John Horty, 4:00pm Tuesday April 21st
University of Maryland
Tuesday, April 21st
Swift 107
4:00pm (Reception to follow)
Open texture and defeasible semantic constraint
I will discuss some problems presented by open textured predicates for the semantics of natural language, as well as for legal theory.
I will then (i) sketch an account of constraint in common law, drawing on work from the field of AI and Law, (ii) suggest that this account can be adapted to help us understand open textured predicates as well, (iii) talk a bit about the reasoning involved in reaching decisions that satisfy this account of constraint, and possibly (iv) show how this reasoning can be modeled in a simple defeasible logic.