UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE
COLLOQUIUM
Department of Philosophy
Columbia University"Complementary Sentential Logics." Bulletin of the Section of Logic (1990):112-116.
"La logica della vaghezza." In Pietro Ciaravolo, ed.,
Informatica e
metodologia filosofica. Pubblicazioni del Centro per la filosofia
italiana. Rome: Cadmo, 1990.
"A fine dicembre '89 il Centro per la Filosofia Italiana ha tenuto un
eccellente Simposio su 'Informatica e Metodologia Filosofica'"-p. 7.
“Truth, Falsehood and Beyond.” In Liliana Albertazzi and Roberto Poli, eds., Topics in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence, pp. 39-50. Bolzano: Mitteleuropäisches Kulturinstitut, 1991.
”Do We Need Functional Abstraction?” In Johannes Czermak, ed., Philosophie der Mathematik: Akten des 15. Internationalen Wittgestein-Symposiums: 16. bis 23. August 1992, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Osterreich)/Philosophy of Mathematics: Proceedings of the 15th International Wittgenstein-Sympoisum: 16th to 23rd August 1992, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Austria), Vol. I, pp. 407-415. Schriftenreihe der Wittgenstein-Gesellschaft, Vol. 20 = Bd. 20. Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1993.
”Spatial Reasoning in a Holey World.” In Pietro Torasso, ed., Advances in Artificial Intelligence: Third Congress of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, AIIA '93, Torino, Italy, October 26-28, 1993: Proceedings, pp. 326-336. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 728. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin & New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993.
”Spatial Reasoning in a Holey World: A Sketch.” In Frank D. Anger, Hans W. Guesgen, and J. F.A.K. Van Benthem, eds., Proceedings of the Workshop on Spatial and Temporal Reasoning, 13th International Joint Conference in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 47-59. Chambéry: IJCAI, 1993
(with Roberto Casati.) Holes and other Superficialities. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Superficial Particulars
3. Immaterial Bodies
4. Hollows, Tunnels, Cavities, and More
5. Fillers and Skins
6. The Natural History of Discontinuities
7. Parts and Holes
8. Causality, Shapes, and Solidity
9. Sameness and Non-Substance
10. Ways of Holemaking
11. Hole Detection
12. The Field of Emptiness
Appendix: Outline of a Theory.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) "Mereotopological Construction of Time from Events." In Carola Eschenbach, Christopher Habel and Barry Smith, eds., Topological Foundation of Cognitive Science. Papers from the Workshop at the FISI-CS, Buffalo, N.Y., July 9-10, 1994. International Summer Institue --- Cognitive Science. Kognitionswissenschaft. Bericht ; Nr. 37. Hamburg: Graduiertenkolleg Kognitionswissenschaft, Universitat Hamburg, 1994.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) "Mereotopological Construction of Time from Events." In A.G. Cohn, ed., ECAI 94, 11th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 8-12, 1994, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Proceedings, pp. 396-400. Organised by the European Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI) in cooperation with AAAI and IJCAI. Hosted by the Dutch Society for Artificial Intelligence (NVKI). Chichester & New York: Wiley, 1994.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) “The Mereo-Topology of Event Structures.” In P. Dekker and Martin B.J. Stokhof, eds., Proceedings of the Ninth Amsterdam Colloquium, pp. 527-546. Amsterdam: Institute for Language, Logic and Computation, 1994.
“On the Boundary Between Mereology and Topology.” In Roberto Casati, Barry Smith and Graham White, eds., Philosophy and the Cognitive Sciences: Proceedings of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium, 15-22 August 1993, Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria, pp. 423-442. Schriftreihe der Wittgenstein-Gesellschaft, Bd. 21. Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1994.
”Super-Duper Supervaluations.” In T. Childers and O. Majer, eds., Logica '94: Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium: Liblice, 1994, pp. 17-40. Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Prague: Filosofia, 1994.
”Model-Theoretic Conventionalism.” In James Hill and Petr Kotatko, eds., Karlovy Vary Studies in Reference and Meaning, pp. 406-430. Prague: Filosofia, (Praha-Zbraslav: Ustav jadernych informaci), 1995.
"On the Boundary between Mereology and Topology." In Barry Smith, Foundations of Formal Geography. Vienna, Austria: Department of Geoinformation, Technical University of Vienna, 1995.
"Universal Semantics." PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1995.
Abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International (June 1996), 56(12A):4810-A.
Advisor: Hans Herzberger.
Abstract: Much recent work aimed
at extending model-theoretic semantics has been
formulated in response to specific needs, and little effort has been made in the
direction of a truly 'general' generalization. This work is an attempt to overcome
these limitations. The unifying view is that semantics must account for the main
relationships between languages and models in a uniform fashion, regardless of
the specific conditions that may be imposed upon either notion. And the upshot
is a general framework within which a large variety of semantic theories naturally
fall and from which the semantics of a wide class of logics can be obtained as
special cases. The presentation is organized in two parts. In the first, a suitably
general notion of a language is introduced along with a correspondingly general
notion of a model, allowing for the possibility that the interpretation of some
expressions be incomplete or inconsistent. The notion of a valuation is then
systematically characterized by exploiting the idea that the value of an
expression on a given model is always a function of the values it takes on the
various ways of filling in the gaps and/or weeding out the gluts in the model. This
account is shown to be grounded on some fundamental properties of the lattice
of all admissible models, and may be viewed as a generalization of the method
of super-valuations. The second part investigates the major properties of the
resulting semantic apparatus. In particular, it is shown that the notion of logical
validity as applied to single expressions is rather standard, and in fact reduces
to the corresponding classical notion when this is available. Thus, gaps and
gluts can be explained away as local phenomena that do not metastasize
throughout the framework. However, with regard to the more comprehensive
relation of entailment between (sets of) expressions, the general picture is more
intricate, as the notion of argument validity appears to escape the control of
recursively specifiable systems. To shed light on this picture, a cost-benefit
analysis of the proposed framework is offered in the concluding part.
"Vagueness, Indiscernibility, and Pragmatics: Comments on Burns."
Southern Journal of Philosophy (1995), 33(Supplement):49-62.
On Linda Burns' "Something to do with
Vagueness," pp. 23-47.
Issue is "Spindel Conference 1994:
Vagueness," edited by Terry Horgan.
”Variable-Binders as Functors.” In Vito Sinisi and Jan Wolenski, eds., The Heritage of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, pp. 329-344. Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, 40. Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1995.
Edited (with Robert Casati.) Events. International Research Library of Philosophy, 15. International Research Library of Philosophy. Philosophy of Logic, Language, and Mind. Aldershot, England; Brookfield, Vt.: Dartmouth, 1996.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) "Events, Topology and Temporal Relations."
Monist (January 1996), 79(1)1:89-116.
This issue's “General Topic” is:
"Topology for Philosophers," and is edited by
Barry Smith.
"Parts, Wholes, and Part-Whole Relations: The Prospects of Mereotopology." Data & Knowledge Engineering (November 1996), 20(3):259-286.
”Reasoning about Space: The Hole Story.” Logic and Logical Philosophy (1996), 4:3-39.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) "Refining Temporal Reference in Event Structures." Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic (1996), 37(1):71-83.
Review of Yiannis N. Moschovakis' Notes on Set Theory. History and Philosophy of Logic (1996), 17(3):172-175.
(with Roberto Casati.) "The Structure of Spatial
Localization."
Philosophical Studies (May 1996), 82(2):205-239.
Issue is on “Analytic Philosophy in
Europe,” edited by François Recanati.
"Boundaries, Continuity, and Contact." Noûs (March 1997), 31(1):26-58.
(with Roberto Casati.) 50 years of Events: An Annotated
Bibliography, 1947 to 1997. Bowling Green, Ohio: Philosophy
Documentation Center, Bowling Green State University, 1997.
"Inconsistency without Contradiction."
Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic (1997), 38(4):621-639.
This issue is on "Impossible Worlds," edited by Graham Priest.
(with Francesco Orilia.) "A Note on Analysis and Circular Definitions." Grazer Philosophische Studien (1998), 54:107-113.
(with John Eric Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn.) Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic. 2nd ed. Schaum's Outline Series. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.
Review of Susan Haack's Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism. Philosophical Review (July 1998), 107 (3) [543]:468-471.
An Essay in Universal Semantics. Topoi Library, 1.
Dordrecht & Boston: Kluwer, 1999.
Contents:
1. Foundations.
1.1. Languages.
1.2. Models.
1.3. Valuations
2. Developments.
2.1. Validity.
2.2. Entailment.
"This book is a study in the
foundations of
model-theoretic
semantics. The central thesis is that one need not assume a
perfect structural fit between languages and their models in
order to characterize the basic semantic notions. In
particular, truth-value gaps and gluts can be explained away
as local phenomena that do not bring logical disaster in
their wake. Varzi's detailed and original account is based
on a generalization of supervaluationary techniques and is
illustrated with reference to a range of different sorts of
examples, from sentential logic to type theory. The book is
self-contained and will appeal to philosophers, logicians,
linguists, and computer scientists."--Blurb.
Edited. The Nature of Logic. European Review of Philosophy, 4. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications, 1999.
(with Barry Smith.) "The Niche." Noûs (June 1999), 33(2):214-238.
(with Roberto Casati.) Parts and Places: The Structures of
Spatial Representation. Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT, A Bradford
Book, 1999.
1. Introduction
2. Spatial Entities
3. Parthood Structures
4. Connection Structures
5. Boundaries
6. Parts and Counterparts
7. Modes of Location
8. Empty Places
9. Spatial Essentialism
10. Events in Space
11. Maps
12. Conclusion.
"In this book, Casati and Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial
representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay of mereology (the study of part-whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and compactness), and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood
quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions: Are parts essential to their wholes? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as
diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps." --
Blurb.
(with Fabio Pianesi.) "Events and Event Talk: An Introduction." In James Higginbotham, Fabio Pianesi, and Achille C. Varzi, eds., Speaking of Events. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
(with Barry Smith.) "Fiat and Bona Fide Boundaries.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (March 2000), 60(2):401-420.
Review of Brian McGuinness, ed., Language, Logic and Formalization of Knowledge. Studia Logica (December 2000), 66(3):437-440.
(with Philip Kitcher.) "Some Pictures are Worth 2(aleph) ° Sentences." Philosophy (July 2000), 75(293):377-382.
Edited (with James Higginbotham and Fabio Pianesi.) Speaking of Events.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Papers of an international working conference held August 1995 in Trento,
Italy, which was supported by the Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e
Tecnologica (IRST) of the Istituto
Trentino di Cultura (ITC).
Contents:
1. Events and Event Talk: An Introduction / Fabio Pianesi
and Achille C. Varzi
2. On Events in Linguistic Semantics
/ James Higginbotham
3. Underlying States and Time Travel
/ Terence Parsons
4. Do Events Recur? / Johannes L.
Brandl
5. Causation, Contexts, and Event Individuation /
Regine Eckardt
6. Events, Facts, Propositions, and
Evolutive Anaphora / Nicholas Asher
7. Chronoscopes: The
Dynamic Representation of Facts and Events / Alice G. B. ter
Meulen
8. Events as Dividuals: Aspectual Composition and
Event Semantics / Henk J. Verkuyl
9. Word Order and
Quantification over Times / Denis Delfitto and Pier Marco
Bertinetto
10. Aspects, Adverbs, and Events: Habituality
vs. Perfectivity / Alessandro Lenci and Pier Marco
Bertinetto