Hypothetical Judgements, Truth and Assertibility

Vít Punčochář Dissertation: Hypothetical Judgements, Truth and Assertibility Abstract: The main topic of this thesis is the logic of indicative conditionals, i.e. sentences of the form If A then B. In classical logic, these sentences are analysed with the help of the so- called material implication. However, the analysis is problematic in many respects. Some chapters of the thesis are devoted to the explanation of the problems, which one necessarily faces when analysing conditionals with the apparatus of standard classical logic. The stress is laid upon the fact that here we are led to a paradoxical situation: some general principles of classical logic (e.g. the principle according to which one can infer If not-A then B from A or B) seem to be unquestionable, but they have very controversial consequences. In the thesis, attempts are presented to defend classical logic as well as to revise it. The approaches to the logical analysis of conditionals are classified into two basic kinds: the first one might be called ontic and the second one epistemic. The ontic approach defines all crucial semantic notions in terms of the concept of truth that is modelled in logic as a relation between sentences of a given language and states of affairs. In contrast, the epistemic approach is not based on the concept of truth..