Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy
Unity of Structured HyperPropositions (USHP)
Duration: 2014 - 2016
Code: FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF-628170
Principal Investigator
Summary
This project is a two-year Marie CurieFellowship that is part of the Horizon 2020 framework. It is beingcarried out at LOGOS, University of Barcelona, which is one of the foremostresearch institutions in analytic philosophy, including philosophical logic andphilosophy of language, in the European Research Area. The LOGOS counterpart is Professor Manuel García-Carpintero. The topic is the unity of the proposition. One version of the unity problem is the mereological, hence metaphysical question how multiple entities of different categories work together so as to form one unit, a proposition, which has properties that none of its constituents has. This is a common part/whole problem. Another version of the unity problem is the semantic question how propositions succeed in being or having or yielding truth-conditions. Some theories dismiss one version at the expense of the other, while others see them as two sides of the same coin. I am all for the latter approach. The mereological unity problem arises as soon as propositions are claimed to be structures. There are various reasons for advocating structured propositions, but one of the prevalent reasons is that the notion of structure may help one to a notion of fine-grained (so-called hyperintensional) propositions. Only recently has contemporary research into fine-grained propositions been brought explicitly in contact with research into the mereology of structured propositions. This involves reopening old debates concerning constituency, degrees of complexity, composition and decomposition, abstract versus concrete parts, etc. It also involves reopening the debateconcerning what the unifiers of structured propositions are. Two standard constraints on any viable answer are that a structured proposition must be more than an enumeration or list of entities and that regress must be avoided. The Marie Curie project in question pursues the twin idea that the procedure of predication holds the key to the unity of at least atomic propositions and that certain logical procedures can serve as propositional unifiers. The theory will be worked out within the framework of Transparent Intensional Logic.
The following publications have so far been accredited to the project.
Should propositions proliferate?, Thought, forthcoming.
Introduction (with M. Duží), Synthese, vol. 192 (2015), 525-34.
Transparent quantification into hyperintensional objectual
attitudes (with M. Duží), Synthese, vol. 192 (2015), 635-77.
Qualifying quantifying-in, in: Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers,
A. Torza (ed.), Synthese Library, vol. 373 (2015), 241-69.
Structured lexical concepts, property modifiers, and Transparent
Intensional Logic, Philosophical Studies, vol. 172 (2015), 321-45.
The following research-level lectures and tutorials aimed at students have so far been held or are about to be held.
What can procedural semantics do for the unity of structured propositions? (A lot!),Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, Logic, Language and Mind Colloquium, 24 April 2015.
Property conjunction for complex predicates, Department of Philosophy,
Uppsala University, 23 April 2015.
What can procedural semantics do for the unity of structured propositions? (A lot!), Department of Philosophy, UNAM, Mexico City, 11 March 2015.
What can procedural semantics do for the unity of structured
propositions? (A lot!), Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science,
UC Irvine, LPS Colloquium, 6 March 2015.
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Spring Term 2016.
ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Spring Term 2016.
Groningen, Spring Term 2016.
Yonsei University, Underwood Inernational College, Seoul, Korea,
April/May 2016.
Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, 30 September 2015.
Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore, 23 September 2015.
The following invited talks have been presented as a Marie Curie Fellow.
The unity of the proposition that a is an F, Research Seminar, LOGOS,
Barcelona, 18 February 2015.
Property conjunction for complex predicates, Logic Café, Department of
Computer Science, TU Ostrava, 29-30 January 2015.
Modal fatigue and hyperintensional knowledge: variations on themes
from Nolan and Needham, Modal Epistemology and Metaphysics,
University of Belgrade, 18-20 September 2014.
Unities of the proposition, Institute of Culture and Society, University of Århus, 11 April 2014.
The following talk has been presented as a contributed paper.
Ode to the proliferation of propositions, ENFA VI, Ponta Delgada, 10-12 September 2015.
I co-organized with García-Carpintero the three-day conference Unity and Individuation of Structured Propositions, 22-24 June 2015 at Residència d’Investigadors, Calle Hospital, 64, 08001, Barcelona.
The invited speakers were: J.C. King (Rutgers), S. Soames (Southern California), P.W. Hanks (Minnesota), P. Pagin (Stockholm), L. Keller (Niagara), G. Ostertag (CUNY), B. Jespersen (University of Barcelona).
The speakers who had had their abstract accepted were: M. Duží (VSB-Ostrava), J.A. Keller (Niagara), G. Georgi (West Virginia), I. Reiland (Rice), B. Pickel (Edinburgh).
I will be co-editing a special issue of Synthese on the unity of structured propositions together with M. García-Carpintero. The submissions are due in late 2015.
