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.