Speaker: Professor Dag Westerståhl (Department of Philosophy, Tsinghua University; Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University)

Moderator: Dazhu Li (Associate Professor, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Time: April 16, 2024, 10:00 - 11:30

Venue: Lecture Hall, Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (4th Floor, South Building, Building 4, Software Park, No. 4 Zhongguancun South Street)

Organizer: Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Abstract:
This lecture presents an account of the purpose of semantics for natural and formal languages. According to this perspective, semanticists engage in modeling aspects of speakers' linguistic behavior in a scientific sense, making semantics an empirical science. A blueprint of how this modeling operates is proposed in the form of a commuting diagram.

Logical models from model theory play one role in this diagram, alongside what we term "scenarios," which are real or imagined situations that speakers effortlessly judge as true or false. The lecture illustrates this approach with examples, including from dynamic semantics, where the focus shifts from truth conditions to update conditions. This work is a joint effort with Larry Moss.

Speaker Bio:
Dag Westerståhl is the Jinyueren Chair Professor at Tsinghua University and Professor of Theoretical Philosophy and Logic at Stockholm University. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg. He previously served as Secretary General of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. His primary research focuses on the intersection of logic and linguistics, including formal semantics and the philosophy of language, with his work on quantifiers being widely influential internationally.

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