R. Suszko's situational semantics (Q1065796)

The paper consists of two loosely connected parts, both rather makeshift. The first one presents Suszko's ''sentential calculus with identity'' (SCI), the core of his idea of a ''non-Fregean'' logic. With A, B as arbitrary sentences and C(..) an arbitrary sentential context, the identity connective is characterized by the axioms: (1) \(A=A\); (2) \(A=B\Rightarrow C(A)=C(B)\); and (3) \((A=B)\Rightarrow (A\Leftrightarrow B).\) A logic becomes ''Fregean'' if the converse of (3) is adopted too. Semantically the idea is to assert \(''A=B''\) iff ''A'' and ''B'' refer to the same situation. Readers familiar with Suszko's SCI will hardly find anything new here. The second part tries to link Suszko's notion of a ''situation'' with that of a ''model''. The presentation is opaque, but the construction corresponds closely to a logical space with binary dimensions only, as described in the reviewer's paper, ibid. 41, 381-413 (1982; Zbl 0558.03003), {\S}1.4. Setting \(ST_ 0=SA\), and \(\{s\}\cup \{t\}=s;t\), makes that plain. Some of the author's problems are spurious, as when he throws doubt on the law \(A=A\vee (A\wedge B)\) by the homely counter-example ''He is going to play solitaire or to play solitaire and listen to music''. That, however, shows merely that colloquial statements of the form ''A or (A and B)'' sometimes must not be rendered by ''A\(\vee (A\wedge B)''\), but rather by something like ''A\(\wedge M(A\wedge B)''\), with M indicating possibility.