Discourse, Interaction and Communication: Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (ICCS-95)

196 Pages·1998·10.636 MB·English

by  P. J. Henrichsen (auth.), Xabier Arrazola, Kepa Korta, Francis Jeffry Pelletier (eds.)

DISCOURSE, INTERACTION AND COMMUNICATION
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES
VOLUME 72
Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer
Editor
Keith Lehrer, University ofA rizona, Tucson
Associate Editor
Stewart Cohen, Arizona State University, Tempe
Board of Consulting Editors
Lynne Rudder Baker, University ofM assachusetts at Amherst
Radu Bogdan, Tulane University, New Orleans
Allan Gibbard, University ofM ichigan
Denise Meyerson, University of Cape Town
Francrois Recanati, Ecole Polyt echnique, Paris
Stuart Silvers, Clemson University
Nicholas D. Smith, Michigan State University
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
DISCOURSE, INTERACTION
AND COMMUNICATION
Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on
Cognitive Science (ICCS-95)
Edited by
XABIER ARRAZOLA
[LCU,
San Sebastian, Spain
KEPAKORTA
[LCU,
San Sebastian, Spain
and
FRANCIS JEFFRY PELLETIER
University ofA lberta,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-4996-4 ISBN 978-94-015-8994-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8994-9
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1998
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
To VictOl" Sanchez de Zavala
( 1926-1996)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xi
DOES THE SENTENCE EXIST?
DO WE NEED IT?
Petel' Juel HENRICHSEN 1
1. Introduction. 1
2. Decomposition of the Sentence 6
3. Dynamic A-calculus 8
4. The ;G lexicon 8
5. Ellipsis as Syntactic Disturbance 16
6. Does the Sentence Exist? 20
Notes 23
References 24
CONTEXTUAL DOMAINS
Fl'an~ois RECANATI 25
1. Contextually restricted quantifiers 25
2. Austinian semantics 26
3. Domain shift 27
4. Mental spaces 30
5. Domains vs. scope 33
6. Intensional domains and pretended reference 35
Notes 36
References 36
THINKING OF 'NOT'
Fl'ancis Jef'fl'y PELLETIER 37
1. Introduction 37
2. How Cognitivism Deals with Problems in NaIve Semantics 38
3. Predicative Negation 40
4. Two Inadequate Answers to Problem of Predicate Negation 42
5. Possible Mental Negations 43
6. Conclusion 46
Notes 47
vii
viii
THE METAPHORICAL CONCEYfION OF EVENTS AND CAUSES:
SOME IMPLICATONS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE FOR
PHILOSOPHY
George LAKOFF 49
1. First and Second Generation Cognitive Science 49
2. Conceptual Metaphor 52
3. Some General Issues Concerning Metaphor: Evidence, Inference, and
Constraints 57
4. Time 61
5. Event Structure 64
6. The Basic Causation Metaphor: Causes Are Forces 71
7. Probabilistic Causation 74
8. Is Causation An Inherently Metaphorical Concept'? 76
9. Metaphor and Belief 78
References 83
FORMAL SEMANTICS, GEOMETRY, AND MIND
Jens Erik FENSTAD 85
1. Formal semantics and its ontology 87
2. Model Theory and Geometry 92
3. Geometry and Mind 96
References 102
INFORMATIONAL SEMANTICS AND EPISTEMIC ARROGANCE
Stuat't SILVERS 105
1. Introduction 105
2. Informational Semantics, Intentional Psychology, and Rational Belief-fixation 106
3. Cognitive Management and Our Rationality 110
4. Epistemic Arrogance 115
5. Appendix: Content, Counterfactuals, and Translation 117
Notes 119
References 119
COLLECTIVE GOALS AND COOPERATION
Raimo TUOMELA 121
1. Introducing collecti ve and joint goals 121
2. The ingredients of collective goals 124
3. The final analysis of intended collective goals 130
4. Cooperation 135
IX
5. Conclusion 137
Notes 137
References 139
A LOGICAL APPROACH TO REASONING ABOUT UNCERTAINTY:
ATUTORlAL
141
Joseph Y. HALPERN
1. Introduction 141
2. Basic modal logic: knowledge, belief, and time 143
3. A concrete framework for multi-agent systems 145
4. Adding probability 146
5. Combining knowledge, probability, and time 149
6. Conclusion 153
Notes 154
References 154
HOW COMMITMENT LEADS TO COORDINATION: THE EFFECT
0Ii trIDlVIDUAL REASONING STRATEGIES ON MULTI-AGENT
INTERACTION
Mal·tha E. POLLACK 157
1. Introduction 157
2. Meta-Level Satisficing Strategies 158
3. Multi-Agent Filtering 159
4. Related and Ongoing Research 162
Notes 163
References 163
BUILDING A COLLABORATIVE INTERFACE AGENT
Candace L. SIDNER 165
1. Introduction 165
2. The domain of IT, the collaborating software agent 167
3. The Application of Discourse Structure and Theory of Collaboration 171
4. Principles that govern TT's behavior 173
5. Comparing IT and a Human Travel Agent 175
References 176
NAME INDEX 179
SUBJECT INDEX 183
INTRODUCTION
DISCOURSE, INTERACTION, AND COMMUNICATION
Co-organized by the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science and the Institute for
Logic, Cognition, Language, and Infonnation (ILCLI) both from the University of the
Basque Country, tlle Fourth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (ICCS-95)
gathered at Donostia -San Sebastian ti'om May 3 to 6, 1995, with the following as its
main topics:
1. Social Action and Cooperation.
2. Cognitive Approaches in Discourse Processing: Grammatical and Semantical Aspects.
3. Models of Infonnation in Communication Systems.
4. Cognitive Simulation: Scope and Limits.
More tllan one hundred researchers from all over the world exchanged their most
recent contributions to Cognitive Science in an exceptionally fruitful annosphere. In this
volume we include a small though representative sample of tlle main papers. They all
were invited papers except the one by Peter Juel Henrichsen, a contributed paper tllat
merited tlle IBERDROLA - Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia: Best Paper Award, set up in
ICCS-95 for the first time.
Concerning the contents of the volume, the papers go from the extremely abstract to
tlle extremely specific, ret1ecting not only what happened at ICCS-95 but also the current
state of Cognitive Science. The collection can be seen as either a broad overview of the
field or as a repository of many excellent pcuticular studies and three general ones. The
title "Discourse, Interaction, culd Communication" tries to capture tlle main issues
addressed in the book culd gives an intuitive idea: of its contents. We can classify the
papers under tlu'ee main subjects: Language, Social ActiOll, culd Foundations of
Cognitive Science. Language ha<; been a central theme in all editions of ICCS. This is
also the ca...e in this fourth edition, culd the title shows it. Henrichsen, Pelletier, and
Recculati's papers are direclly concemed with natural language. Fenstad's culd Lakoff's are
too; but tlley CCUl also be grouped as works on the foundations of Cognitive Science,
along with Silvers' paper. Tuomela's, Halpem's, Pollack's, and Sidner's papers cu-e all
focused on social action.
1. Language
The provocative title of Peter Juel Henrichsen's paper, "Does the sentence exist? Do we
need itT', gives a clear idea on its aim. The CUlswers to the questions are, of course,
xi
xu DISCOURSE, INTERACTION, AND COMMUNICATION
negative. He proposes to ab~mdon the concept of 'sentence', since this seems to be the
reason for fOimaI linguistic theory to neglect two crucial properties of natural language,
namely, that "(i) language perception is an incremental process, which (ii) does not hinge
on the identification of sentence boundaries." He proposes an alternative grammar, called
Semicolon Grammar (;G), which takes into account these two properties, and does not
assume such a thing as a 'final' syntactic constituent, i. e., a sentence. ;G consists
essentially in a recursive technique for adding new information to old, based on the
Lambek calculus, modified by an insight from dynamic predicate logic. He develops a
detailed technical apparatus for a natural explcUlation of categories usually described as
inter-sentential like interjections ~Uld connectives, and syntactic-semantic borderline cases
such as cross-sentential binding and ellipsis. In sum, we have a very suggestive (and
iconoclastic) proposal of a promising programme in grammar. It merited, as we said
before, the IBERDROLA -G. F. A. Best Paper Award at ICCS-9S.
Franc;ois Recanati's paper, "Contextual Domains" adckesses the issue of how to
specify the variable domains of discourse for quantifiers, incomplete description and some
other linguistic elements. The phenomenon is best illustrated by examples like 'The
burglar took everything', where 'everything' ranges over the domain of valuable objects
in the house ~Uld not everything in existence. Instead of Wl ellipsis theory, according to
which these sentences would be elliptical for longer sentences such as 'The burglar took
everything valuable in the house'. Recwlati proposes a theory of contextually restricted
domains, b~<;ed on an attempt of reconciliation of the Austinian semantics of situation
theorists wld the cognitive semwltics of Gilles Fauconnier. It should be noted that
Recanati the notion of contextual domain defended by Recanati encompasses both
'genuine' domains involving real situations and intensional domains which involve
worlds other than the actual world. He assumes that we only pretend to refer to non
actual, intensional domains, but that, linguistically, real ~Uld pretended domains are on a
par.
Jeff Pelletier's "Thinking of 'Not''' questions the way cognitive scientists characterize
tlle mental items tllat a person has which are supposed to represent tlle mewling or
interpretation for that person of public IWlguage utterances. Whatever tllese internal
items w'e-images, combinations of concepts. patterns of new'al firings, etc.-they are
objects ~Uld tllerefore tlley numot directly be tlle type of thing to which a trutll-function
like 'not' applies. Pelletier considers two directions open to tllOse cognitive scientists
who wish to give a coherent account of negation. One direction is to embrace tlle fact
tllat the mental items are objects, and therefore that the notions of identity and non
identity CWl coherently hold amongst them. Pelletier presents vwious ways to use these
notions as a metllod to indirectly give appropliate mewlings for natural language
negations. The other direction is to accept that these mental items have semantic
properties-such as "falling into the swue applicability rWlge"-and to try to use the
resulting notions (e.g .. incompatibility) to give an appropriate notion of natural
IWlguage negation.