Ratio Mini-Workshop in Logic and Metaphysics

Date and time: Wednesday, April 2nd. From 4.30 to 6.45pm. 

The Mini-Workshop in Logic and Metaphysics offers an opportunity for a proficuous exchange between researchers and students about topics in logic and metaphysics, two of the key focus areas at the Master of Arts in Lugano.

Speakers

Alessandro Cecconi (Geneva)

Vita Saitta (Catholic University of Milan)

Alessandro Giordani (Catholic University of Milan)

Program

4.30-5.30 Alessandro Cecconi, "Approximate Truth vs. Partial Truth"

Short break.

5.45-6.45 Vita Saitta and Alessandro Giordani, "Deontic Logic in a Reason-Based Semantics"

Chair: Leon Probst.

Location: Aula Multiuso, FTL

Abstracts

Alessandro Cecconi

Approximate Truth vs. Partial Truth
It is customary to consider our best scientific theories as approximately true. However, little is said about what it actually means for a theory or proposition to be approximately true. In this talk, I will shed light on this concept and distinguish it from a similar notion—partial truth.

Vita Saitta, Alessandro Giordani

Deontic Logic in a Reason-Based Semantics
In the last two decades, the development of truthmaker semantics for systems of deontic logic has attracted the attention of various scholars. Independently, the idea that reasons are the basic elements grounding obligations, and deontic notions in general, has led to the introduction of several reason-based deontic systems. This talk introduces a novel framework that bridges these two traditions by grounding deontic logic in a truthmaker-based approach to reasons. The logic we propose is designed to capture how reasons interact to support actions, offering a refined account of obligation and a more fine-grained and intuitive interpretation of normative conflicts. Specifically, we assume that reasons for performing an action are facts, and we systematically study how such facts combine to determine deontic states. A central feature of our approach is that each possible world is associated with a structured set of reasons that includes a distinguished pro toto reason, which emerges by aggregating all the reasons available in a world. This reason plays a crucial role in our semantics, as it determines what obligations are in force, on the assumption that an action is obligatory if and only if it is supported by the most comprehensive justification available in the given normative context. This provides a fundamentally different perspective on obligations and allows us to model it not merely in terems of a primitive modal operator but as something that arises from the full structure of reasons at play. During the talk, we will discuss both the philosophical and technical features of our semantics, outlining a proof of soundness and completeness with respect to a specific axiomatization.

For any queries: [email protected]

Organisers: Ratio, Leon Probst.