Scattered Topics in Interrogative Logic

Abstract

In this paper I am going to consider how, using the machinery developed in my A New Approach to the Logical Theory of Interrogatives, Uppsala 1965, one could deal with (I) sequences of questions as opposed to single ones, and (II) certain ‘non-standard’ questions like examination ones (‘test’ questions). As to (I), the need for a closer study of question-sequences is emphasized by Belnap at the very end of his admirable An Analysis of Questions, Santa Monica 1963; moreover, Stahl’s ‘Fragefolgen’ (Küsbauer-v. Kutschera, Logik und Logikkalkül, Freiburg-München 1962), pp. 149–157, contains interesting suggestions about a special kind of question-sequences which I’d like to label corrections-accumulating ones — in fact, I shall confine myself to these here. As for (II), many people have been dissatisfied with the much too brief discussion of examination questions in my monograph, and some of them even think the difficulties of handling them on my approach are such as to undermine the latter altogether. So a somewhat fuller account of exam questions would certainly not be out of place.