Questions in inquiry: A formal logical approach

A detective investigating a burglary is guided by a number of questions: How did the burglar get in? What was stolen? Is the mark on the floor a footprint from the culprit? The detective starts her inquiry about these questions in a state of ignorance.

Finding new information allows her to rule out incorrect answers and gradually come closer to solving the case.This picture of the process of inquiry raises two central issues: What is the relation between an agent’s available information and the attitudes she has towards the questions that guide her inquiry?

How does this relation change when the agent receives new information or discovers new questions?The purpose of the project is to resolve these issues. So far, the philosophical research in this area has been conducted using informal methods.

The novel approach of this project is the use of formal logical methods to shed new light on the role of questions in inquiry.

The first aim of the project is to develop a novel formal logical account of questioning attitudes, and how such attitudes are affected by new information or the discovery of new questions. The second aim of the project is to develop the logical tools and techniques that are needed to formulate the account.

These tools will be developed within the recent framework of inquisitive semantics.The project will make significant contributions both to philosophical research about the role of questions in inquiry, and to the mathematical study of inquisitive semantics.