Consider two standard quantified modal languages A and P whose vocabularies comprise the identity predicate and the existence predicate, each endowed with a standard S5 Kripke semantics where the models have a distinguished actual world, which differ only in that the quantifiers of A are actualist while those of P are possibilist. Is it possible to enrich these languages in the same manner, in a non-trivial way, so that the two resulting languages are equally expressive-i.e., so that for each sentence (...) of one language there is a sentence of the other language such that given any model, the former sentence is true at the actual world of the model iff the latter is? Forbes (1989) shows that this can be done by adding to both languages a pair of sentential operators called Vlach-operators, and imposing a syntactic restriction on their occurrences in formulas. As Forbes himself recognizes, this restriction is somewhat artificial. The first result I establish in this paper is that one gets sameness of expressivity by introducing infinitely many distinct pairs of indexed Vlach-operators. I then study the effect of adding to our enriched modal languages a rigid actuality operator. Finally, I discuss another means of enriching both languages which makes them expressively equivalent, one that exploits devices introduced in Peacocke (1978). Forbes himself mentions that option but does not prove that the resulting languages are equally expressive. I do, and I also compare the Peacockian and the Vlachian methods. In due course, I introduce an alternative notion of expressivity and I compare the Peacockian and the Vlachian languages in terms of that other notion. (shrink)

Many authors have noted that there are types of English modal sentences cannot be formalized in the language of basic first-order modal logic. Some widely discussed examples include “There could have been things other than there actually are” and “Everyone who is actually rich could have been poor.” In response to this lack of expressive power, many authors have discussed extensions of first-order modal logic with two-dimensional operators. But claims about the relative expressive power of these extensions are often (...) justified only by example rather than by rigorous proof. In this paper, we provide proofs of many of these claims and present a more complete picture of the expressive landscape for such languages. (shrink)

Cross‐situational word learning (XSWL) tasks present multiple words and candidate referents within a learning trial such that word–referent pairings can be inferred only across trials. Adults encode fine phonological detail when two words and candidate referents are presented in each learning trial (2 × 2 scenario; Escudero, Mulak, & Vlach, ). To test the relationship between XSWL task difficulty and phonological encoding, we examined XSWL of words differing by one vowel or consonant across degrees of within‐learning trial ambiguity (1 (...) × 1 to 4 × 4). Word identification was assessed alongside three distractors. Adults finely encoded words via XSWL: Learning occurred in all conditions, though accuracy decreased across the 1 × 1 to 3 × 3 conditions. Accuracy was highest for the 1 × 1 condition, suggesting fast‐mapping is a stronger learning strategy here. Accuracy was higher for consonant than vowel set targets, and having more distractors from the same set mitigated identification of vowel set targets only, suggesting possible stronger encoding of consonants than vowels. (shrink)

Previous research on cross-situational word learning has demonstrated that learners are able to reduce ambiguity in mapping words to referents by tracking co-occurrence probabilities across learning events. In the current experiments, we examined whether learners are able to retain mappings over time. The results revealed that learners are able to retain mappings for up to 1 week later. However, there were interactions between the amount of retention and the different learning conditions. Interestingly, the strongest retention was associated with a learning (...) condition that engendered retrieval dynamics that initially challenged the learner but eventually led to more successful retrieval toward the end of learning. The ease/difficulty of retrieval is a critical process underlying cross-situational word learning and is a powerful example of how learning dynamics affect long-term learning outcomes. (shrink)

The strongest objection to (15) is that speaker's meaning is defined in terms of commitment, a notion which is itself something of a challenge and for which no definition has been given. This would be a strong reason to prefer a definition in terms of some more tractable concept, all things being equal; but it does not lessen the probability that commitment or some similar notion is indispensable to the definition of speaker's meaning.The philosophical writings discussed in this paper all (...) proceed something like this: Particular cases are discussed and a description is given of the mechanisms by which communication takes place. An attempt is made to say something that applies to all instances of speaker's meaning. Words like ‘analysis’, ‘account’ ‘explanation’, ‘explication’, and ‘theory’ are used here, the suggestion being that the objective is to provide for all cases at once what has already been provided for particular cases-an explanation of how meaning works. What is produced, however, looks like adefinition of speaker's meaning, a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions. This definition is then evaluated largely in terms of what counterexamples it does or does not allow.It seems that there is some tendency to conflate two quite distinct objectives: (i) a theory of speaker's meaning-a general description of how it is that speakers are able to communicate; and (ii) a statement of necessary and sufficient conditions for speaker's meaning. Objective (i) might plausibly be regarded as the goal of the study of communication. Objective (ii) is the definition of a certain intuitive, pretheoretical concept of meaning, which might or might not prove to be an important concept with respect to objective (i). The Gricean mechanism and the notion of conventional meaning, on the other hand, are indispensable to (i)-few instances of speaker's meaning could be adequately described without recourse to at least one of these notions. Thus nothing in this paper should be construed as trying to downgrade the importance of the Gricean mechanism for the theory of communication. If objective (ii) and the Gricean mechanism are not as closely associated as has been claimed, this is, if anything, a reason to doubt the importance of (ii) for the theory of communication. (shrink)

Children ask many questions, but do not always receive answers to the questions they ask. We were interested in whether the act of generating questions, in the absence of an answer, is related to children’s later thinking. Two experiments examined whether children retain the questions they ask in working memory, and whether the type of questions asked relate to their categorization. Four to ten-year-old children were shown 12 novel objects, asked three questions about each, and did not receive answers to (...) their questions. Children recalled their questions in the first experiment and categorized variants of the novel objects in the second experiment. We found that children have robust working memory for their questions, indicating that these questions may relate to their subsequent thinking. Additionally, children generalize category boundaries more narrowly or broadly depending on the type of question they ask, indicating that children’s questions may reflect an underlying bias in how they think about the world. These findings suggest that future research should examine questions in the absence of answers to understand how inquiry affects children’s cognitive development. (shrink)

Estamos reunidos, futuros professores de 1º e 2º graus, em um espaço institucional: a escola, que pretendemos discutir, e em cujo interior interessa-nos particularmente a questão do ensino da Geografia. Quem institucionalizou a escola? Por quê? As mesmas perguntas (e outras) devem se voltar à nossa questão central. Ao mesmo tempo, a escola é aquela instituição social em que parte da população (nem todos têm acesso a ela), em um dado período, assinala, de uma maneira específica, a sua participação na (...) sociedade mais ampla. Ora, participamos da vida social no sentido lato através do trabalho. Nesse sentido, ainda que soe como paradoxo, a escola é também um espaço de trabalho. Certamente, não é o espaço da fábrica, mas exige disciplina (intelectual); nem o do folguedo, embora às vezes se transforme no “jogo de ensinar”. […] Será que estamos negando o conhecimento, que, sob a forma de conteúdos “didaticamente” selecionados e distribuídos, parece ter sustentado a escola durante muito tempo? […] Palavras-chave: Ideologia; Geografia; Escola; Instituição social; Espaço da fábrica; Ensino. (shrink)

Machery proposes that the construct of detracts from research progress. However, ignoring development also detracts from research progress. Developmental research has advanced our understanding of how concepts are acquired and thus is essential to a complete theory. We propose a framework that both accounts for development and holds great promise as a new direction for thinking about concepts.

Let be a model of a theory T. Depending on wether is decidable or recursive, and on whether T is strongly minimal or -minimal, we find conditions on which guarantee that every infinite independent subset of is not recursively enumerable. For each of the same four cases we also find conditions on which guarantee that every infinite independent subset of has Turing degree 0'. More generally, let be a recursive -structure, R a relation symbol not in , ψ a recursive (...) infiniatary Π2 sentence in the language {R}, and let 0<α<ωCK1. We discuss conditions under which we can construct a recursive -structure such that ,Rψ for every Δ0α relation R on. (shrink)

Cross-situational statistical learning of words involves tracking co-occurrences of auditory words and objects across time to infer word-referent mappings. Previous research has demonstrated that learners can infer referents across sets of very phonologically distinct words, but it remains unknown whether learners can encode fine phonological differences during cross-situational statistical learning. This study examined learners’ cross-situational statistical learning of minimal pairs that differed on one consonant segment, minimal pairs that differed on one vowel segment, and non-minimal pairs that differed on two (...) or three segments. Learners performed above chance for all pairs, but performed worse on vowel minimal pairs than on consonant minimal pairs or non-minimal pairs. These findings demonstrate that learners can encode fine phonetic detail while tracking word-referent co-occurrence probabilities, but they suggest that phonological encoding may be weaker for vowels than for consonants. (shrink)

According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It shows that “now” and “then” are eliminable in quantified tense logic, provided we endow it with enough quantificational structure. The (...) operators might not be redundant in some other systems of tense logic, but this merely indicates a lack of quantificational resources and does not show any deep-seated inability of tense logic to express claims about time. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the modal analogue of this issue, which concerns the role of the actuality operator in quantified modal logic. (shrink)

While there are many legal textbooks on the laws of armed conflict and academic works on ethical issues in international relations, this is the first text on the relevance of legal and normative issues in military practice. It covers the entire spectrum of military operations and is written with military deicision-makers particularly in mind.

This chapter addresses some basic ethical questions about psychological operations. It defines PSYOP, then compares and contrasts it with both conventional military activities and contemporary information warfare. Then it briefly clarifies emerging public policy problems, outlines relevant legal particularities, and offers general policy considerations with regard to ethical considerations in its employment.

This is a study in the meaning of natural language probability operators, sentential operators such as probably and likely. We ask what sort of formal structure is required to model the logic and semantics of these operators. Along the way we investigate their deep connections to indicative conditionals and epistemic modals, probe their scalar structure, observe their sensitivity to contex- tually salient contrasts, and explore some of their scopal idiosyncrasies.

Certain passages in Kaplan’s ‘Demonstratives’ are often taken to show that non-vacuous sentential operators associated with a certain parameter of sentential truth require a corresponding relativism concerning assertoric contents: namely, their truth values also must vary with that parameter. Thus, for example, the non-vacuity of a temporal sentential operator ‘always’ would require some of its operands to have contents that have different truth values at different times. While making no claims about Kaplan’s intentions, we provide several reconstructions of how (...) such an argument might go, focusing on the case of time and temporal operators as an illustration. What we regard as the most plausible reconstruction of the argument establishes a conclusion similar enough to that attributed to Kaplan. However, the argument overgenerates, leading to absurd consequences. We conclude that we must distinguish assertoric contents from compositional semantic values, and argue that once they are distinguished, the argument fails to establish any substantial conclusions. We also briefly discuss a related argument commonly attributed to Lewis, and a recent variant due to Weber. (shrink)

I argue that David Lewis is too quick to deny the presentist the right to employ span operators. There is no reason why the presentist could not help herself to both primitive tensed slice operators and primitive span operators. She would then have another device available to eliminate ambiguities and explain why sentences with embedded contradictions may nevertheless be true.

I present a notion of invariance under arbitrary surjective mappings for operators on a relational finite type hierarchy generalizing the so-called Tarski-Sher criterion for logicality and I characterize the invariant operators as definable in a fragment of the first-order language. These results are compared with those obtained by Feferman and it is argued that further clarification of the notion of invariance is needed if one wants to use it to characterize logicality.

Tarski and Mautner proposed to characterize the "logical" operations on a given domain as those invariant under arbitrary permutations. These operations are the ones that can be obtained as combinations of the operations on the following list: identity; substitution of variables; negation; finite or infinite disjunction; and existential quantification with respect to a finite or infinite block of variables. Inasmuch as every operation on this list is intuitively "logical", this lends support to the Tarski-Mautner proposal.

Logical and philosophical literature provides different classifications of reasoning. In the Polish literature on the subject, for instance, there are three popular ones accepted by representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School: Jan Łukasiewicz, Tadeusz Czeżowski and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (Ajdukiewicz in Logika pragmatyczna [Pragmatic Logic]. PWN, Warsaw (1965, 2nd ed. 1974). Translated as: Pragmatic Logic. Reidel & PWN, Dordrecht, 1975). The author of this paper, having modified those classifications, distinguished the following types of reasoning: (1) deductive and (2) non-deductive, and additionally two (...) types of them in each of the two, depending on the manner of combining their premises with the conclusion through the relation of classical logical entailment. Consequently, the four types of reasoning: unilateral deductive (incl. its sub-types: deductive inference and proof), bilateral deductive (incl. complete induction), and reductive (incl. the sub-types: explanation and verification), logically nonvaluable (incl. inference by analogy, statistic inference), correspond to four operators of derivability. They are defined formally on the ground of Tarski’s axiomatic theory of deductive systems, by means of the consequence operation _Cn_ (Tarski in Monatshefte Math Phys 37:361–404, 1930a, C R Soc Sci Lett Vars 23:22–29, 1930b). Also, certain metalogical properties of these operators are given, as well as their relations with Tarski’s consequence operations \(Cn^+\) ( \(Cn^+ = Cn\) ) and dual consequences \(Cn^{-1}\) (Słupecki in Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego Seria B Nr 3:33–40, 1959, Słupecki et al. in Stud Log 29:76–123, 1971, Wybraniec-Skardowska, in: Wybraniec-Skardowska, Bryll (eds) Z badań nad teorią zdań odrzuconych [Studies in the Theory of Rejected Propositions], Series B, Studia i Monografie, Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Opolu, Opole, 1969), and \(Cn^-\) (Wójcicki in Bull Sect Log 2(2):54–57, 1973)). (shrink)

The properties of the ${\forall^{1}}$ quantifier defined by Kontinen and Väänänen in [13] are studied, and its definition is generalized to that of a family of quantifiers ${\forall^{n}}$ . Furthermore, some epistemic operators δ n for Dependence Logic are also introduced, and the relationship between these ${\forall^{n}}$ quantifiers and the δ n operators are investigated.The Game Theoretic Semantics for Dependence Logic and the corresponding Ehrenfeucht- Fraissé game are then adapted to these new connectives.Finally, it is proved that the (...) ${\forall^{1}}$ quantifier is not uniformly definable in Dependence Logic, thus answering a question posed by Kontinen and Väänänen in the above mentioned paper. (shrink)

The Operator Argument against eternalism holds that having non-vacuous tense operators in the language is incompatible with the claim that every proposition has its truth-value eternally. Assuming that (1) there are non-vacuous tense operators, (2) tense operators operate on propositions and (3) tense operators which operate on eternal entities are vacuous, it may be argued that eternalism is false. In this paper, I examine the Operator Argument. The goal is threefold. First, I want to present some (...) aspects of the debate in a more elaborate way, especially those concerning formal matters. Secondly, I will argue that eternalism can escape the Operator Argument. There are two main strategies for handling the Operator Argument. The first one is based on replacing temporal operators with object-language quantifiers. The second rejects the identification of compositional semantic value with assertoric content. My third goal is to show that none of them is as good as the strategy that adopts Timestamp Semantics (Fritz in Philosl Stud 176:2933–2959, 2019). I am going to argue that the quantificational treatment of tenses is compatible with temporalism and that the arguments for rejecting the identification of compositional semantic value with assertoric content provide, in fact, a motivation for the temporalist position. At the end, I will develop Timestamp Semantics by providing a novel formalization of it, and defend it against three potential counter-arguments. (shrink)

Résumé La linguistique du texte a pour tâche la théorisation et la description des opérations de segmentation qui délimitent des unités de rang et de longueur différentes, et la théorisation et la description des différents effets de continuité créés par les opérations de liage de ces unités. À la structuration phrastique-périodique par la morpho-syntaxe et la prosodie à l’oral, la ponctuation à l’écrit, le palier micro-textuel ajoute six facteurs de texture transphrastique : les liages référentiels et isotopiques, les liages du (...) signifiant, l’ensemble des phénomènes de connexion, les relations d’implicitation, la cohésion énonciative et la cohésion illocutoire. À partir de trois textes, cet article illustre systématiquement et détaille ces six formes de liage transphrastique des unités textuelles de base. (shrink)

The understanding of the interrelationship between brain and mind remains far from clear. It is well established that the brain's capacity to integrate information from numerous sources forms the basis for cognitive abilities. However, the core unresolved question is how information about the "objective" physical entities of the external world can be integrated, and how unifiedand coherent mental states (or Gestalts) can be established in the internal entities of distributed neuronal systems. The present paper offers a unified methodological and conceptual (...) basis for a possible mechanism of how the transient synchronization of brain operations may construct the unified and relatively stable neural states, which underlie mental states. It was shown that the sequence of metastable spatial EEG mosaics does exist and probably reflects the rapid stabilization periods of the interrelation of large neuron systems. At the EEG level this is reflected in the stabilization of quasi-stationary segments on corresponding channels. Within the introduced framework, physical brain processes and psychological processes are considered as two basic aspects of a single whole informational brain state. The relations between operational process of the brain, mental states and consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

The concept of an operator is used in a variety of practical and theoretical areas. Operators, as both conceptual and physical entities, are found throughout the world as subsystems in nature, the human mind, and the manmade world. Operators, and what they operate, i.e., their substrates, targets, or operands, have a wide variety of forms, functions, and properties. Operators have explicit philosophical significance. On the one hand, they represent important ontological issues of reality. On the other hand, (...) epistemological operators form the basic mechanism of cognition. At the same time, there is no unified theory of the nature and functions of operators. In this work, we elaborate a detailed analysis of operators, which range from the most abstract formal structures and symbols in mathematics and logic to real entities, human and machine, and are responsible for effecting changes at both the individual and collective human levels. Our goal is to find what is common in physical objects called operators and abstract mathematical structures, with the name operator providing foundations for building a unified but flexible theory of operators. The paper concludes with some reflections on functionalism and other philosophical aspects of the ‘operation’ of operators. (shrink)

Based on the theoretical analysis of self-consciousness concepts, we hypothesized that the spatio-temporal pattern of functional connectivity within the default-mode network (DMN) should persist unchanged across a variety of different cognitive tasks or acts, thus being task-unrelated. This supposition is in contrast with current understanding that DMN activated when the subjects are resting and deactivated during any attention-demanding cognitive tasks. To test our proposal, we used, in retrospect, the results from our two early studies ([Fingelkurts, 1998] and [Fingelkurts et al., (...) 2003]). In both studies for the majority of experimental trails we indeed found a constellation of operationally synchronized cortical areas (indexed as DMN) that was persistent across all studied experimental conditions in all subjects. Furthermore, we found three major elements comprising this DMN: two symmetrical occipito-parieto-temporal and one frontal spatio-temporal patterns. This new data directly supports the notion that DMN has a specific functional connotation – it provides neurophysiologic basis for self-processing operations, namely first-person perspective taking and an experience of agency. (shrink)

Although several studies propose that the integrity of neuronal assemblies may underlie a phenomenon referred to as awareness, none of the known studies have explicitly investigated dynamics and functional interactions among neuronal assemblies as a function of consciousness expression. In order to address this question EEG operational architectonics analysis (Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, 2001, 2008) was conducted in patients in minimally conscious (MCS) and vegetative states (VS) to study the dynamics of neuronal assemblies and operational synchrony among them as a function (...) of consciousness expression. We found that in minimally conscious patients and especially in vegetative patients neuronal assemblies got smaller, their life-span shortened and they became highly unstable. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the extent/volume and strength of operational synchrony among neuronal assemblies was smallest or even absent in VS patients, intermediate in MCS patients and highest in healthy fully-conscious subjects. All findings were similarly observed in EEG alpha as well as beta1 and beta2 frequency oscillations. The presented results support the basic tenets of Operational Architectonics theory of brain-mind functioning and suggest that EEG operational architectonics analysis may provide an objective and accurate means of assessing signs of (un)consciousness in patients with severe brain injuries. Therefore this methodological approach may complement the existing “gold standard” of behavioral assessment of this population of challenging patients and inform the diagnostic and treatment decision-making processes. (shrink)

Predicates are term-to-sentence devices, and operators are sentence-to-sentence devices. What Kaplan and Montague's Paradox of the Knower demonstrates is that necessity and other modalities cannot be treated as predicates, consistent with arithmetic; they must be treated as operators instead. Such is the current wisdom.A number of previous pieces have challenged such a view by showing that a predicative treatment of modalities neednot raise the Paradox of the Knower. This paper attempts to challenge the current wisdom in another way (...) as well: to show that mere appeal to modal operators in the sense of sentence-to-sentence devices is insufficient toescape the Paradox of the Knower. A family of systems is outlined in which closed formulae can encode other formulae and in which the diagonal lemma and Paradox of the Knower are thereby demonstrable for operators in this sense. (shrink)

Recently, new types of independence of a pair of C *- or W *-subalgebras (1,2) of a C *- or W *-algebra have been introduced: operational C *- and W *-independence (Rédei and Summers, http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5294, 2008) and operational C *- and W *-separability (Rédei and Valente, How local are local operations in local quantum field theory? 2009). In this paper it is shown that operational C *-independence is equivalent to operational C *-separability and that operational W *-independence is equivalent to (...) operational W *-separability. Specific further sub-types of both operational C *- and W *-separability and operational C *- and W *-independence are defined and the problem of characterization of the logical interdependencies of the independence notions is raised. (shrink)

Relational, operator, and predicate systems are distinguished on the basis that they correspond to the three possible pair-wise bracketings into two constituents of the three parts of a proposition: relation, subject, and object. It is asserted that the verbal propositional modality (left hemisphere) uses a predicate grammar, while the spatial-image operational modality (right hemisphere) uses an operator grammar. Verbal propositional memory has the capacity for extensive propositional embedding while spatial operational memory does not.

Several important terms in biology have recently been criticized for not being "operational." In this paper the course of operationism in physics, psychology and genetics is sketched to show what effect this particular view on the meaning of scientific terms had on these disciplines. Then the biological species concept and the concept of homology are examined to see in what respects they are or are not "operational." One of the primary conclusions of this investigation is that few terms in science (...) are completely operational or completely nonoperational. Some scientific terms, especially theoretical terms, are a good deal less operational than others; but, far from being regrettable, this situation is essential if theoretical terms are to fulfill their systematizing function and if scientific theories are to be capable of growth. (shrink)

We trace the difference between the ways in which apes and humans co–operate to differences in communicative abilities, claiming that the pressure for future–directed co–operation was a major force behind the evolution of language. Competitive co–operation concerns goals that are present in the environment and have stable values. It relies on either signalling or joint attention. Future–directed co–operation concerns new goals that lack fixed values. It requires symbolic communication and context–independent representations of means and goals. We analyse these ways of (...) co–operating in game–theoretic terms and submit that the co–operative strategy of games that involve shared representations of future goals may provide new equilibrium solutions. (shrink)

Behavior that solves a problem is distinguished by the fact that it changes another part of the solver's behavior and is strengthened when it does so. Problem solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli. Verbal responses produce especially useful stimuli, because they affect other people. As a culture formulates maxims, laws, grammar, and science, its members behave more effectively without direct or prolonged contact with the contingencies thus formulated. The culture solves problems for its members, and does so by (...) transmitting the verbal discriminative stimuli called rules. Induction, deduction, and the construction of models are ways of producing rules. Behavior that solves a problem may result from direct shaping by contingencies or from rules constructed either by the problem solver or by others. Because different controlling variables are involved, contingency-shaped behavior is never exactly like rule-governed behavior. The distinction must take account of a system which establishes certain contingencies of reinforcement, such as some part of the natural environment, a piece of equipment, or a verbal community; the behavior shaped and maintained by these contingencies; rules, derived from the contingencies, which specify discriminative stimuli, responses, and consequences, and the behavior occasioned by the rules. (shrink)