The Logic and Metaphysics Workshop will meet on October 21st from 4:15-6:15 in-person at the Graduate Center (Room 4419) for a talk by Thomas M. Ferguson (Rensselaer).

Title: Qua, per se, and other topic-transformative operators

Abstract: Recent work challenging principles of topic transparency in topic-sensitive logics has relied on providing accounts of connectives that are topic-transformative, that is, which non-trivially influence the overall topic assigned to a complex. This leads naturally to the question of what operators in natural language might also act as topic-transformative functions. This talk reviews work in progress studying “qua”, “per se”, and other topic-transformative operators. After discussing ways to analyze these operators, we will emphasize how such analyses are likely to assist in a parallel project of updating Richard Sylvan’s work on relevant containment logic.

Note: This is joint work with Pietro Vigiani (Pisa) and Jitka Kadlečková (Rensselaer).