This paper outlines a truth-conditional view of logical form, that is, a view according to which logical form is essentially a matter of truth-conditions. The main motivation for the view is a fact that seems crucial to logic. As _§_1 suggests, fundamental logical relations such as entailment or contradiction can formally be explained only if truth-conditions are formally represented.§2 spells out the view. _§_3 dwells on its anity with a conception of logical form (...) that has been defended in the past. _§§_4-6 draw attention to its impact on three major issues that concern, respectively, the extension of the domain of formal explanation, the semantics of tensed discourse, and the analysis of quantication. (shrink)

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that (...) there is no such thing as a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language. (shrink)

A Logical Form (LF) is a syntactic structure that is interpreted by the semantic component. For a particular structure to be a possible LF it has to be possible for syntax to generate it and for semantics to interpret it. The study of LF must therefore take into account both assumptions about syntax and about semantics, and since there is much disagreement in both areas, disagreements on LF have been plentiful. This makes the task of writing a survey (...) article in the field fairly difficult, a difficulty that is amplified by the amount of material that needs to be covered if the result is going to be in any way representative. My response to this difficulty is to limit my objectives. As a start, I will confine myself to issues relating to the syntactic positions of Quantificational Noun Phrases (QNPs) at LF and to various interpretive consequences. But even within these relatively narrow confines, I will not attempt anything close to a comprehensive survey. Instead my goal will be restricted to the presentation of one leading idea and to the discussion of some evidence that might bear on it.1 Much research on the nature of LF has consisted in attempts to account for the meaning of sentences containing QNPs. (shrink)

The standard view of logical form is that logical forms are synthetic structures which are the forms of sentences and of other linguistic entities. This is often associated with a more general linguistic view of logic which is articulated in different ways by various authors. This paper contains a critical discussion of such linguistic approaches to logical form, with special emphasis on Quine’s formulation of a logical grammar in Philosophy of Logic. An account of (...) logical forms as higher-order properties, which essentially builds on Frege’s analysis of quantification as higher-order predication, is suggested at the end. (shrink)

Seventeen specially written essays by eminent philosophers and linguists appear for the first time in this anthology, all with the central theme of logical form -- a fundamental issue in analytic philosophy and linguistic theory. Logical Form and Language brings together exciting new contributions from diverse points of view, which illuminate the lively current debate about this topic.

Logical Forms examines the formal languages of classical first order logic and modal logic, and some alternatives and in each case takes as the central question: how can natural language best be formalized in this formal language? The approach involves close encounters with issues in the philosophy of logic and the philosophy of logic and the philosophy of language.

This article discusses the logical form of action sentences with particular attention to the role of adverbial modification, reviewing and extending the event analysis of action sentences.

Chapter. 1. Logical. Form. as. a. Level. of. Linguistic. Representation. What is the relation of a sentence's syntactic form to its logical form? This issue has been of central concern in modern inquiry into the semantic properties of natural ...

Theories of adverbial modification can be roughly distinguished into two sorts. One kind of theory takes logical form to follow surface grammatical form. Adverbs are treated as unanalyzable logical operators that turn a predicate or sentence into a different predicate or sentence respectively. And new rules of logic are stated for these operators. -/- A different kind of theory does not suppose that logical form must parallel surface grammatical form. It allows that (...) class='Hi'>logical form may have more to do with deeper structures that might be studied in transformational grammar. Adverbs are treated as surface forms of the underlying predicates represented by corresponding adjectives and verbs. 'Slowly' is derived from 'slow'; 'intentionally' from 'intentional' or 'intend'; etc. And new rules of logic are avoided where they can be. -/- In this paper I attempt to state some of the advantages of the second sort of theory. My procedure will be this. First, I will try to say in outline what theories of logical form are. Then I will state five principles for evaluating such theories. Next, I will sketch the sorts of analyses acceptance of principles (1)-(5) leads to. In particular I will talk about adverbial phrases (e.g. locatives) that are best analyzed in terms of implicit references to events, relative modifiers (like 'large') which relate something to a comparison class, and 'that' clauses taken as names of propositions. By appealing to principles (1)-(5) I will defend these analyses against certain others, one that appeals to many logical operators, a second that treats all sentences as names of propositions, and a third that sees implicit reference to possible worlds in the language being analyzed. Finally, I will offer a pragmatic defense of my approach in terms of principles (1)-(5) as against a different approach that appeals to possible world semantics. (shrink)

In his paper John Corcoran examines in detail many issues relating to logical form, and raises some questions about my formulations. In my response I emphasize two main distinctions that may clear up some of the issues. One is the distinction between logical forms, in the sense of logical properties of an abstract character, and logical form, in the sense in which we speak of the logical form of a sentence, or of (...) a proposition. Another is the distinction, emphasized by Boole, between primary propositions , and secondary propositions —which I illustrate through the distinction between predicate negation and sentential negation.Em seu artigo John Corcoran examina em detalhe muitas questões sobre forma lógica e levanta alguns problemas relativos à minhas formulações. Na réplica enfatizo duas distinções principais, que podem esclarecer algumas questões. A primeira é a distinção entre formas lógicas, no sentido de propriedades lógicas de caráter abstrato, e forma lógica, no sentido em que falamos da forma lógica de uma sentença ou de uma proposição. A segunda é a distinção, enfatizada por Boole, entre proposições primárias e proposições secundárias , exemplificada com a distinção entre negação predicativa e negação sentencial. (shrink)

This paper raises some questions about the formalization of sentences containing ‘if’ or similar expressions. In particular, it focuses on three kinds of sentences that resemble conditionals in some respects but exhibit distinctive logical features that deserve separate consideration: whether-or-not sentences, biscuit conditionals, and concessive conditionals. As will be suggested, the examples discussed show in different ways that an adequate formalization of a sentence must take into account the content expressed by the sentence. This upshot is arguably what one (...) should expect on the view that logical form is determined by truth conditions. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between the philosophical idea that logic is a science studying logical forms, and a mathematical feature of logical systems called the principle of uniform substitution, which is often regarded as a technical counterpart of the philosophical idea. We argue that at least in one interesting sense the principle of uniform substitution does not capture adequately the requirement that logic is a matter of form and that logical truths are formal truths. We (...) show that some specific logical expressions can produce propositions of different kinds and the resulting diversity of informational types can lead to a justified failure of uniform substitution without undermining the view that logic is a purely formal discipline. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that the logical form of action sentences are dependent upon the concept of 'agent' that one takes. A thing type of agent leads to the extensional form while a thinking type of agent leads to intentional form of action sentences. Consequently, it is important to note the locus of the describer who himself is also an agent. If the describer is someone other than theagent, the ascription of action (...) is based on a tacit counterfactual. The agent could have done otherwise, implying the agent to be a being-of-the-world, who acts on the things of the world to bring about a change which could not have occurred otherwise. (shrink)

Introduction 1.1 GOALS This book is devoted to an in-depth investigation of some of the properties of Logical Form (LF). In particular, the primary aim of ...

The central thesis of the article is that there are two quite distinct concepts of logical form. Theories of logical form employing one of these concepts are different both in method of justification and in philosophical and psychological implications from theories employing the other concept.

Logical Forms explains both the detailed problems involved in finding logical forms and also the theoretical underpinnings of philosophical logic. In this revised edition, exercises are integrated throughout the book. The result is a genuinely interactive introduction which engages the reader in developing the argument. Each chapter concludes with updated notes to guide further reading.

One of the main criteria for an adequate semantic theory is that it solve the problem of substitution into intensional contexts, otherwise known as Frege's Puzzle. Given common-sense assumptions about how natural language functions, a contradiction arises in explaining attitude reports. For example, Lisa might believe that Twain is tall, but not believe that Clemens is tall. Lisa is perhaps unaware that the names "Twain" and "Clemens" corefer. But Twain's being tall is just Clemens' being tall, so one and the (...) same state of affairs is either believed or not. The tasks are to specify what Lisa believes and to accurately and consistently describe the situation given certain foundational semantic principles. ;I argue that of three main semantic frameworks: Davidsonian Semantics, Model-Theoretic Semantics and Propositional Semantics , PS has the best chance to provide a complete, consistent and natural solution. On my view, dynamic propositions are complex states of affairs where things stand in the propositional relation of having expressions of a certain type which pick them out as semantic values and where those expressions stand in appropriate syntactic relations. The propositional relation crucially involves restricted quantification over expression types which are logical features of the language. The sentences "Twain is tall" and "Clemens is tall" express different DP's because even though their constituents are identical, they stand in distinct propositional relations in virtue of the different syntactic expressions. This explains how Lisa could believe one and not the other. These fine-grained propositions successfully serve as both the truth-conditions of sentences and the objects of propositional attitudes. The solution leads to the surprising result that the question of whether singular terms are Fregean or directly referential is actually irrelevant to Frege's Puzzle. ;While DP's are naturalistic and theoretically well-motivated, they face apparent difficulty accounting for translation and being the objects of mental content. The logical form of DP's limits their possible interpretation and thus sheds light on the conceptual framework of its user. I argue that DP's are not beliefs, but cognitive models that serve as interpretations of beliefs in communication. (shrink)

The LOGICAL FORM of a sentence (or utterance) is a formal representation of its logical structure; that is, of the structure which is relevant to specifying its logical role and properties. There are a number of (interrelated) reasons for giving a rendering of a sentence's logical form. Among them is to obtain proper inferences (which otherwise would not follow; cf. Russell's theory of descriptions), to give the proper form for the determination of truth-conditions (...) (e.g. Tarski's method of truth and satisfaction as applied to quantification), to show those aspects of a sentence's meaning which follow from the logical role of certain terms (and not from the lexical meaning of words; cf. the truth-functional account of conjunction), and to formalize or regiment the language in order to show that it is has certain metalogical properties (e.g. that it is free of paradox, or that there is a sound proof procedure). (shrink)

Stainton argues that since sub-sentential speech acts lack the proper syntactic structure to have logical form, it is not from them that subsententially propositions conveyed derive their logical form, in this brief comment, I develop an argument for the claim that sub-sentential speech acts not only do have the proper syntactic structure, but that according to Stainton's own general pragmatic account of sub-sentential speech, they also satisfy all the criteria put forward by him to be the (...) primary bearers of logical form. Stainton arguye que, dado que los actos de habla suboracionales carecen de la estructura sintáctica apropiada para tener forma lógica, las proposiciones comunicadas de manera suboracional no derivan su forma lógica de ellos. En este breve comentario desarrollo un argumento a favor de la tesis de que los actos de habla suboracionales, no sólo tienen la estructura sintáctica apropiada, sino que — de acuerdo con la propia teoría pragmática general de Stainton sobre el habla suboracional— también satisfacen todos los criterios mencionados por el propio Stainton para ser los portadores básicos de forma lógica. (shrink)

Though, at first sight, logical formalization of natural language sentences and arguments might look like an unproblematic enterprise, the criteria of its success are far from clear and, surprisingly, there have only been a few attempts at making them explicit. This paper provides a picture of the enterprise of logical formalization that does not conceive of it as a kind of translation from one language (a natural one) into another language (a logical one), but rather as a (...) construction of a 'map' of (a piece of) the 'inferential landscape' of the natural language. The criteria that appear to govern the enterprise are labeled as those of reliability, ambitiousness, transparency and parsimony. These criteria, it is argued, do not provide for an excavation of a ready-made logical structure, but rather help us achieve a "reflective equilibrium" between the normative authority of logic and the answerability of logic to a natural language. (shrink)

This work contains Peter Long's important essay, Logic, Form and Grammar , which resolves many difficulties for the logical form of an argument where the reasoning is hypothetical. Also included are two essays on classical problems in philosophical logic, relating to logical form and formal relations.

Logical Form, Probability Interpretations, and the Inductive/Deductive Distinction.

Monists say that the nature of truth is invariant, whichever sentence you consider; pluralists say that the nature of truth varies between different sets of sentences. The orthodoxy is that logic and logical form favour monism: there must be a single property that is preserved in any valid inference; and any truth-functional complex must be true in the same way as its components. The orthodoxy, I argue, is mistaken. Logic and logical form impose only structural constraints (...) on a metaphysics of truth. Monistic theories are not guaranteed to satisfy these constraints, and there is a pluralistic theory that does so. (shrink)

Two arguments favoring propositionalist accounts of attitude sentences are being revisited: the Church-Langford translation argument and Thomason's argument against quotational theories of indirect discourse. None of them proves to be decisive, thus leaving the option of searching for a developed quotational alternative. Such an alternative is found in an interpreted logical form theory of attitude ascription. The theory differentiates elegantly among different attitudes but it fails to account for logical dependencies among them. It is argued, however, that (...) the concept of logical consequence does not well apply to dependencies among belief sentences and that the requirement to account for logical relations among such sentences should be relaxed. (shrink)

An attractive semantic theory presented by Richard K. Larson and Peter Ludlow takes a report of propositional attitudes, e.g 'Tom believes Judy Garland sang', to report a believing relation between Tom and an interpreted logical form constructed from 'Judy Garland sang'. We briefly outline the semantic theory and indicate its attractions. However, the definition of interpreted logical forms given by Larson and Ludlow is shown to be faulty, and an alternative definition is offered which matches their intentions. (...) This definition is then shown to imply that Tom does not know his own mind, a result without intuitive support. A third definition is offered to deal with this problem. (shrink)

In a recent book, Logical Form: between Logic and Natural Language, Andrea Iacona argues that semantic form and logical form are distinct. The semantic form of a sentence is something that (together with the meanings of its parts) determines what it means; the logical from of a sentence is something that (all by itself) determines whether it is a logical truth. Semantic form does not depend on context but logical (...) class='Hi'>form does: for example, whether ‘This is this’ is a logical truth depends on whether the two occurrences of ‘this’ are used to demonstrate the same individual. I respond by claiming that logical form is indifferent to reference and is sensitive only to obligatory co-reference. When the speaker intends both occurrences of ‘this’ to be interpreted the same way the logical from of ‘This is this’ is a=a, while in a context where the speaker has no such intention it is a=b. This proposal allows a much more conservative revision of the traditional picture than the one suggested by Iacona. Instead of identifying the logical form of a natural language sentence by seeking a formalization in an artificial language, we obtain it through abstraction from its syntactic analysis: replacing the non-logical expressions by schematic letters, making sure that we use identical ones if and only if the speaker intended co-reference. (shrink)

This paper claims that there is no such thing as the correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and semantics. The first part of the paper outlines the thesis that a unique notion of logical form fulfils both roles, and argues that the alleged best candidate for making it true is unsuited (...) for one of the two roles. The second part spells out a considerably different notion which is free from that problem, although it does not fit the other role. As it will be suggested, each of the two notions suits at most one role, so the uniqueness thesis is ungrounded. (shrink)

This critical notice of Stephen Neale's "Descriptions", (MIT Press, 1990) summarizes the content of the book and presents several objections to its arguments, as well as praising Neale for showing just how close the linguistic notion of L F is to the analytic philosopher's notion of "logical form". It is claimed that Neale's use of generalized quantifiers to represent definite descriptions from Russell's account by which descriptions are "incomplete symbols". I also argue that his assessment of the Quine/Smullyan (...) exchange about "Necessarily the number of the planets is greater than seven" is incorrect. (shrink)

Vernacularism is the view that logical forms are fundamentally assigned to natural language expressions, and are only derivatively assigned to anything else, e.g., propositions, mental representations, expressions of symbolic logic, etc. In this paper, we argue that Vernacularism is not as plausible as it first appears because of non-sentential speech. More specifically, there are argument-premises, meant by speakers of non-sentences, for which no natural language paraphrase is readily available in the language used by the speaker and the hearer. The (...) speaker can intend this proposition and the hearer can recover it (and its logical form). Since they cannot, by hypothesis, be doing this by using a sentence of their shared language, the proposition-meant has its logical form non-derivatively, which falsifies Vernacularism. We conclude the paper with a brief review of the debate on incomplete definite descriptions in which Vernacularism is assumed as a suppressed premise. (shrink)

Javier Legris examines my views on symbolism and logical form in relation to two important distinctions emphasized by Jean van Heijenoort—the distinction between logic as calculus and logic as universal language, and the distinction between absolutism and relativism in logic. I generally agree with his considerations and focus my response on some relevant aspects of classical logic.Javier Legris examina minhas considerações sobre simbolismo e forma lógica em relação à duas distinções enfatizadas por Jean van Heijenoort: a distinção entre (...) lógica como cálculo e lógica como linguagem universal, e a distinção entre absolutismo e relativismo na lógica. Estou basicamente de acordo com suas observações e em minha réplica enfoco alguns aspectos relevantes da lógica clássica. (shrink)

The term ‘logical form’ has been called on to serve a wide range of purposes in philosophy, and it would be too ambitious to try to survey all of them in a single essay. Instead, I will focus on just one conception of logical form that has occupied a central place in the philosophy of language, and in particular in the philosophical study of linguistic meaning. This is what I will call the classical conception of (...) class='Hi'>logical form. The classical conception, as I will present it in section 1, has (either explicitly or implicitly) shaped a great deal of important philosophical work in semantic theory. But it has come under fire in recent decades, and in sections 2 and 3 I will discuss two of the recent challenges that I take to be most interesting and significant. (shrink)

Book Information Logical Form and Language. Edited by G. Preyer and G. Peter. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 2002. Pp. x + 512. Hardback, £55. Paperback, £19.99.

The examination of quantifiers plays an essential role in modern linguistic theories. One of the most important issues in this respect was raised by Jaakko Hintikka, who proposed the following thesis: Certain natural language sentences require essential non-linear quantification to adequately express their logical form.

This paper argues that, notwithstanding the remarkable popularity of Woodward's (2003) interventionist analysis of causation, the exact definitional details of that theory are surprisingly little understood. There exists a discrepancy in the literature between the clarity about the logical details of interventionism, on the one hand, and the enormous work interventionism is expected to do, on the other. The first part of the paper distinguishes three significantly different readings of the logical form of Woodward's (2003) interventionist theory (...) and identifies the reading that best captures the basic intuitions behind interventionism. In the second part, I show that this preferable reading is far from doing all the work that friends of interventionism would like it to do. (shrink)

It is argued, on the basis of ideas derived from Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Husserl's Logical Investigations, that the formal comprehends more than the logical. More specifically: that there exist certain formal-ontological constants (part, whole, overlapping, etc.) which do not fall within the province of logic. A two-dimensional directly depicting language is developed for the representation of the constants of formal ontology, and means are provided for the extension of this language to enable the representation of certain materially necessary (...) relations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between formal logic, formal ontology, and mathematics. (shrink)

In the paper I suggest that a loose notion of logical form can be a useful tool for the understanding or evaluation of everyday language and the explicit and implicit content of communication. Reconciling ordinary language and logic provides formal guidelines for rational communication, giving strength and order to ordinary communication and content to logical schemas. The starting point of the paper is the idea that the bearers of logical form are not natural language sentences, (...) but what we communicate with them, that is, their content in a particular context. On the basis of that idea, I propose that we can ascribe logical proprieties to what is communicated using ordinary language and suggest a continuum between semantic phenomena such as explicatures and pragmatic communicational strategies such as (particularized) conversational implicatures, which challenges the idea that an implicatum is completely separate from what is said. I believe that this continuum can be best explained by the notion of logical form, taken as a propriety of sentences relative to particular interpretations. (shrink)

First order logic does not distinguish between different forms of universal generalization; in this paper I argue that lawlike and accidental generalizations (broadly construed) have a different logical form, and that this distinction is syntactically marked in English. I then consider the relevance of this broader conception of lawlikeness to the philosophy of science.

Consider the following argument: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Intuitively, what makes this a valid argument has nothing to do with Socrates, men, or mortality. Rather, each sentence in the argument exhibits a certain logical form, which, together with the forms of the other two, constitute a pattern that, of itself, guarantees the truth of the conclusion given the truth of the premises. More generally, then, the logical form of (...) a sentence of natural language is what determines both its logical properties and its logical relations to other sentences. The logical form of a sentence of natural language is typically represented in a theory of logical form by a well-formed formula in a ‘logically pure’ language whose only meaningful symbols are expressions with fixed, distinctly logical meanings (e.g., quantifiers). Thus, the logical forms of the sentences in the above argument would be represented in a theory based on pure predicate logic by the formulas ‘∀x(Fx ⊃ Gx)’, ‘Fy’, and ‘Gy’, respectively, where ‘F’, ‘G’, and ‘y’ are all free variables. The argument’s intuitive validity is then explained in virtue of the fact that the logical forms of the premises formally entail the logical form of the conclusion. The primary goal of a theory of logical form is to explain as broad a range of such intuitive logical phenomena as possible in terms of the logical forms that it assigns to sentences of natural language. (shrink)

Donald Davidson contributed to the discussion of logical form in two ways. On the one hand, he made several influential suggestions on how to give the logical forms of certain constructions of natural language. His account of adverbial modification and so called action-sentences is nowadays, in some form or other, widely employed in linguistics (Harman (forthcoming) calls it "the standard view"). Davidson's approaches to indirect discourse and quotation, while not as influential, also still attract attention today. (...) On the other hand, Davidson provided a general account of what logical form is. This paper is concerned with this general account. Its foremost aim is to give a faithful and detailed picture of what, according to Davidson, it means to give the logical form of a sentence. The structure of the paper is as follows. (1) I will first informally introduce a notion of logical form as the form that matters in certain kinds of entailments, and indicate why philosophers have taken an interest in such a notion. (2) The second section develops constraints that we should arguably abide by in giving an account of logical form. (3) I then turn to Davidson’s view of what is involved in giving such an account. To this end, I will try to reconstruct Davidson’s view of the connection between an assignment of logical forms, a truth theory and a meaning theory. (4) Finally, I will briefly discuss possible problems of Davidson’s account as developed in this paper. (shrink)