26 Feb
2010
26 Feb
'10
9:57 a.m.
Walter Schroyens (Psychology, Gent & Leuven)
at 10.00am on Monday, 1 March 2010
Title:
Meaning and idealization in reasoning towards an interpretation of
conditionals: Is there a singular specific meaning or are there a
multitude of ephemeral interpretations of natural language
connectives, or both?
Abstract:
The paper investigates the thesis that while the pragmatics of content
and context can yield many interpretations, there is an idealized core-
meaning for sentential connectives: People do not reason from this
core meaning, but can reason towards a corresponding interpretation,
i.e., the conditional interpretation akin to the much dis-reputed
material implication of classic logic. In reasoning towards this
conditional-interpretation of “if A then C”, the utterances are
interpreted as meaning that all possibilities except the “A and not-c”
contingency are possible. In idealizing towards the conditional
interpretation as the core meaning 'if', theorists abstract, simplify
and generalize across conditions. Six experiments show that when the
context is idealized by taking account of cognitive processing hurdles
and auxiliary hypothesis in the mental-models theory of reasoning
(e.g., people tend not to throw away semantic information, they start
reasoning on the basis of a minimal representation, they are sensitive
to the principles of parsimony in positing theoretical entities, … )
people are more likely to reason towards a conditional interpretation.
That is, the context induces people to reason towards a more idealized
interpretation (which must not be an ideal interpretation). A series
of developmental studies additionally indicates that with age (i.e.,
experience and education) people are more likely to reason towards the
conditional interpretation and two individual-differences studies show
that people higher in general ability are similarly more likely to
reason towards the conditional interpretation.
Venue:
CEU Cognitive Development Center
Hattyuhaz
1015 Budapest
Hattyu u 14.
Level 3 (one level up from the entrance level)
Everyone is welcome to attend.