural rules. Second, we will argue that, from an anti- realist perspective, there is currently no satisfactory justi cation to the shift to substructural logics.