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)

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.

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)

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)

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 ...

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)

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 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)

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.

Abramsky, S., Domain theory in logical form, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 51 1–77. The mathematical framework of Stone duality is used to synthesise a number of hitherto separate developments in theoretical computer science.• Domain theory, the mathematical theory of computation introduced by Scott as a foundation for detonational semantics• The theory of concurrency and systems behaviour developed by Milner, Hennesy based on operational semantics.• Logics of programsStone duality provides a junction between semantics and logics . Moreover, the (...) underlying logic is geometric, which can be computationally interpreted as the logic of observable properties—i.e., properties which can be determined to hold of a process on the basis of a finite amount of information about its execution.These ideas lead to the following programme. A metalanguage is introduced, comprising• types = universes of discourse for various computational situations;• terms = PROGRAMS = syntactic intensions for models or points. A standard denotational interpretation of the metalanguage is given, assigning domains to types and domain elements to terms. The metalanguage is also given a logical interpretation, in which types are interpreted as propositional theories and terms are interpreted via a program logic, which axiomatises the properties they satisfy. The two interpretations are related by showing that they are Stone duals of each other. Hence, semantics and logic are guaranteed to be in harmony with each other, and in fact each determines the other up to isomorphism. This opens the way to a whole range of applications. Given a denotational description of a computational situation in our metalanguage, we can turn the handle to obtain a logic for that situation. (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)

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)

Disputes about logic are commonplace and undeniable. It is sometimes argued that these disputes are not genuine disagreements, but are rather merely verbal ones. Are advocates of different logics simply talking past each other? In this paper we argue that pluralists (and anyone who sees competing logics as genuine rivals), should reject the claim that real disagreement requires competing logics to assign the same meaning to logical connectives, or the same logical form to arguments. Along the way we (...) argue that ascriptions of logical form, as well as connective meaning, are always theory-relative. (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)

This paper deals with the logical form of quantified sentences. Its purpose is to elucidate one plausible sense in which quantified sentences can adequately be represented in the language of first-order logic. Section 1 introduces some basic notions drawn from general quantification theory. Section 2 outlines a crucial assumption, namely, that logical form is a matter of truth-conditions. Section 3 shows how the truth-conditions of quantified sentences can be represented in the language of first-order logic consistently with some (...) established undefinability results. Section 4 sketches an account of vague quantifier expressions along the lines suggested. Finally, section 5 addresses the vexed issue of logicality. (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.

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)

See the abstract for the "Abstracts from Logical Form II".

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

This paper articulates and defends a conception of logical form as semantic form revealed by a compositional meaning theory. On this conception, the logical form of a sentence is determined by the semantic types of its primitive terms and their mode of combination as it relates to determining under what conditions it is true. We develop this idea in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. We argue that the semantic form of a declarative sentence in a language L is (...) revealed by a (canonical) proof of its T- sentence in an interpretive truth theory for L. We give a precise characterization of sameness of logical form between any two declarative sentences in any two languages in terms of the notion of corresponding proofs in interpretive truth theories for the languages. We illustrate the utility of this approach with a number of examples. We then extend the characterization to non-declaratives in a generalization of truth-theoretic semantics that appeals to fulfillment conditions, of which truth conditions are one variety. On this approach, logical forms are not reified, and the notion of sameness of logical form is treated as conceptually basic. We discuss the relation of this conception of logical form to the project of identifying logical constants, reviewing two approaches, one of which takes topic neutrality as central, the other recursion. We argue that the project of identifying logical constants for the purposes of classifying together valid arguments is largely independent of that identifying logical form of sentences, and urge an ecumenical approach to extending talk of logical constants beyond where it is currently well-grounded. (shrink)

This experimental study provides further support for a theory of meaning first put forward by Bar-Hillel and Carnap in 1953 and foreshadowed by Asimov in 1951. The theory is the Popperian notion that the meaningfulness of a proposition is its a priori falsity. We tested this theory in the first part of this paper by translating to logical form a long, tightly written, published text and computed the meaningfulness of each proposition using the a priori falsity measure. We then (...) selected the top propositions—by a priori falsity—and strung them together to form ad hoc abstracts and compared these abstracts with the published summary. The results were startling: translation to logical form, followed by application of the Asimovian idea and Bar-Hillel/Carnap mathematics as elaborated into an AI/NLP proposal in Fulda (1986, 1988), produced excellent abstracts, thereby providing a proof-of-concept that merely by knowing the logical form of long text passages, one can produce reasonable abstracts of them—without actually understanding the text. We here report on a second experiment analyzing, in the exact same manner, the correspondence that followed the published text of the first experiment. While the results of this confirming experiment are less startling, they nevertheless provide additional confidence in the promise of the technique. In other words, were the results of these two experiments to generalize, that would show that logical form captures much more semantics than has heretofore been considered likely. Far from (as is commonly supposed) being merely the syntactical rewrite of text into formal notation, translation to logical form, even when undertaken with almost no knowledge about the particular predicates, individual constants, or other objects referred to in that form, might capture the core of the meaning in some important sense. -/- Note: There is a key difference in the /style/ of the texts analyzed in I and II in this long paper, divided into two only for practical reasons—space; the first text analyzed is written in a tight mathematical style, while the second is written in the discursive style of philosophy. -/- Finally, the unusual (for me) length of this two-part paper is justified by its being data-driven. (shrink)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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 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)

This chapter reviews some of the history of discussions of logical form and offers a truth-theoretic account that traces back to Donald Davidson.

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.

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.

In this article, the attempts by David Lewis and Brian Loar to make perspicuous the logical form of sentences ascribing propositional attitudes to individuals are set out and criticized. Both work within the assumption of the truth of 'type' physicalism, and require that logically perspicuous attitude ascriptions be compatible with the demands of such a doctrine. It is argued that neither carry out this task successfully - Lewis's perspicuous ascriptions have counter-intuitive implications, while Loar's avoidance of these undermines type (...) physicalism itself. (shrink)