"Formal Philosophy 100": Anna Moiseeva's Presentation

On September 17, the 100th session of the theoretical seminar "Formal Philosophy" took place, during which Anna Moiseeva delivered a presentation titled "Draft of the Intentional Counterparthood F-Reasoning (ICFF) Logic"

Abstract

The talk will propose a solution to the problem of intentional identity [Geach, 1967] in the context of reasoning about fictions, based on the semantics of the relation of intentional counterparthood (for a similar relation without connection to fictions, see [Edelberg, 1992]). In the approach implemented by the speaker, intentional counterparthood is ascribed to specific intentional objects (imaginations) that instantiate a specific fictional object for subjects, for example, a character in a fictional story. The character itself is considered a type, i.e., an abstract object that defines a canonical description to which any correct instantiation of it must correspond. The idea of fictional objects as types and intentional objects as tokens is taken from [Terrone, 2007]. The explanation of how type-token relations are realized in the mind is based on the concept of mental files and, more specifically, on the relationship between private and public mental files, which, in turn, is constructed by analogy with the relationship between ordinary and indexical mental files in [Groso, 2019].

This talk will present a fully formalized semantics for the intentional counterparthood relation with respect to a certain fiction; several examples of the formalization and interpretation of statements about intentional counterparts within this semantics will be analyzed; some limitations and "growth points" of the proposed approach will be indicated; and connections between the problem under discussion and several other semantic topics will be traced.

References:

1. Edelberg W., 1992, Intentional Identity and Attitudes // Linguistics and Philosophy. Vol. 15. P. 561–596.
2. Geach P.T., 1967, Intentional Identity // The Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 64, No. 20, Sixty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. P. 627–632.
3. Groso E., 2019, Indexed Mental Files and Names in Fiction. Sciendo. Disputatio, XI (54), pp.271–289. DOI: 10.2478/disp-2019-0020
4. Terrone E., 2017, Reference and Existence, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199928385.001.0001