Abstract
The paper begins with a quick review of monotonic inferences in natural language. We illustrate that the inferences sometimes fail with sentences that contain both quantifiers and deontic modalities. A distinction between a narrow and wide scope of readings is made. A first-order deontic event model is proposed to study those sentences. Inspired by the philosophy of Allan Gibbard, we set a normative system as a component of our model to interpret the modalities. This leads to a general result that enables us to explain the failed monotonic inferences.
This chapter is in final form and it is not submitted to publication anywhere else.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aloni, M. Individual Concepts in Modal Predicate Logic. Journal of Philosophical Logic 34(1), 1–64, 2005.
Fitting. M, R. L. Mendelsohn. First-Order Modal Logic. Springer, 1998.
Gibbard, A. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990.
Nate, C and Matthew, C. Deontic Modality. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Peters, S and Westerståhl, D. Quantifiers in Language and Logic. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Quine. W.V. Notes on Existence and Necessity. The Journal of Philosophy, 1943.
Smullyan, R. Modality and Description. The Journal of Symbolic Logic 13(1), 31–37, 1948.
Van Benthem, J. Questions About Quantifiers. Journal of Symbolic Logic 49(2), 443–466, 1984.
Van Benthem, J. and Liu, F. Some Old and New Logical Aspects of Monotonicity. Accepted by the Second Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language, and Meaning: Monotonicity in Logic and Language, 2020.
Von Fintel, K. The Best We Can (Expect to) Get? Challenges to The Classic Semantics for Deontic Modals. Presented at the 2012 Central APA, Chicago, IL. Available from: http://mit.edu/fntel/fntel-2012-apa-ought.pdf. [Accessed Nov 2019].
Westerståhl, D. Some Results on Quantifiers. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 25(2), 152–170, 1984.
Westerståhl, D. Classical versus. Modern Squares of Opposition, and Beyond. In The Square of Opposition. A General Framework for Cognition, 195–229, 2012.
Acknowledgments
This research is supported by Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (2017THZWYX08). We are very grateful for the helpful comments from Johan van Benthem, Martin Stokhof, Mingming Liu, and the three anonymous referees of the AWPL.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Yan, J., Liu, F. (2020). Monotonic Opaqueness in Deontic Contexts. In: Liao, B., Wáng, Y. (eds) Context, Conflict and Reasoning. Logic in Asia: Studia Logica Library. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7134-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7134-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-7133-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-7134-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)