The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on November 20th from 4:15-6:15 (NY time) in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 4419) for a talk by Marian Călborean (Bucharest).

Title: Vagueness and Frege

Abstract: A constant of Frege’s writing is his rejection of indeterminate predicates in natural language. I follow Frege’s remarks on vagueness from the early “Begriffsschrift” to his mature works, drawing parallels with contemporary theories of vagueness. I critically examine Frege’s arguments for the inconsistency of natural language and argue that the inability to accommodate vagueness and precision in his mature ontology and semantics is mainly due to heuristic rules which he took as essential, not to a deep problem in his fundamental apparatus.

The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on November 13th from 4:15-6:15 (NY time) in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 4419) for a talk by Alex Skiles (Rutgers).

Title: Against zero-grounding

Abstract: A number of philosophers believe that there is an intelligible distinction between ungrounded truths, which are not grounded in any truths at all, and zero-grounded truths, which are grounded, yet there are no truths that they are grounded in. Rather being a mere academic curiosity, these philosophers have also argued that the notion of zero-grounding can be put to serious metaphysical work. In this paper, we present two arguments against the intelligibility of zero-grounding, and then reject several attempts to make zero-grounding intelligible that have been suggested by its proponents.

Note: This is joint work with Tien-Chun Lo and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra.

The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on November 6th from 4:15-6:15 (NY time) in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 4419) for a talk by Alex Citkin (Metropolitan Telecommunications).

Title: On logics of acceptance and rejection

Abstract: In his book Formalization of Logic, Carnap suggested the following process of refutation: for any set of formulas Γ and any formula α, if Γ ⊢ α and α is rejected, reject Γ. Thus, in contrast to the Łukasiewicz’s approach to refutation, the predicate of rejection is defined on sets of formulas rather than just formulas. In addition to a predicate of rejection, we introduce a predicate of acceptance which is also defined on sets of formulas, and this leads us to constructing two-layered logical systems, the ground layer of which is a conventional deductive system (providing us with means for derivation), and the top layer having predicates of acceptance and rejection. In the case when the set of accepted formulas coincides with the set of theorems of the underlying logic and the set of rejected formulas coincides with the sets of non-theorems, we obtain a conventional deductive system. The predicate of acceptance can be non-adjunctive, and this allows us to use such systems as an alternative approach to defining Jaśkowski style discursive logics.

The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on October 30th from 4:15-6:15 (NY time) in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 4419) for a talk by Brad Armour-Garb (SUNY Albany).

Title: An approach to property-talk for property nominalists

Abstract: Properties, understood as immanent universals that are repeatable entities which distinct objects can each have at the same time and in different places, are weird, so weird, in fact, that if we could do without them, we probably should do so. An alternative to an approach that sanctions properties might suggest a deflationary view of property-talk according to which the raison d’être of our use of ‘property’ is that it serves a quasi-logical function that is akin to what alethic deflationists claim about truth-talk. Deflationists about property-talk normally subscribe to a form of property nominalism, which rejects the sort of property realism that takes properties to be immanent universals. In this talk, after highlighting some of the weirdness of, or worries for, property realism and explaining why certain forms of property nominalism should not be abided, I highlight the expressive role of property-talk and go on to explain how property-talk performs its roles by introducing what I call “adjectival predicate-variable deflationism” (“APVD”). As I will show, by incorporating APVD into a version of what I have called a “semantic-pretense involving fictionalism” (“SPIF”), we capture the full range of property-talk instances without compromising property nominalism. Time permitting, I will also highlight a virtue of my view, which another form of property nominalism cannot accommodate. If property nominalism is correct, then we should endorse the SPIF account of property-talk that I will develop in this talk.

Note: This is joint work with James A. Woodbridge.