Pragmatic Inferences about Actions

The question of the relationship between the logic of speech & the logic of actions is examined. Conditionals of the form 'If an agent brings something about then she also brings something else about' are examined with reference to their function in what A. Goldman (A Theory of Human Action, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970) has called level-generation of actions. Goldman's thesis that more than one kind of conditional is involved is confirmed, & it is shown that the conditionals have similar, but not identical, properties. Two different logical structures are proposed for these conditionals. Applications to the question of whether criticism of ad hominen hypocrisy (ie, actions that conflict with concurrent words) is valid are discussed. However, the question of whether this criticism is valid cannot be resolved without more complete detailing of the relevant propositional logic. 13 References. B. Annesser Murray