Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics

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

Inhalt

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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

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

16. Conclusion
    16.1 Introduction
    16.2 Quantification
    16.3 Some Tail Ends

Bibliography
Index