Imagining Contexts

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to present a formal semantics inspired by the notion of Mental Imagery, largely researched in Cognitive Science and Experimental Psychology, that grasps the full significance of the concept of context. The outcomes presented here are considered important for both the Knowledge Representation and Philosophy of Language communities for two reasons. Firstly, the semantics that will be introduced allows to overcome some unjustified constraints imposed by previous quantificational languages of context, like flatness or the use of constant domains among others, and increases notably their expressive power. Secondly, it attempts to throw some light on the debate about the relation between meaning and truth by formally separating the conditions for a sentence to be meaningful from those that turn it true within a context.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: KI
• Authors: Ander Altuna
• Keywords: Cognitive Science, Formal Semantics, KI 2007, Mental Imagery