Back to Search Start Over

Questions as information types.

Authors :
Ciardelli, Ivano
Source :
Synthese; Jan2018, Vol. 195 Issue 1, p321-365, 45p
Publication Year :
2018

Abstract

This paper argues that questions have an important role to to play in logic, both semantically and proof-theoretically. Semantically, we show that by generalizing the classical notion of entailment to questions, we can capture not only the standard relation of logical consequence, which holds between pieces of information, but also the relation of logical dependency, which holds between information types. Proof-theoretically, we show that questions may be used in inferences as placeholders for arbitrary information of a given type; by manipulating such placeholders, we may construct formal proofs of dependencies. Finally, we show that such proofs have a specific kind of constructive content: they do not just witness the existence of a certain dependency, but actually encode a method for transforming information of the types described by the assumptions into information of the type described by the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
00397857
Volume :
195
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Synthese
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
126541340
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1221-y