Gabriel Sandu

This work presents an overview of four different approaches to the problem of future contingency and determinism in temporal logics. All of them are bivalent, viz. they share the assumption that propositions concerning future contingent facts have a determinate truth-value. We introduce Ockhamism, Peirceanism, Actualism and T × W semantics, the four most relevant bivalent alternatives in this area, and compare them from the point of view of their expressiveness and their underlying metaphysics of time.

Team semantics is a highly general framework for logics which describe dependencies and independencies among variables. Typically, the dependencies considered in this context are properties of sets of configurations or data records. We show how team semantics can be further generalized to support languages for the discussion of interventionist counterfactuals and causal dependencies, such as those that arise in manipulationist theories of causation. We show that the “causal teams” we introduce in the present paper can be used for modelling some classical counterfactual scenarios which are not captured by the usual causal models. We then analyse the basic properties of our counterfactual languages and discuss extensively the differences with respect to the Lewisian tradition.

Both Frege's Grundgesetze, and Lagrange's treatises on analytical functions pursue a foundational purpose. Still, the former's program is not only crucially different from the latter's. It also depends on a different idea of what foundation of mathematics should be like . Despite this contrast, the notion of function plays similar roles in their respective programs. The purpose of my paper is emphasising this similarity. In doing it, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of Frege's logicism, especially in relation to its crucial differences with a set-theoretic foundational perspective. This should also spread some light on a question arisen by J. Hintikka and G. Sandu in a widely discussed paper, namely whether Frege should or should not be credited with the notion of arbitrary function underlying our standard interpretation of second-order logic. In section 1, I account for Lagrange's notion of function. In section 2, I advance some remarks on connected historical matters. This will provide an appropriate framework for discussing the role played by the notion of function in Frege's Grundgesetze. Section 3 is devoted to this. Some concluding remarks will close the paper

This work presents an overview of four different approaches to the problem of future contingency and determinism in temporal logics. All of them are bivalent, viz. they share the assumption that propositions concerning future contingent facts have a determinate truth-value. We introduce Ockhamism, Peirceanism, Actualism and T x W semantics, the four most relevant bivalent alternatives in this area, and compare them from the point of view of their expressiveness and their underlying metaphysics of time.

Our aim in this paper is to provide a referential account of functional anaphora within a Skolem functions framework. We will give an interpretation of indefinite NPs as Skolem terms in order to show that the referential link established between an anaphoric pronoun and its antecedent is a descriptive one. Then we will argue that functional anaphora can be understood as a particular kind of E-type pronouns, in the sense that, for a large corpus, the pronoun can be replaced by a descriptive expression of a first-order language. It will next be shown that the functional framework can be fruitfully applied to other kinds of sentences involving pronominal anaphora,especially in modal contexts.

This book focuses on the game-theoretical semantics and epistemic logic of Jaakko Hintikka. Hintikka was a prodigious and esteemed philosopher and logician, and his death in August 2015 was a huge loss to the philosophical community. This book, whose chapters have been in preparation for several years, is dedicated to the work of Jaako Hintikka, and to his memory. This edited volume consists of 23 contributions from leading logicians and philosophers, who discuss themes that span across the entire range of Hintikka’s career. Semantic Representationalism, Logical Dialogues, Knowledge and Epistemic logic are among some of the topics covered in this book's chapters. The book should appeal to students, scholars and teachers who wish to explore the philosophy of Jaako Hintikka.

This book presents a collection of studies by Romanian philosophers, addressing foundational issues currently debated in contemporary philosophy of science. It offers a historical survey of the tradition of scientific philosophy in Romania. It examines some problems in the foundations of logic, mathematics, linguistics, the natural and social sciences. Among the more specific topics, it discusses scientific explanation, models, and mechanisms, as well as memory, artifacts, and rules of research. The book is useful to those interested in the philosophy of real science, but also to those interested in Romanian philosophy.

We consider two versions of truth as grounded in verification procedures: Dummett's notion of proof as an effective way to establish the truth of a statement and Hintikka's GTS notion of truth as given by the existence of a winning strategy for the game associated with a statement. Hintikka has argued that the two notions should be effective and that one should thus restrict one's attention to recursive winning strategies. In the context of arithmetic, we show that the two notions do not coincide: on the one hand, proofs in PA do not yield recursive winning strategies for the associated game; on the other hand, there is no sound and effective proof procedure that captures recursive GTS truths. We then consider a generalized version of Game Theoretical Semantics by introducing games with backward moves. In this setting, a connection is made between proofs and recursive winning strategies. We then apply this distinction between two kinds of verificationist procedures to a recent debate about how we recognize the truth of Gödelian sentences