Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics, Volume 1

Preface.

I. Logic.

1. Introduction

2. Practical Logic
   2.1 PLCS and Cognitive Systems
   2.2 Practical Reasoning
   2.3 Practical Agency
   2.4 Practical Logics
   2.4.1 The Method of Intuitions
   2.5 Allied Disciplines
   2.6 Psychologism
   2.6.1 Issues in Cognitive Science

3. Logical Agents
   3.1 Heuristics and Limitations
   3.2 Three Problems
   3.2.1 The Complexity Problem
   3.2.2 The Approximation Problem
   3.2.3 The Consequence Problem
   3.2.4 Truth Conditions, Rules and State Conditions
   3.2.5 Rules Redux
   3.2.6 Logics for Down Below

4. Formal Pragmatics
   4.1 Pragmatics
   4.2 Theoretical Recalcitrance
   4.3 Analysis

II. Conceptual Models for Relevance

1. Propositional Relevance
   5.1 Introductory Remark
   5.2 Propositional Relevance
   5.3 Legal Relevance
   5.4 Topical Relevance
   5.5 Topical Relevance and Computation
   5.6 Targets for a Theory of Relevance
   5.7 Freeman and Cohen
   5.7.1 Freeman
   5.7.2 Cohen

2. Contextual Effects
   6.1 Introductory Remarks
   6.2 Contextual Effects
   6.3 In The Head
   6.4 Inconsistency Management
   6.4.1 Bounded Rationality
   6.5 Is Inconsistency Pervasive?
   6.5.1 A Case in Point: Mechanizing Cognition
   6.6 Further Difficulties
   6.7 Reclaiming SW-Relevance?
   6.8 The Grice Condition
   6.8.1 Relevance To and For

3. Agenda Relevance
   7.1 Adequacy Conditions
   7.2 The Basic Idea
   7.2.1 Causality
   7.3 Belief
   7.4 Corroboration
   7.5 Probability
   7.6 Agendas: A First Pass
   7.7 Cognitive Agency
   7.8 Propositional Relevance Revisited

4. Agendas
   8.1 Plans
   8.2 Representation
   8.3 Agendas Again
   8.3.1 Agendas: Transparent and Tacit
   8.4 MEM and KARO-agendas
   8.4.1 MEM Agendas
   8.5 A Formal Interlude

5. Adequacy Conditions Fulfilled?
   9.1 Subjective Relevance
   9.2 Meta-agendas
   9.3 Comparative Relevance
   9.4 Hyper-relevance
   9.5 Hunches
   9.6 Misinformation
   9.7 Dialectical Relevance
   9.7.1 Fallacies of Relevance
   9.8 Semantic Distribution
   9.9 Relevant Logic, Pittsburgh Style
   9.10 Revision and Update
   9.11 The Relevant Thing

6. Objective Relevance
   10.1 Normative Theories
   10.2 Relevance Naturalized?
   10.2.1 Reflective Equilibrium
   10.3 Objective Relevance
   10.4 Modularity
   10.5 Inference
   10.6 Reconsidering Normative Relevance
   10.7 Schizophrenia
   10.8 Reprise

III. Formal Models for Relevance

1. A Logic for Agenda Relevance
   11.1 Conceptual Analysis
   11.1.1 Complexity, Approximation and Consequence
   11.2 Formalization
   11.3 Overview of the Model
   11.4 How to Proceed
   11.4.1 Bidirectional Coverage and Fit

2. A General Theory of Logical Systems
   12.1 Introduction
   12.2 Logical Systems
   12.3 Examples of Logical Systems
   12.4 Refining the Notion of a Logical System
   12.4.1 Structured Consequence
   12.4.2 Algorithmic Structured Consequence Relation
   12.4.3 Mechanisms
   12.4.4 Modes of Evaluation
   12.4.5 TAR-Logics (Time, Action and Revision)

3. Labelled Deductive Systems
   13.1 Introduction
   13.2 Labelled Deduction
   13.2.1 Labelled Deduction Rules
   13.2.2 Non-classical Use of Labels
   13.2.3 The Theory of Labelled Deductive Systems
   13.2.4 Hunches and Guesses
   13.2.5 Contextual Effects

4. Relevance Logics
   14.1 Introduction
   14.2 Anderson--Belnap Relevant Logic
   14.3 Formulation of AB Relevance
   14.4 Properties of the Goal Directed Formulation
   14.5 Deductive Relevance
   14.6 The Cut Rule for Deductive Relevance

5. Formal Model of Agenda Relevance
   15.1 Introduction
   15.2 The Simple Agenda Model
   15.3 Intermediate Agenda Model
   15.4 Case Studies

6. Conclusion
   16.1 Introduction
   16.2 Quantification
   16.3 Some Tail Ends

Bibliography
Index

Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation of the logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning is identified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets, including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlike what is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasoner lacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access to computational complexity. The practical reasoner is therefore obliged to be a cognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerable efficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of various scarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitive traits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is the practical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevant information and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies are impediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense, relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then be said to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances or closes some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with a conceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic and pragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek to integrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A further attraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principal conceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expression in formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics and label led deductive systems.

Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, belief dynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repay study by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields.

Key features:

• relevance
• action and agendas
• practical reasoning
• belief dynamics
• non-classical logics
• labelled deductive systems