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The Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary is pleased to announce a

Minisymposium on Logic

All talks will take place in 1253 Social Sciences Building

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Friday, November 4, 4:00 pm

Alasdair Urquhart
University of Toronto

The Unnameable

Frege has a puzzling doctrine that functions are unsaturated entities. This paper is devoted to an attempted elucidation of the dark and mysterious metaphors surrounding this doctrine. I advocate a minimalistic interpretation of Frege’s doctrine, namely that unsaturated things are entities of higher type, no more, no less. Further aspects of the Fregean doctrine, particularly those which give a stronger reading to the notion of incomplete entities, are rejected as irrelevant excrescences. In particular, the idea that functions are unnameable is consigned to the flames as both unnecessary and incoherent.

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Saturday, November 5, 10:00 am

John P. Burgess
Princeton University

Nominal Essence and Verbal Necessity

Some views of Peter Geach on proper names will be examined, partially defended against the criticisms of Saul Kripke, and applied in an attempt to demystify metaphysical modality.

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Saturday, November 5, 2:00 pm

Kit Fine
New York University

Variables, Knowledge and Semantics

I will talk about some connections between a nonstandard relational treatment of variables and the development of a more adequate semantics for proper names and quantified epistemic logic.

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Prof. Urquhart has provided a copy of the paper his talk will be based on. Prof. Fine recommends his paper “The Role of Variables” (Journal of Philosophy 50 (2003) 605-631) as background reading. Both will be available in the Department’s reading room shortly.

Prof. Urquhart will also speak to the Calgary Peripatetic Research Group on Logic and Category Theory on Thursday, November 3, at 4:00 pm, on “Ideas and Problems in Resolution Theorem Proving”.

The Department of Philosophy and the Speakers Committee gratefully acknowledge the support of the Faculty of Humanities and the University of Calgary Research Grants Committee for these events.

www.phil.ucalgary.ca