CCiL Philosophy: Adolf Rami (Universität Göttingen)

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Seminari de Filosofia, UB Raval.

Adolf Rami (Universität Göttingen)

"Neutral Free Logic, Empty Names and Negative Existentials"
Day: 26th April
Hour: 11:00-13:00
Place: Seminari de Filosofia, UB Raval

The topic of this paper is the semantic analysis of singular negative existential sentences that contain  proper  names  as  their  grammatical  subject. Firstly,  I  will  introduce  the  stubborn problem that concerns this task as a clash of semantic intuitions concerning the mentioned sentences. Secondly, I will distinguish four kinds of solution strategies to this problem. After that, I will point out some advantages of a solution to this problem that makes use of either a  negative  or  a  neutral  free  logic.  I  will  finish  my  paper  with  the  discussion  of  several objections  against  a  solution  that  makes  use  of  a  negative  or  a  neutral  free  logic.  This discussion  will  show  that  a  neutral  free  logic  provides  a  more  plausible  framework  then  a negative free logic for the solution of our problem.


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"Singular Truth Ascriptions: Truth-Predicate vs. Truth-Operator
Day: 3th May
Hour: 12:00-14:00
Place: Seminari de Filosofia, UB Raval

In this paper I will distinguish three different analysis of sentences of the form ‘It is true that p’. The first conception treats ‘It is true that’ as a semantic unit and conceives the pronoun ‘it’ as a grammatical dummy subject. The second and the third view hold that the expression ‘that p’ is an expression that denotes propositions in the mentioned context. The difference between  these  views  concerns  the  function  of  ‘it’.  According  to  the  second  view  this pronoun  is  used  cataphorically  in  sentence  of  the  form  ‘It  is  true  that  p’.  According  to  the third view it is only a syntactic placeholder for the genuine logic subject. I will discuss and present  several  arguments  against  the  first  and  the  second  view  and  I  aim  to  defend  the third view as the most plausible one.
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