We investigate uniform interpolants in propositional modal logics from the proof-theoretical point of view. Our approach is adopted from Pitts' proof of uniform interpolation in intuitionistic propositional logic. The method is based on a simulation of certain quantifiers ranging over propositional variables and uses a terminating sequent calculus for which structural rules are admissible. We can present such a proof of the uniform interpolation theorem for normal modal logics K, T, GL, S4Grz and K4Grz. It provides an explicit algorithm constructing the interpolants.

For more information, contact Yde Venema at yde at science.uva.nl.

We provide elementary and uniform proofs of order independence for various strategy elimination procedures for finite strategic games, both for dominance by pure and by mixed strategies. The proofs follow the same pattern and focus on the structural properties of the dominance relations. They rely on Newman's Lemma and related results on the abstract reduction systems.

The talk is an account of the following article: K.R. Apt, ``Uniform Proofs of Order Independence for Various Strategy Elimination Procedures'', Contributions to Theoretical Economics, 4(1), Article 5, 48 pages, http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cs.GT/0403024.

For more information, please contact Ulle Endriss (ulle at illc.uva.nl).

For abstracts and more information, see http://ilps.science.uva.nl/Seminar/seminar05-2.html#Dec02.

For abstracts and more information, see http://staff.science.uva.nl/~bloewe/CML.html

For abstracts and more information, see https://www.illc.uva.nl/dip/.

For abstracts and more information, see http://www.win.tue.nl/zic/ or contact Francien Dechesne (f.dechesne at tue.nl).

The lecture and seminar by prof. dr. Steven Mithen (University of Reading) are centered around his latest book "The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body" that addresses the question: What is the point of music, and where did our capacity for it come from? The book offers a thought-provoking answer, weaving together diverse strands of evidence in a smart rejoinder to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music's evolutionary significance. In doing so, it offers new perspectives on the origins and relationship between language and music, and their place in the development of the modern mind.

The lecture is open to the general public. Participation in the seminar will be on the basis of registration. A registration form can be found at http://www.hum.uva.nl/mmm/origins For more information, see the aforementioned site, or the CSCA website at http://www.csca.uva.nl/.

This seminar and lecture by prof. dr. Steven Mithen (University of Reading) are centered round his new book 'The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind & Body' that addresses the question: What is the point of music, and where did our capacity for it come from?

The seminar will bring together a variety of experts from fields ranging from cognition, evolutionary psychology and linguistics to philosophy, musicology, anthropology and archeology. A number of respondents will be invited to comment on (chapters of) the book.

The lecture is open to the general public. Participation in the seminar will be on the basis of registration. For more information, see here or http://www.hum.uva.nl/mmm/origins/. Addendum: video fragments are now online at the latter location.

Now that the DOP approach has entered its 15th year from its original conception, the time has come to critically look back and think afresh about the future. What went astray with DOP's statistical estimator and has it been solved? What are the problems related to DOP's productive units, and how can they be redressed? What else is still to be done in DOP? And how far can the model be stretched?

DOP has led to statistical extensions of Lexical-Functional Grammar, Head-driven Phrase-Structure Grammar and Tree-Adjoining Grammar. It has been applied to machine translation, speech understanding, music analysis, problem-solving and equational reasoning. Can it be extended to other fields of cognition? What are the counter-examples that DOP has to face? And what is its relation with frameworks like Case-Based Reasoning and Probabilistic Inductive Logic Programming?

This workshop aims to provide an informal discussion platform on DOP and is open to everyone. Each talk will discuss one or more open problems and will be followed by ample discussion. The workshop is also meant to give an overview of the projects and/or recently founded research groups on DOP at the University of Amsterdam, the University of St Andrews, at Dublin City University and the University of Essex.

For more information, see http://staff.science.uva.nl/~rens/whitherdop.html

For abstracts and more information, see http://staff.science.uva.nl/~bloewe/CML.html

My object here is twofold. In the first part I will try to explain why it is important for rational choice theory to incorporate intentions in its framework. In doing so I shall not yet go into the question whether intentions can be defined in terms of strategies, preferences, or beliefs or in any other ingredient of the existing models; I simply introduce intentions as an extra variable and then introduce some conditions that one might impose on them. I argue that the conditions that I use reveal new information about the behaviour of rational individuals and that intentions thus do indeed add something to rational choice theory.

Whereas the first part is somewhat formal, the second part is of a more informal nature. Here I will address the question of how certain intentions are to be defined in terms of specific rational choice models. It is argued that a particular class of intentions, viz. intentions that have autonomous effects, cannot be modelled by standard rational choice theory in a satisfactory way.

For more information: oroy at science.uva.nl

The Logic Tea homepage can be found at https://www.illc.uva.nl/logic_tea/. For more information, please contact Olivier Roy (oroy at science.uva.nl) or Hartmut Fitz (h.fitz at uva.nl).

On December 16th, ILLC and the Institute for Logic and Cognition (ILC) of the Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou (China) will officially sign a cooperation agreement for the next five years.

In honor of this this occasion a minisymposium on 'Logic and Cognition' is held. You are all cordially invited (*) to attend both the workshop and the ceremony. Both are held in vakbondsmuseum "de Burcht".

One of the speakers at the symposium will be Prof. Ju Shier, director of the Institute for Logic and Cognition. He is accompanied by Prof. Liang Qingyin, vice-president of Sun Yat Sen University. Bboth the dean of the Faculty of Science, Prof. Karel Gaemers, and the dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Prof. Aafke Hulk will attend the ceremony.

For more information, see here.

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The spectrum of topics covered ranges from descriptive (syntactic and semantic analyses of all kinds of expressions) to theoretical (logical and computational properties of semantic theories, philosophical foundations, evolution and learning of language).

CALL FOR REGISTRATION
Please note that also ILLC staffmembers and ILLC students who want to participate, need to register online.
For more information and a registration form, see https://www.illc.uva.nl/AC05/

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The spectrum of topics covered ranges from descriptive (syntactic and semantic analyses of all kinds of expressions) to theoretical (logical and computational properties of semantic theories, philosophical foundations, evolution and learning of language).

CALL FOR REGISTRATION
Please note that also ILLC staffmembers and ILLC students who want to participate, need to register online.
For more information and a registration form, see https://www.illc.uva.nl/AC05/

Due to illness of ZIC-initiator and organiser Rob Nederpelt, we have decided to postpone the 250th and last ZIC, announced for Tuesday December 20.

The ZIC colloquium started in september 1986, and we are currently approaching the 250th talk in this series! In the light of several developments, and because it is always good to end on a high note, we have decided to let this 250th talk be the final one. To say goodbye to the ZIC and to celebrate its succesful history, this last talk will be a special event. There will be drinks afterwards!

For abstracts and more information, see http://www.win.tue.nl/zic/ or contact Francien Dechesne (f.dechesne at tue.nl).

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The spectrum of topics covered ranges from descriptive (syntactic and semantic analyses of all kinds of expressions) to theoretical (logical and computational properties of semantic theories, philosophical foundations, evolution and learning of language).

CALL FOR REGISTRATION
Please note that also ILLC staffmembers and ILLC students who want to participate, need to register online.
For more information and a registration form, see https://www.illc.uva.nl/AC05/