Invited Talk – Johan van Benthem

Logical Dynamics of Agency Meets Natural Language

This is mainly a survey and issues talk. I start with the Dynamic Turn in the 1980s, its origins, and the two manifestations that crystallized over time: one toward a new kind of semantics for natural language and one toward classically interpreted dynamic logics of information-driven agency on extended vocabularies. I review some technical results and open problems connecting the formal systems arising in the two approaches, in particular, Dynamic Epistemic Logic/Dynamic Semantics, and Game Logics/ Game-Theoretic Semantics. I conclude with what a dynamic logic of agency perspective may add to the study of natural language.

Reference

1. J. van Benthem, R. Muskens & A. Visser, 1997, “Dynamics”, “Handbook of Logic and Language”, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
2. J. van Benthem, “Natural Language and Logic of Agency”, JoLLI 2014.
3. J. van Benthem, “Implicit and Explicit Stances in Logic”, JPL 2018. Johan van Benthem