Title: The Logic of Non-persons

Presented By: Rohit Parikh, City University of New York, Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center

Abstract:

This talk will concentrate on two themes.

1. To what extent is the reasoning of animals and children logical? What do they think?

2. To what extent can we regard groups: corporations, or political parties, etc. as individuals to whom we can assign goals and beliefs?

In other words, how far can we extend the notion of an individual?

For the first class, we will refer to experiments in animal behavior and what we know about the thinking of animals and children.

For the second we will refer to issues in game theory and in states of knowledge, and subsequent coordinated action, arising from communication.

* If you would like to meet with him (or go to lunch with him directly after his talk), please reply to Gerald Penn(gpenn@cs.toronto.edu)