Event Detail
Wed May 2, 2012 470 Stephens Hall 6–8 PM Hosted jointly with OHST |
Working Group in the History and Philosophy of Logic, Mathematics, and Science Mark Wilson (University of Pittsburgh) Is There Life in Possible Worlds? |
The great advances in reasoning capacity due to the so-called “finite element revolution” in modern computing rely upon a subtle reallocation of descriptive content amongst the traditional formulas of engineering practice. This altered distribution of linguistic labor requires the salient “possibilities” of a modeling effort to coordinate amongst themselves in a careful and controlled manner. In this talk we shall explore the wider implications that such constructions suggest for “semantic thinking” about language employment in general.