Jaakko Hintikka

Somewhat like Henkin's nonstandard interpretation of higher-order logics, while the right semantics [or logical modalities is an analogue to the standard of type theory in Henkin's sense. interpretation Another possibility would be to follow W.V. Quine's advice to give up logi cal modalities as being beyond repair. Or we could also try to develop a logic of conceptual possibility, restricting the range of our "possible worlds" to those compatible with the transcendental presuppositions of our own conceptual sys tem. This looks in fact like one of the most interesting possible theories I have dreamt of developing but undoubtedly never will. Its kinship with Kant's way of thinking should be obvious. Besides putting the entire enterprise of possible-worlds semantics into a perspective, we can also see that the actual history of possible-worlds seman tics is more complicated than it might first appear to be. For the standard in terpretation of modal logics has reared its beautiful head repeatedly in the writings of Stig Kanger, Richard Montague the pre-Montague-semantics theorist, and Nino Cocchiarella.

Dr. Jaakko Hintikka is an influencial philosopher most famous for originating game-theoretical semantics. This book includes an intellectual biography, 29 previously unpublished critical and descriptive essays by famous scholars and a reply to each essay by Hintikka himself.

Is a genuine logic of scientific discovery possible? In the essays collected here, Hintikka not only defends an affirmative answer; he also outlines such a logic. It is the logic of questions and answers. Thus inquiry in the sense of knowledge-seeking becomes inquiry in the sense of interrogation. Using this new logic, Hintikka establishes a result that will undoubtedly be considered the fundamental theorem of all epistemology, viz., the virtual identity of optimal strategies of pure discovery with optimal deductive strategies. Questions to Nature, of course, must include observations and experiments. Hintikka shows, in fact, how the logic of experimental inquiry can be understood from the interrogative vantage point. Other important topics examined include induction (in a forgotten sense that has nevertheless played a role in science), explanation, the incommensurability of theories, theory-ladenness of observations, and identifiability.

One of the world's most influential logicians, Jaakko Hintikka is a leading figure on the international philosophical scene. Here, he responds to his critics. The 27 critical and descriptive essays in this book, written by important scholars from a variety of fields, challenge Hintikka's innovations in philosophy, logic, and linguistics. His replies, and the essays themselves, all previously unpublished, form a lively, provocative exchange of ideas. Also included is an intellectual autobiography and a complete bibliography of Hintikka's writings.

This book focuses on the game-theoretical semantics and epistemic logic of Jaakko Hintikka. Hintikka was a prodigious and esteemed philosopher and logician, and his death in August 2015 was a huge loss to the philosophical community. This book, whose chapters have been in preparation for several years, is dedicated to the work of Jaako Hintikka, and to his memory. This edited volume consists of 23 contributions from leading logicians and philosophers, who discuss themes that span across the entire range of Hintikka’s career. Semantic Representationalism, Logical Dialogues, Knowledge and Epistemic logic are among some of the topics covered in this book's chapters. The book should appeal to students, scholars and teachers who wish to explore the philosophy of Jaako Hintikka.

A word of warning concerning the aims of this volume is in order. Other wise some readers might be unpleasantly surprised by the fact that two of the chapters of an ostensibly historical book are largely topical rather than historical. They are Chapters 7 and 9, respectively entitled 'Are Logical Truths Analytic?' and 'A Priori Truths and Things-In-Them selves'. Moreover, the history dealt with in Chapter 11 is so recent as to have more critical than antiquarian interest. This mixture of materials may seem all the more surprising as I shall myself criticize (in Chapter I) too facile assimilations of earlier thinkers' concepts and problems to later ones. There is no inconsistency here, it seems to me. The aims of the present volume are historical, and for that very purpose, for the purpose of understanding and evaluating earlier thinkers it is vital to know the conceptual landscape in which they were moving. A crude analogy may be helpful here. No military historian can afford to neglect the topo graphy of the battles he is studying. If he does not know in some detail what kind of pass Thermopylae is or on what sort of ridge the battle of Bussaco was fought, he has no business of discussing these battles, even if this topographical information alone does not yet amount to historical knowledge.

Aristotle thought of his logic and methodology as applications of the Socratic questioning method. In particular, logic was originally a study of answers necessitated by earlier answers. For Aristotle, thought-experiments were real experiments in the sense that by realizing forms in one's mind, one can read off their properties and interrelations. Treating forms as independent entities, knowable one by one, committed Aristotle to his mode of syllogistic explanation. He did not think of existence, predication and identity as separate senses of estin. Aristotle thus serves as an example of a thinker who did not rely on the distinction between the allegedly different Fregean senses, thereby shedding new light on our own conceptual presuppositions. This collection comprises several striking interpretations that Jaakko Hintikka has put forward over the years, constituting a challenge not only to Aristotelian scholars and historians of ideas, but to everyone interested in logic, epistemology or metaphysics and in their history.

ISBN 9042000694 (paperback) NLG 50.00 Main headings: I. Historical perspectives.- II. Formal tools: induction, observation and identifiability.- III. Questions in inquiry: the interrogative model.- IV. Growth of knowledge: explanation and discovery.- V. Jaakko Hintikka: replies.- VI. Abstracts. skills in writing.