Variations on da Costa C Systems and dual-intuitionistic logics I. Analyses of C ω and CC ω

Da Costa's C systems are surveyed and motivated, and significant failings of the systems are indicated. Variations are then made on these systems in an attempt to surmount their defects and limitations. The main system to emerge from this effort, system CC , is investigated in some detail, and dual-intuitionistic semantical analyses are developed for it and surrounding systems. These semantics are then adapted for the original C systems, first in a rather unilluminating relational fashion, subsequently in a more illuminating way through the introduction of impossible situations where and and or change roles. Finally other attempts to break out of impasses for the original and expanded C systems, by going inside them, are looked at, and further research directions suggested.I have been much helped through comments and corrections, criticism and proofs, generously offered by Newton da Costa, Chris Mortensen, John Slaney and Igor Urbas. A part of my role is no more than that, not of under-labourer, but of organiser of their results.The paper, still incomplete at the edges, has been a good while in the making. It was first drafted in around 1980 for a Festschrift for Newton da Costa; hence the introductory remarks, which it has since seemed should stand. More recent literature on the C systems will be taken in account in a sequel.     

Intuitionist logic — Subsystem of,extension of,or rival to,classical logic?

Strictly speaking, intuitionistic logic is not a modal logic. There are, after all, no modal operators in the language. It is a subsystem of classical logic, not [like modal logic] an extension of it. But... (thus Fitting, p. 437, trying to justify inclusion of a large chapter on intuitionist logic in a book that is largely about modal logics).     

Process and Action: Relevant Theory and Logics

Whileprocess andaction are fundamental notions, in ubiquitous use, they lack satisfactory logical treatment in two critical respects: in analyses of the fundamentals themselves and in logical development. For what treatment they have so far received, under classical systematisation, leaves significant lacunae and induces much paradox. A relevant logical relocation, carried through in detail here, removes such problems, and provides solid ground-work for a satisfactory treatment.Firstly, as to fundamentals: processes should be explicated, so it is argued, as certain sorts of (time) directed functions (from inputs to outputs); thus they can be represented through certain ordered pairs of relations. Significant logical structures they can enter into are investigated: notably, process lattice and coupled logics, and a generalized category theory (tolerating nonassociativity of composition).Actions are types of processes, agent-ascribed process. As stock analyses of the differentia, operators and agency, through intentionality, rationality and so on, demonstrably fail, new causal analyses are proposed.Secondly, as to logical developments: for the most part, the apparently diverse offering of process and action logics to be encountered in the literature are but multiple modal logics: modal logics enriched with further functors of interesting modal sorts. Some, for example, like advertised process logics are dynamic logics (themselves basically multiple modal logics) enriched by tense logical functors, themselves modal in character. In a way that is now becoming nonstandardly standard, these modal enterprises can be reworked on relevant logical bases. A main point to such exercises resembles that of other relevant reworkings: namely, the search for correctness, for adequacy to pre-analytic and linguistic data, and therewith removal of paradoxes and anomalies that accumulate under modal analyses.Logical components from a properly expanded Humean model of action are supplied with relevant logics and semantics, in particulardoing, trying andstriving, intention andmotivation. The difficult question of formalising practical inference is then addressed.Relevant dynamic logics, paralleling modal developments, are built up piece by piece, relevant theory change is considered within a dynamic framework, and work on relevant temporal and process logics of programming cast, including functors such asbefore, during andthroughout, is initiated. The present state of logical play is assessed.I have been much encouraged in this work by Krister Segerberg, who deserves and has my considerable thanks. It will be evident that his fine investigative work, which I want to seefurthered, has served as a foil in much of what follows.     

Simple reaction time as a race between signal detection and time estimation: A paradigm and model

A new paradigm for simple reaction time is described in which signal detection and time production trials are interleaved. A model is proposed which views the signal detection and time production processes as independent and engaged in a race whose outcome determines the observed response latencies. The model also allows the distribution of detection latencies to be extracted from the data.     

The Use and Evolution of Stories as a Mode of Problem Representation: Soviet and French Military Officers Face the Loss of Empire

Experimental work on modes of problem representation (Sylvan, Diascro, & Haddad, 1996) has found that the story model of Pennington and Hastie (1986, 1988) is a helpful construct in understanding how people reach decisions when dealing with questions of foreign policy. Here, a modified version of the story model is applied to statements by military officers in the Soviet Union and in France, representing the situations they face before and after the loss of Eastern Europe and Indochina, respectively (Charlick-Paley, 1997). Both baseline stories and those after the losses of empire are examined to test the hypothesis that when a military experiences the loss of its state's empire, officers will formulate a new story that justifies the change in its status, and that this new story will motivate new patterns of civil-military relations in the post-imperial era. The hypothesis finds general support, and stories are found to be a useful vehicle in understanding differences between groups of military officers. An analysis of how officers' stories change over time yields intriguing results as to how mutable stories are and which elements of a story are most likely to change first. In particular, expansion of the level of a goal is found to be a representational response to the political stimulus of loss of empire.     

On the Ternary Relation and Conditionality

One of the most dominant approaches to semantics for relevant (and many paraconsistent) logics is the Routley?CMeyer semantics involving a ternary relation on points. To some (many?), this ternary relation has seemed like a technical trick devoid of an intuitively appealing philosophical story that connects it up with conditionality in general. In this paper, we respond to this worry by providing three different philosophical accounts of the ternary relation that correspond to three conceptions of conditionality. We close by briefly discussing a general conception of conditionality that may unify the three given conceptions.     

Intrahippocampal scopolamine impairs both acquisition and consolidation of contextual fear conditioning

Lesions of the dorsal hippocampus have been shown to disrupt both the acquisition and the consolidation of memories associated with contextual fear (fear of the place of conditioning), but do not affect fear conditioning to discrete cues (e.g., a tone). Blockade of central muscarinic cholinergic receptor activation results in selective acquisition deficits of contextual fear conditioning, but reportedly has little effect on consolidation. Here we show for the first time that direct infusion of the muscarinic cholinergic receptor antagonist, scopolamine, into the dorsal hippocampus produces a dose-dependent deficit in both acquisition and consolidation of contextual fear conditioning, while having no impact on simple tone conditioning.     

Knowledge as a Non‐Normative Relation

According to a view I’ll call Epistemic Normativism (EN), knowledge is normative in the same sense in which paradigmatically normative properties like justification are normative. This paper argues against EN in two stages and defends a positive non‐normativist alternative. After clarifying the target in §1, I consider in §2 some arguments for EN from the premise that knowledge entails justification (the “Entailment Thesis”). I first raise some worries about inferring constitution from entailment. I then rehearse the reasons why some epistemologists reject the Entailment Thesis and argue that a non‐normativist picture provides the best explanation of all the intuitions surrounding this thesis, favorable and unfavorable. On this picture, human knowledge is a structured non‐normative complex that has as one of its parts a justification‐making property, analogous in role to good‐making properties like pleasurableness. After giving three arguments against EN in §3 and answering an objection in §4, I turn in §5 to further develop the positive view sketched in §2. In §6, I take stock and conclude.