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Faculty of Arts of Comenius University > Departments and Research Centres > Department of Logic and the Methodology of Sciences > Research > Semantics of Conditionals (CONDITIO)

Semantics of Conditionals (CONDITIO)

APVV-21-0405

Principal Investigator: prof. PhDr. František Gahér,
Research Team: prof. Mgr. Marián Zouhar, PhD., doc. PhDr. Vladimír Marko, PhD., doc. Mgr. Lukáš Bielik, PhD., Mgr. Juraj Halas, PhD., PhDr. Daniela Vacek, PhD., Mgr. Filip Tvrdý, PhD., Mgr. Dalibor Makovník

Project website

Project Description

The project pursues two crucial research objectives:

  1. to test the main theories of indicative and subjunctive conditionals using an enriched and diversified database of instances of conditionals and inferences from different domains of science and philosophy in order to attain a more complex assessment of those theories,

  2. to propose an adequate and consistent semantic theory of conditional imperatives that will distinguish between the propositional nature of their antecedents and the conative nature of their consequents and that will allow for their use in practical inferences.

The project is expected to arrive at robust evidence pertaining to areas such as law, ethics, science, philosophy of science, philosophy and aesthetics which would enable a more comprehensive evaluation of the theories of conditionals based on their predictive (hypothetico-deductive model) and explanatory (abductive model) power. The project’s goal is also to propose a hybrid theory of conditional imperatives that relies on an expressively rich logico-semantic theory: Transparent intensional logic (TIL).

Working Hypothesis

The project’s main hypothesis is the claim that testing the pre-selected theories by twelve types of data coming from different domains will help evaluate the theories in a more complex and comprehensive manner than using standard counterexamples or traditional arguments in their favor. Thus, the project enhances the current state of the art of the semantics of indicative, subjuncitve, and normative conditionals.