Deontic ‘cocktail’ according to E. Mally’s receipt

In 1926, Ernst Mally, an Austrian logician, has introduced a system of deontic logic in which he has proposed three fundamental distinctions which proved to be important in the context of the further development of the logic of norms. It is argued that in his philosophical considerations Mally has introduced a number of important distinctions concerning the very concept of norm, but by getting them confused in introducing the subsequent formalisms he failed to formally preserve them. In some of his philosophically made distinctions Mally apparently foresaw contemporary trends in logic of norms. To some extent this particular feature of Mally’s system open wide opportunities to reconstruct –– with the corresponding renovations — his illformed Deontik into many nowadays known systems of logic of norms and thus provides a fertile ground for this kind of research

FIVE STEPS TO RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility has entered the academic discourse of logicians hardly more than few decades ago. I suggest a logical concept of responsibility which employs ideas both from a number of theories belonging to different branches of logic as well from other academic areas. As a comment to this concept, I suggest five steps narrative scenario in order to show how the logical dimension of responsibility emerges from diverse tendencies in logic and other sciences. Here are the five steps briefly stated: Step 1. Developing modal formalisms capable of evaluative analysis of situations (deontic, epistemic and etc.). Step 2. Drawing a conceptual borderline between normal and non-normal (weak) logical systems. Step 3. Using different kinds of models. Step 4. Agent- and action- friendly turn in logic. Step 5. Creating formalisms for modeling different types of agency. An idea advocated here within 5-Steps route to responsibility is that this concept is a complex causal and evaluative (axiological) relation. A logical account may be given for causal and normative aspects of this relation. Unfolding the responsibility back and forth through 5 Steps will result in different concepts. The technicalities are minimized for the sake of keeping the philosophical scope of the paper. For the same reason I also refrain from discussing legal and juridical ramifications of the issue

Как Платон, Аристотель и Я. А. Слинин были судьями в тяжбе Протагора и Эватла

We discuss the solution proposed by Yaroslav Slinin to the dispute between Protagoras and Euathlus over tuition fee. According to an ancient anecdote, Protagoras taught rhetoric to Euathlus, and Euathlus promised to pay for the training after he won his first case in court. Upon completion of his studies, Euathlus did not participate in court cases, and after much waiting for payment, Protagoras went to court, hoping that if the claim was satisfied, then Euathlus would pay by court order, and if rejected, then by agreement as the winner of the court. Euathlus objected that in the first case he would not pay according to the contract, and in the second, according to the verdict of the court. Slinin suggests that Euathlus was simply unlucky in courts, but there was no antagonism between Protagoras and Euathlus. Their joint decision to go to court was aimed at helping Protagoras to get paid quickly, and Euathlus to pay off his teacher without losing face. We consider a thought experiment in which Plato, Aristotle and Slinin act as judges in this lawsuit, and show why Plato would postpone the case, Aristotle would satisfy the claim, and Slinin would be satisfied with any decision other than postponing the case, so he would side with Aristotle.Обсуждается предложенное Я. А. Слининым решение спора Протагора и Эватла об оплате обучения. Согласно античному анекдоту, Протагор обучил Эватла красноречию, а Эватл обещал оплатить обучение после того, как выиграет свое первое дело в суде. По завершении обучения Эватл не стал участвовать в судебных делах, и Протагор, не дождавшись оплаты, обратился в суд, рассчитывая, что если иск удовлетворят, то Эватл заплатит по решению суда, а если отклонят, то по договору как выигравший суд. Эватл возражал, что в первом случае не станет платить по договору, а во втором — согласно вердикту суда. Я. А. Слинин предполагает, что Эватлу просто не везло в судах, но между Протагором и Эватлом не было антагонизма. Их совместное решение обратиться в суд было нацелено помочь Протагору побыстрее получить плату, а Эватлу — расплатиться с учителем без потери лица. Мы рассматриваем мысленный эксперимент, в котором Платон, Аристотель и Я. А. Слинин выступают судьями в этой тяжбе, и показываем, почему Платон отложил бы дело, Аристотель удовлетворил бы иск, а Я. А. Слинина устроило бы любое решение, кроме откладывания дела, поэтому он присоединился бы к Аристотелю

Истина и судебная аргументация в романе Ф. М. Достоевского "Братья Карамазовы"

We examine the reasons of the judicial error in the Dmitry Karamazov case depicted by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Karamazov Brothers and argue that the truth can and should be established in both of the process types, adversary and investigative, and that the three con-ceptions of truth, referential, inferential and pragmatic, play an evaluative role in that. The Dmitry Karamazov case shows that the formal view of the truth suffices for deciding a case, but it cannot prevent judicial errors when the epistemological ideal of the material truth falls into oblivion

Hinges, Deep Disagreement and Fixed Points in the Argumentation Logic

In his treatise ‘On Certainty’ (1969) L. Wittgenstein compared the propositions ex- pressing basic principles to the hinges enabling both doubting and justifying knowledge. In 1985 Robert Fogelin  proposed the conception of deep disagreement in argumentation analysis and     in his description of it he referred to the hinges. We continue Wittgenstein’s hinges metaphor  and compare pulling and pushing the door of knowledge to adopting contrary standings about principal issues, which can result in the deep disagreements. We suggest looking at the hinges enabling those door moves as at the fixed points in the extension semantic of the argumentation logic. Interpreting the hinges as the fixed points allows viewing rejected arguments as isolated deadlocks of the deep disagreements, or anti-extensions, and opens a possibility for a compromise on the basis of certain extensions.В трактате «О достоверности» (1969) Л. Витгенштейн сравнил предложения, выражающие ключевые принципы знаний людей, с дверными петлями, без которых невоз- можно ни обосновывать знание, ни сомневаться в нём. В 1985 году Роберт Фогелин предло- жил понятие глубокого несогласия для анализа аргументации и, описывая его свойства, со- слался на дверные петли Витгенштейна. Если продолжить метафору дверных петель Вит- генштейна, то, если дверь познаниятолкают или тянут, это ведет к глубоким разногласиям по принципиальным вопросам. В русле этого мы предлагаем посмотреть на дверные петли как на неподвижные точки в семантике расширения логики аргументации. Это позволяет рассматривать отклоненные аргументы как изолированные тупики глубоких разногласий и открывает возможность длякомпромисса на основе определённых расширений

Why Protagoras gets paid anyway: a practical solution of the paradox of court

The famous dispute between Protagoras and Euathlus concerning Protagoras’s tuition fee reportedly owed to him by Euathlus is solved on the basis of practical argumentation concerning actions. The dispute is widely viewed as a kind of a logical paradox, and I show that such treating arises due to the double confusion in the dispute narrative. The linguistic expressions used to refer to Protagoras’s, Euathlus’s and the jurors’ actions are confused with these actions themselves. The other confusion is the collision between the pairs of incompatible actions ambiguously expressed by two different pairs of sentences, one of which is a propositionally consistent pair whereas the other is an inconsistent one. The actional paradox solution aims to clear up these confusions by means of two core borderlines, propositional and expressive, drawn between the actions and the propositions. The propositional distinction says that actions are empirical facts and they lack truth values unlike propositions, which are mental entities and are often employed for referring to the actions. This distinction helps to avoid the confusion between the empirical incompatibility of actions and the truth-functional inconsistency of propositions. The expressive distinction claims that although the same linguistic sentences can be used to refer both to actions and propositions, two empirically incompatible actions can be expressed both by a pair of inconsistent propositions as well as by a pair of consistent ones. Therefore, the action of Protagoras’s being paid may be linguistically symbolized in four different ways: Protagoras gets paid due to the verdict, Protagoras gets paid due to the contract that amount to Protagoras does not get paid by the contract and Protagoras does not get paid by the verdict respectively, and likewise for Euathlus’s actions. The two distinctions are used for classifying the two groups of paradox solutions, legal and logical, proposed so far depending on which of the two confusions they purport to escape from. The actional reconstruction of the paradox suggests that there is only one single agent in the dispute, Protagoras, while the other named Euathlus is a ‘phantom,’ which most probably was invented by Protagoras himself for the sake of creating this challenging sophism

Argumentacija, R. Pavilionio prasmės kontinuumas ir virtuvės diskusija

In this paper, I propose a logical-cognitive approach to argumentation and advocate an idea that argumentation presupposes that intelligent agents engaged in it are cognitively diverse. My approach to argumentation allows drawing distinctions between justification, conviction and persuasion as its different kinds. In justification agents seek to verify weak or strong coherency of an agent’s position in a dialogue. In conviction they argue to modify their partner’s position by means of demonstrating weak or strong cogency of their positions before a ‘rational judge’. My approach to argumentation employs a ‘light’ version of Dung’s abstract argumentative frameworks. It is based on Stich’s idea of agents’ cognitive diversity the epistemic aspect of which is argued to be close to Pavilionis’s conception of meaning continuum. To illustrate my contributions I use an example based on the Kitchen Debate (1959) between Khrushchev and Nixon.Straipsnyje pateikiamas loginis-kognityvinis požiūris į argumentaciją ir teigiama, kad argumentacija suponuoja, jog į ją įsitraukę protingi veikėjai pasižymi kognityvine įvairove. Autorės prieiga leidžia įvesti skirtis tarp pagrindimo, įtikinimo ir įkalbėjimo kaip skirtingų argumentacijos rūšių. Pagrindimo atveju veikėjai siekia verifikuoti savo pozicijos dialoge stiprų arba silpną koherentiškumą. Įtikinimo atveju veikėjų tikslas yra pakeisti parnerių poziciją įrodant savosios pozicijos silpną ar stiprų įtikimumą idealizuoto „racionalaus teisėjo“ akivaizdoje. Autorės prieiga pasitelkia P. M. Dungo abstrakčių argumentacinių struktūrų versiją. Ji paremta St. Sticho kognityvinės įvairovės idėja, kurios episteminis aspektas yra artimas R. Pavilionio prasmės kontinuumo koncepcijai. Dėstomas požiūris iliustruojamas pavyzdžiu, paremtu virtuvės diskusija, vykusia tarp N. Chruščiovo ir R. Niksono 1959 metais