2: The Logic of Interrogation

On the standard view, logic is concerned with reasoning, more in particular with fixing criteria for the soundness and validity of arguments. This chapter investigates the prospects of basing logic on cooperative information exchange instead of valid reasoning. The game of interrogation is a logical idealization of the process of cooperative information exchange, which makes stiff demands on the witness. Relative to a suitable language, and a semantic interpretation for that language, the logic of interrogation has to provide us with logical notions by means of which we can arbitrate the game. In general, a semantics for a language in terms of context change potentials states the interpretation of a sentence as an operation on contexts. Instead of viewing semantics and pragmatics as constituting two separate components within a theory of meaning, the authors make a move towards integrated theory by shifting logical perspective from valid argumentation to cooperative communication. Keywords: cooperative information exchange; interrogation; pragmatics; semantic interpretation