Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:20:45.555Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Logic of Questions and Answers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

David Harrah
David Harrah*
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside, Calif
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A logic of questions and answers exists within the logic of statements, if we make the following identifications (roughly): “Whether” questions are identified with true exclusive disjunctions, and “which” questions are identified with true existential quantifications. The question-and-answer process is interpreted as an information-matching game. The question mark is not needed except as a device of abbreviation. Complete and partial answers can be distinguished and various relations of relevance, independence, and resolution defined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 1961 , pp. 40 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] Carnap, R. “Meaning Postulates,” Philosophical Studies, III (1952): 65–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2] Hamblin, C. L. “Questions,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XXXVI (1958): 161–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] John, E. R. and Miller, J. G. “The Acquisition and Application of Information in the Problem-Solving Process,” Behavioral Science, II (1957): 291–300.Google Scholar
[4] Leonard, H. S. An Introduction to Principles of Right Reason (New York: Henry Holt, 1957).Google Scholar
[5] Leonard, H. S. “Interrogatives, Imperatives, Truth, Falsity, and Lies,” Philosophy of Science, XXVI (1959): 172–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Polanyi, M. Personal Knowledge : Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).Google Scholar
[7] Prior, M. and Prior, A. “Erotetic Logic,” Philosophical Review, LXIV (1955): 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Steinmann, M. “Questions and Answers,” Graduate Review of Philosophy, I (1959): 17–28.Google Scholar