Pedro del Valle-Inclán PhD

March 1 - August 31, 2026

Affiliation: Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy

Research for a study about:

The Roots and Consequences of Carnap’s Problem

According to moderate inferentialism, the meaning of logical expressions is
determined by the rules governing their use. The position, though compelling,
faces a powerful objection: on many natural ways of understanding what ’use’
and ’determined by’ amount to, our inferential use of logical terms does not
determine their standard meanings. This is known as Carnap’s Problem.
This projects aims to get a clearer view of Carnap’s Problem, its solutions,
and their consequences. The first goal is to present a philosophically motivated
account of the formulation of Carnap’s Problem. The second goal is to propose
a new solution to Carnap’s Problem for first- and second-order logical expres-
sions. The third goal is to use the resulting account of logical terms to address
a long-standing challenge in philosophy of mathematics, concerning whether
mathematical expressions have determinate referents.

Lecture

Carnap's Problem: Rules, Models, and Meaning

IVC Philosophy of Science Colloquium 

Date: May 28, 2026

Time: 4.45 pm -6.15 pm CET

Venue for all talks: Lecture Hall 3C, NIG Universitätsstraße 7, 3rd floor, NIG/ Neues Institutsgebäude, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna

Abstract:

tba.