Prof.dr. Michiel van Lambalgen Chair of Logic & Cognitive Science ILLC/Department of Philosophy University of Amsterdam Nieuwe Doelenstraat 15 1012 CP Amsterdam The Netherlands Phone + 31 20 5254523 Fax + 31 20 5254503 Office Hours: by appointment » Email: M.vanLambalgen at uva.nl » Curriculum Vitae The Proper Treatment of Events This webpage contains material relevant to the book The Proper Treatment of Events (co-authored by Fritz Hamm (Tuebingen)), which is published by Blackwell in November 2004. Instructors can find slides here, and some suggestions on how to use the book in a course. We also provide some examples of essays and master theses for which the book provided inspiration. Students may be interested in the fuller version of the first 3 chapters of the book, containing proofs which had to be omitted for lack of space. + Material » Errata Here you can find a pdf with corrections of errors in the book. We apologize for any errors, and we do hope that you will bring mistakes to our attention. » Additional material relating to Chapters 1-3 In the book, most of the proofs relating to the Russell-Kamp and Walker event structures have been omitted. These are provided in the following set of notes. + Examples of essays based on the book My preferred mode of examination is to ask students to study experimentally the acquisition of temporal expressions, possibly (but not necessarily) with the theoretical underpinning provided in the book. Felicitous examples will be made available here. » Reut Tsarfaty: `Acquisition of temporal expressions in Hebrew' (2004) + Examples of Master's theses based on the book Several students have tried to apply the formalism to study nominalization, tense and aspect in their native language. Theses on Spanish and Hebrew are in progress; below is a study of the Polish aspectual system by Piotr Labenz. The thesis by Giosue Baggio is a first step toward neuroimaging studies of tense-processing; in his PhD work at the FC Donders Centre in Nijmegen, Baggio wil try to find (counter)evidence for the involvement of the planning system in the processing of temporal discourse. The thesis on nominalization by Darrin Hindsill partly found its way into the book, but contains lots of interesting historical material that could not be covered. » Piotr Labenz: `Event calculus semantics of Polish aspect' (2004) » Giosue Baggio: `Two ERP studies on Dutch temporal semantics' (2004) » Darrin Hindsill: `On the turning nouns into verbs' (2001) » Reut Tsarfaty ``binyanim ba'avir': An investigation of Aspect Semantics in Modern Hebrew.' (2005) » Edgar Andrade Lotero `Meaning and form in the event calculus' (2006) » A suggestion for a course based on the book + Slides + White/blue slides: for comfortable viewing or projection » First lecture: philosophical aspects of time » Second lecture: cognitive aspects of time » Third lecture: formal aspects of time » Fourth lecture: planning and our sense of time » Fifth lecture: relation between language use and human sense of time » Sixth lecture: Aktionsart » Seventh lecture: introducing the event calculus » Eighth lecture: event calculus and nominalization » Ninth lecture: tense » Tenth lecture: lexical and grammatical aspect formalized » Eleventh lecture: coercion + Black/white slides: for easy printing » First lecture: philosophical aspects of time » Second lecture: cognitive aspects of time » Third lecture: formal aspects of time » Fourth lecture: planning and our sense of time + Latex files of the slides These files have been prepared for use with the package pdfscreen. Only the white/blue versions are provided; the black/white versions can be construcetd from these by replacing \color{white} by \color{black} and \backgroundcolor{blue} by \backgroundcolor{white}. » Other links News » The book `Human reasoning and cognitive science' (co-authored by Keith Stenning) has just been published by MIT Press (August 2008). Click the link for more information. + Some recent lectures/recente voordrachten » 5th International Workshop on Computational Semantics, IWCS-5, Jan 15-17 2003, Tilburg, The Netherlands. » Eighth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (ICCS03), Donostia - San Sebastián, May 7-10, 2003. » Twelfth International Congress of Logic Methodology and Philosophy of Science (LMPS03), Oviedo, August 7-13, 2003. » Lezing voor de VSPA-reeks `Een andere kijk op psychologie' (12 mei 2004) `De rol van logica in psychologie: mag het een onsje meer zijn?' » Sinn und Bedeutung 9, Nijmegen, November 1-3, 2004 » `Executive function and rule-following in psychiatric disorders' Lecture at ACLC/ILLC Colloquium on Psycholinguistics, March 31 Amsterdam. » `Wat betekenen al die getallen eigenlijk? Over misbruik van statistiek in de processen tegen Lucia de B.' Lezing voor de collegeserie `Highlights van de wiskunde', 19 april 2006. Klik hier voor de slides, en hier voor een artikel dat de technische achtergrond geeft. » 'What mathematical logic tells you about the brain', Philosophy Dept. Amsterdam September 15 2006 » 'Logic in the study of psychiatric disorders: executive function, autism and ADHD', Philosophy Dept. Amsterdam September 18 2006 Research Most of my present research takes place within the framework of two NWO programmes: » Logic meets psychology: nonmonotonicity » Reasoning and the brain Selected Publications + Generalised Quantifiers » (with Natasha Alechina) Generalized Quantification as Substructural Logic. Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 61, No. 3. (Sep., 1996), pp. 1006-1044. + Logic of Vision » (with Jaap van der Does) A logic of vision. Linguistics and Philosophy 23 (1), 1-92 (2000). » Conditional quantification, or poor man's probability. Journal of Logic and Computation 11(2), 295-335 (2001). » (with Jaap van der Does) A logic of vision: preliminaries. In Condoravdi and Renardel de Lavalette (eds.) Logical Perspectives on Language and Computation. CSLI Publications (Stanford), 2001. » Logical constructions suggested by vision. In L. Cavedon et al (eds.) Logic, Language and Computation. CSLI Publications (Stanford), 2002. + Psychology » (with Keith Stenning) Semantics as a Foundation for Psychology: A Case Study of Wason's Selection Task. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 10, 273-317 (2001). » (with Keith Stenning) A little logic goes a long way: basing experiment on semantic theory in the cognitive science of conditional reasoning. Cognitive Science, Volume 28 No. 4 (2004), 481--530. » (with Keith Stenning) The natural history of hypotheses about the selection task. In K. Manktelow and M. Chung (eds.), Psychology of Reasoning. Psychology Press, 2004. » (with Keith Stenning) A working memory model of relations between interpretation and reasoning. To appear in Cognitive Science, 2005. » Keith Stenning and Michiel van Lambalgen, `Human reasoning and cognitive science'. Draft of a book to appear with MIT Press, 2007. Chapter 10 is still missing. » Evolutionary considerations on logical reasoning. To appear in D. Westerstahl (ed.), Proceedings of Twelfth International Conference on Logic, Methodololgy and Philosophy of Science (Oviedo 2003). » (in Dutch) Evolutie van hogere cognitieve functies. Te verschijnen in BLIND! » (with Heleen Smid) Reasoning patterns in autism: rules and exceptions. To appear in Larrazabal and Perez Miranda (eds), Proceedings 8th International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (Donostia/San Sebastian). + Randomness » Random sequences. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Amsterdam, 1987. » Von Mises' notion of random sequence reconsidered. Journal of Symbolic Logic 52 (3), 725 - 755 (1987). » Algorithmic information theory. Journal of Symbolic Logic 54 (4), 1389 - 1400 (1989). » The axiomatisation of randomness. Journal of Symbolic Logic 55 (3), 1143 - 1167 (1990). » Independence, randomness and the axiom of choice. Journal of Symbolic Logic 57 (4), 1274 - 1304 (1992). » Independence structures in set theory. In W. Hodges et al (eds.), Logic: from foundations to applications (European Logic Colloquium 1993), Oxford University Press, 1996. » Randomness and foundations of probability: von Mises' axiomatisation of random sequences. In T. Ferguson et al (eds.), Probability, Statistics and Game Theory: papers in honour of David Blackwell. Institute for Mathematical Statistics Monograph Series Vol. 20, 1996. + Semantics of Tense and Aspect » (with Fritz Hamm) Moschovakis' notion of meaning as applied to linguistics. To appear in M. Baaz, S. Friedman, J. Krajicek (eds.), Logic Colloquium '01, ASL Lecture Notes in Logic, A.K. Peters Publishers, 2004. » (with Fritz Hamm) Formal Foundations for Semantic Theories of Nominalisation. In E. Lang and I. Zimmermann (eds.), ZAS Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 27, April 2002. » (with Fritz Hamm) Intensionality and coercion. To appear in R. Kahle (ed.), Intensionality, ASL Lecture Notes in Logic, A.K. Peters Publishers, 2003. » (with Fritz Hamm) Event calculus, nominalisation and the progressive. Linguistic and Philosophy 26, 2003. » (with Fritz Hamm) `The Proper Treatment of Events', Blackwell, November 2004. » (with Fabrice Nauze) Serious computing with tense. To appear in H. Bunt, R. Muskens (eds.), Computational Semantics 3, Kluwer, 2004. + Forensic statistics » (with A. Korzec and C. de Bruijn) Confirming Diagnosis of Hazardous and Harmful Alcohol Use. To appear in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. » (in Dutch) (met Ronald Meester) Wat zeggen al die getallen eigenlijk? De statistiek in het proces tegen Lucia de B. TREMA, tijdschrift voor de rechterlijke macht. September 2004 » (with Ronald Meester) On the (ab)use of statistics in the legal case against the nurse Lucia de B. (Submitted to `Law, probability and risk') + List of publications » Random sequences. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Amsterdam, 1987. » Von Mises' notion of random sequence reconsidered. Journal of Symbolic Logic 52 (3), 725 - 755 (1987). » Algorithmic information theory. Journal of Symbolic Logic 54 (4), 1389 - 1400 (1989). » The axiomatisation of randomness. Journal of Symbolic Logic 55 (3), 1143 - 1167 (1990). » Independence, randomness and the axiom of choice. Journal of Symbolic Logic 57 (4), 1274 - 1304 (1992). » (with Natasha Alechina) Generalized Quantification as Substructural Logic. Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 61, No. 3. (Sep., 1996), pp. 1006-1044. » Independence structures in set theory. In W. Hodges et al (eds.), Logic: from foundations to applications (European Logic Colloquium 1993), Oxford University Press, 1996. » Randomness and foundations of probability: von Mises' axiomatisation of random sequences. In T. Ferguson et al (eds.), Probability, Statistics and Game Theory: papers in honour of David Blackwell. Institute for Mathematical Statistics Monograph Series Vol. 20, 1996. » (with Jaap van der Does) A logic of vision. Linguistics and Philosophy 23 (1), 1-92 (2000). » Conditional quantification, or poor man's probability. Journal of Logic and Computation 11(2), 295-335 (2001). » Logical constructions suggested by vision. In L. Cavedon et al (eds.) Logic, Language and Computation. CSLI Publications (Stanford), 2002. » (with Jaap van der Does) A logic of vision: preliminaries. In Condoravdi and Renardel de Lavalette (eds.) Logical Perspectives on Language and Computation. CSLI Publications (Stanford), 2001. » (with Keith Stenning) Semantics as a Foundation for Psychology: A Case Study of Wason's Selection Task. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 10, 273-317 (2001). » (with Fritz Hamm) Formal Foundations for Semantic Theories of Nominalisation. In E. Lang and I. Zimmermann (eds.), ZAS Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 27, April 2002. » (with Fritz Hamm) Event calculus, nominalisation and the progressive. Linguistic and Philosophy 26, 2003. » (with Keith Stenning) A little logic goes a long way: basing experiment on semantic theory in the cognitive science of conditional reasoning. Cognitive Science Volume 28 No 4 (2004), 481--530. » (with Keith Stenning) The natural history of hypotheses about the selection task. To appear in Manktelow and Chung (eds.), Psychology of Reasoning. Psychology Press, 2004. » (with Fritz Hamm) Moschovakis' notion of meaning as applied to linguistics. To appear in M. Baaz, S. Friedman, J. Krajicek (eds.), Logic Colloquium '01, ASL Lecture Notes in Logic, A.K. Peters Publishers, 2004. » Evolutionary considerations on logical reasoning. To appear in D. Westerstahl (ed.), Proceedings of Twelfth International Conference on Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (Oviedo 2003). » (with Fritz Hamm), `The Proper Treatment of Events', Blackwell, November 2004. » (with Fabrice Nauze) Serious computing with tense. To appear in H. Bunt, R. Muskens (eds.), Computational Semantics 3, Kluwer, 2004. » (with Keith Stenning) A working memory model of relations between interpretation and reasoning. To appear in Cognitive Science. » (with A. Korzec and C. de Bruijn) Confirming Diagnosis of Hazardous and Harmful Alcohol Use. To appear in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. » (in Dutch) (met Ronald Meester) Wat zeggen al die getallen eigenlijk? De statistiek in het proces tegen Lucia de B. TREMA, tijdschrift voor de rechterlijke macht. September 2004 » (with Heleen Smid) Reasoning patterns in autism: rules and exceptions. To appear in Larrazabal and Perez Miranda (eds), Proceedings 8th International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (Donostia/San Sebastian). » (with Ronald Meester) On the (ab)use of statistics in the legal case against the nurse Lucia de B. (Submitted to `Law, probability and risk') Teaching 2010-2011 + Rationality, cognition and reasoning (Semester 1, 2010-2011) This course is concerned with the (supposed) tension between logical norms of reasoning and actual human reasoning. We present a large quantity of data from the psychological literature, pertaining to children, literate adults, illiterate adults, and patients suffering from various psychiatric disorders. We also discuss the various theories that psychologists have proposed to account for these findings, such as 'mental models', evolutionary psychology and Bayesian approaches. We then discuss these same data from a logical point of view -- with the outcome that the proposed explanations are all untenable, and suffer from a lack of logical sophistication. It will be shown that logical theorizing leads to much more informative experiments and explanations. Students will be asked to do experiments to get hands-on experience of `reasoning in the wild'. » Course Material Keith Stenning and Michiel van Lambalgen, `Human reasoning and cognitive science'. MIT Press, 2008. + Other reading material » Bart Geurts Reasoning with quantifiers. Cognition 86 (2003), 223--251 » Stephen Newstead Can natural language semantics explain syllogistic reasoning? Cognition 90 (2003), 193--199. » Bart Geurts Monotonicity and sylllogistic inference: a reply to Newstead. Cognition 90 (2003), 201--204. + Slides A preliminary version of the slides will be made available on Fridays before a lecture. I may change a few details in the final version. + Slides » September 6: Rationality in philosophy and in cognitive science + Tentative course schedule. Expressions like '[Books]' and '[Articles]' refer to folders in Google Docs to which you will get access after registering » September 6. Rationality in philosophy and in cognitive science » September 13. How logic and cognitive science got divorced. (Presentation on analogical reasoning; see chapters 1, 13 in 'The analogical mind' [Books] » September 20. Breaking the hold of classical logic. (Presentation on reasoning in children; see Thing & Reasoning Vol. 10 [Books] and references given therein) » September 27. The Wason selection task. (Presentation on differences between human and primate cognition; see Penn, Holyoak & Povinelli in [Articles]) » October 4. Logical forms in the Wason selection task. (Presentation on experimental results on syllogistic reasoning; see article by Politzer in Manktelow & Chung [Books], Oaksford & Chater article [Articles] and Chapter 10 of HRCS.) » October 11. Evolutionary psychology and the selection task. (Presentation on brain imaging of reasoning; search for work by Goel and Osherson in database; check out Poldrack's article [Articles] for general criticism). » October 18. Is logical reasoning ability essential to cognition? (Presentation on reasoning in illiterate societies; see dissertation by Counihan [Books] and references given therein; section 11 of Adler & Rips [Books]). » October 25. Course free week. » November 1. Possible evolutionary origins of reasoning. (Presentation on the question whether a plurality of reasoning norms can exist; see sections 1, 2 in Adler & Rips [Books]) » November 8. Introducing the suppression task. (Presentation in reasoning in schizotypal disorder/schizophrenia; see e.g articles by Sellen & Oaksford and Mujicka-Parodi in [Articles]; try to find more references) » November 15. Autism and reasoning tasks. (Presentation on Bayesian probabilistic reasoning as an alternative to logic; see the book by Oaksford and Chater, 'Bayesian rationality' (which I can lend you) and the critique by Stenning and van Lambalgen in 'Noisy Logic' [Articles]) » November 22. Autism and reasoning tasks. (Presentation on non-verbal false belief tasks in autism; see Onishi and Baillargein in [Articles] and find more material yourself) » November 29. Neuroimaging of the suppression task. (Presentation on causal and counterfactual reasoning, with special attention to autism; see articles by Riggs in [Articles]) » December 6. Summary of course and answers to students' question (see homework September 7) » December 13. Student presentations of setup for final assignment. + Homework » There are five ingredients for the final grade: presentation in class, assignments, group project (doing an experiment) presentation of the group project in class, and writing up the results. The individual presentation and the assignments count for 40% of the grade, each for 20%. The assignments are graded pass/fail (not submitted means fail) and the proportion of passed assignments is computed as the grade for the whole set. For preparation and presentation of the group project 60% of the grade is reserved: 20% for the presentation, 40% for the write-up of the experimental work. » September 7. Read Chapter 1 of `Human reasoning and cognitive science' and formulate 3 questions you'd like to answered by the end of the course. » September 14. Read Chapter 2 of `Human reasoning and cognitive science'. » November 16. Do the exercises given in the slides for November 9. » Final assignment The theme of the final assignment will be 'individual differences in reasoning'. We have seen individual differences in the selection, where they aare by and large due to different interpretations of the task, i.e. there are differences in what we called 'reasoning to an interpretation'. One reasoning individual differences can be related to interpretation is that the selection task is very difficult; this makes reasoning to an interpretation an overt process. The suppression task shows individual differences as well, both between autists and controls and within these groups. Here it is much less clear what drives the differences. We have a general theoretical model that relates deficiencies in inhibition to non-suppression of MP and MT (and thus to the 'typical' autist's answer pattern), but (a) it is far from clear that it is this that gives rise to non-suppression in the control group, and (b) there is variability of responses within the autistic group itself. Thus the theoretical model is too coarse-grained. One way to identify factors relevant to individual differences is to use questionnaires testing cognitive styles when administering a reasoning task (e.g. suppression). There are two plausible candidates for such questionnaires: the so-called 'Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire', which has subscales that may be separately relevant to reasoning (aloof personality, rigid personality, and pragmatic language); you can find it here ; and the questionnaire testing the 'Systematising Quotient', which you can find here . The ideal setup for such an experiment would be as follows: you construct materials for the suppression task with different semantic contents, so that you get informative answer percentages and you try to relate these percentages to scores on the questionnaires or one of their subscales. Since your preference is to work in small groups, it will not be possible to get statistical significance simply by interviewing people. Web surveys could lead to a larger response, although there was some skepticism. You are free to use either method. The only boundary condition is that each student has data from at least 5 subjects. On December 6 you can present your design in class to get feedback; the write-up of your experiment should be sent in before January 15, 12 midnight. NB Although the guiding theme of your final assignment should be 'individual differences', it is possible to deviate from the suggestions I have just given. It may well be possible that you have a better idea. + Filosofische Teksten: Logica en Cognitie, (Semester 2, 2009 -2010) + + Kant, logic and cognition (Semester 2, 2008-2009) Announcement. Athenaeum Bookstore on Spui now has Longuenesse's book in stock. Reading list and syllabus of the course. This list will be regularly updated. Slides incrementally presenting the formal model Slides for February 2 Slides for February 9 Slides for February 16 Slides for February 23 Slides for March 2 Slides for March 9 Slides for March 16 Slides for March 30 Slides for April 6 Slides for April 20 Slides for April 27 Slides for May 4 Slides for May 11 Homework for February 16: Jaesche Logic, pp. 597-625, KdrV A64-76/B89-101, Longuenesse Chapter 1, and O'Neill's paper 'Transcendental arguments in developmental psychology', which you can find here . Homework for February 23: Jaesche Logic, pp. 597-625, KdrV B102-116, A95-110, Longuenesse Chapter 2 Homework for March 2: KdrV B129-143, Longuenesse Chapter 3 Homework for March 9: Longuenesse Chapter 4. Please read very carefully, as selected passages will be discussed in class. Homework for March 16: Longuenesse Chapter 5 until p. 110, plus the relevant passages in KdrV. Homework for March 30: Longuenesse Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 until p. 139; KdrV: A260-8/B316-24. We will illustrate this difficult material using modern work on concept learning. Homework for April 6: Longuenesse Chapter 7. Homework for April 20: There has been a change a plan as compared to the official reading list. In the remaining sessions we will concentrate on (i) relaxed exposition of the formal logic behind the KdrV, and (ii) the role of the Categories in the KdrV, using the example of Quantity only. I.e. we will, not as originally planned, also discuss Quality and Relation. The homework for the coming weeks is therefore Longuenesse Chapter 9, plus perhaps a fewarticles that we will make available. Homework for April 27: Longuenesse Chapter 9, especially the part on 'Quantitas and Quantum'. Also please study carefully the logical part of the slides of April 20, since this will be essential in what is to come. Homework for May 4: As the topic of May 4'th lecture will be the three main theorems on the formal model, please reread these slides carefully. Announcement. There is a change of plan for the last session, May 18. For this session, all students are required to give brief (5mn) presentations about their plans for the final essay.