Logic and Foundations of Mathematics Commons^™

Three Essays In Intuitionistic Epistemology, Tudor Protopopescu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We present three papers studying knowledge and its logic from an intuitionistic viewpoint.

An Arithmetic Interpretation of Intuitionistic Verification

Intuitionistic epistemic logic introduces an epistemic operator to intuitionistic logic which reflects the intended BHK semantics of intuitionism. The fundamental assumption concerning intuitionistic knowledge and belief is that it is the product of verification. The BHK interpretation of intuitionistic logic has a precise formulation in the Logic of Proofs and its arithmetical semantics. We show here that this interpretation can be extended to the notion of verification upon which intuitionistic knowledge is based. This provides the systems of intuitionistic epistemic logic …

The C3 Conditional: A Variably Strict Ordinary-Language Conditional, Monique L. Whitaker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation I provide a novel logic of the ordinary-language conditional. First, however, I endeavor to make clearer and more precise just what the objects of the study of the conditional are, as a lack of clarity as to what counts as an instance of a given category of conditional has resulted in deep and significant confusions in subsequent analysis. I motivate for a factual/counterfactual distinction, though not at the level of particular instances of the conditional. Instead, I argue that each individual instance of the conditional may be interpreted either factually or counterfactually, rather than these instances dividing …

Toward A Kripkean Concept Of Number, Oliver R. Marshall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Saul Kripke once remarked to me that natural numbers cannot be posits inferred from their indispensability to science, since we’ve always had them. This left me wondering whether numbers are objects of Russellian acquaintance, or accessible by analysis, being implied by known general principles about how to reason correctly, or both. To answer this question, I discuss some recent (and not so recent) work on our concepts of number and of particular numbers, by leading psychologists and philosophers. Special attention is paid to Kripke’s theory that numbers possess structural features of the numerical systems that stand for them, and to …