Wydział Filozofii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego

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Konkurs na stypendystę w grancie SONATA, Truth: Between Disquotation and Compositionality

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Title of the project: Truth: between disquotation and compositionality.

Project outline: 

The project’s main motivation is to provide a logico-philosophical analysis of two types of principles for the notion of truth: the disquotational scheme and the compositional clauses. The former principle involves uniquely sentences, called Tarski biconditionals, of the form

“A” is true if and only if A,

where A is a sentence of the object language (which is normally fixed to be the formal language of first-order arithmetic). In particular the disquotational scheme is an infinite collection of sentences. The usual way to derive this scheme from a finite list of axioms, is to invoke a compositional clauses for the notion of truth. These include sentences which relate the truth of a compound formula to the truth of its immediate subformulae, for example

For all sentences A,B, “A or B” is true if and only A is true or B is true.

Relying on the methods of contemporary formal logic, in particular axiomatic truth theories, the project addresses, inter alia, the following questions:

  • Is it possible to define an essentially non-compositional finite theory which derives all Tarski biconditionals? In short: does there exist a non-compositional definition of truth?
  • Do all (sufficiently interesting) theories interpret a purely disquotational theory of truth for their language (an interpretability variant of Tarski undefinability of truth theorem)? The answer is known to be negative for compositional theories.
  • Can every compositional theory of truth be obtained by extending a (natural) disquotational theory with the reflection scheme?

See also the official description of the project for the general public (in Polish,  in English)

Principal Investigator: Mateusz Łełyk, Department of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Professional homepage (google.com)

Duration: 01.09.2021 – 31.08.2022.

Requirements

  • Being a student of the University of Warsaw during the academic year 2021/2022 or a PhD student in a doctoral school;
  • Good understanding of the mathematics of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems and thereabouts; 
  • Good understanding of basic model theory, including the rudimentary knowledge of nonstandard models of arithmetic;
  • Very good speaking and writing command of English;
  • Strong interest in logic and its philosophical applications;
  • Very good problem-solving skills;
  • Strong motivation for scientific work.

Moreover, a good mathematical background will be treated as an advantage.

We offer:

  • The possibility to learn an interesting and vivid area in contemporary formal logic;
  • Cooperation within an active, international research team;
  • Remuneration: 1000 zł/month in the form of a scholarship. 

Tasks will include: 

  • Conducting research on a chosen topic within the project’s  subject matter, under the auspices of the PI. 
  • Preparing a final report which would describe the research executed during the scholarship. Preferably this report should take the form of either a paper or a thesis.

Required documents:

  • Cover letter describing the motivations for the participation in the project and scientific interests.
  • Scientific CV, including
    • the description of the course of the education;
    • list of publications;
    • list of conferences attended;
    • list of awards and scholarships obtained;
    • list of projects and internships in which the applicant participated.
  • List of the courses in areas related either to formal logic or analytic philosophy, together with a short description of their contents, names of the lecturers and grades obtained.

Contact:

All the relevant information can be obtained by sending an e-mail to mlelyk@uw.edu.pl .

In order to apply, please send all the required documents in a PDF format to mlelyk@uw.edu.pl.

Timetable:  

05.06.2021, 23.55 – deadline for sending the applications.

14.06.2021 – 16.06.2021 – interviews with the shortlisted candidates.

17.06.2021 – the applicants are informed about the results.

01.09.2021 – the selected applicant starts the project.

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