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In logic, formal semantics is the study of the semantics, or interpretations, of formal and (idealizations of) natural languages usually trying to capture the pre-theoretic notion of entailment. (Although both linguistics and logic lay claim to providing theories of natural language, according to Geach, logic generally ignores the "idiotism of idiom", and sees natural languages as cluttered with idioms of no logical interest.^[1])

A formal language can be defined apart from any interpretation of it. This is done by designating a set of symbols (also called an alphabet) and a set of formation rules (also called a formal grammar) which determine which strings of symbols are well-formed formulas. When transformation rules (also called rules of inference) are added, and certain sentences are accepted as axioms (together called a deductive system or a deductive apparatus) a logical system is formed. An interpretation of a formal language is (roughly) an assignment of meanings to its symbols and truth-conditions to its sentences.^[2]

The truth conditions of various sentences we may encounter in arguments will depend upon their meaning, and so conscientious logicians cannot completely avoid the need to provide some treatment of the meaning of these sentences. The semantics of logic refers to the approaches that logicians have introduced to understand and determine that part of meaning in which they are interested; the logician traditionally is not interested in the sentence as uttered but in the proposition, an idealised sentence suitable for logical manipulation.^{[citation needed]}

Until the advent of modern logic, Aristotle's Organon, especially De Interpretatione, provided the basis for understanding the significance of logic. The introduction of quantification, needed to solve the problem of multiple generality, rendered impossible the kind of subject-predicate analysis that governed Aristotle's account, although there is a renewed interest in term logic, attempting to find calculi in the spirit of Aristotle's syllogistic but with the generality of modern logics based on the quantifier.

The main modern approaches to semantics for formal languages are the following:

• Model-theoretic semantics is the archetype of Alfred Tarski's semantic theory of truth, based on his T-schema, and is one of the founding concepts of model theory. This is the most widespread approach, and is based on the idea that the meaning of the various parts of the propositions are given by the possible ways we can give a recursively specified group of interpretation functions from them to some predefined mathematical domains: an interpretation of first-order predicate logic is given by a mapping from terms to a universe of individuals, and a mapping from propositions to the truth values "true" and "false". Model-theoretic semantics provides the foundations for an approach to the theory of meaning known as Truth-conditional semantics, which was pioneered by Donald Davidson. Kripke semantics introduces innovations, but is broadly in the Tarskian mold.

• Proof-theoretic semantics associates the meaning of propositions with the roles that they can play in inferences. Gerhard Gentzen, Dag Prawitz and Michael Dummett are generally seen as the founders of this approach; it is heavily influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy, especially his aphorism "meaning is use".

• Truth-value semantics (also commonly referred to as substitutional quantification) was advocated by Ruth Barcan Marcus for modal logics in the early 1960s and later championed by Dunn, Belnap, and Leblanc for standard first-order logic. James Garson has given some results in the areas of adequacy for intensional logics outfitted with such a semantics. The truth conditions for quantified formulas are given purely in terms of truth with no appeal to domains whatsoever (and hence its name truth-value semantics).

• Game-theoretical semantics has made a resurgence lately mainly due to Jaakko Hintikka for logics of (finite) partially ordered quantification which were originally investigated by Leon Henkin, who studied Henkin quantifiers.

• Probabilistic semantics originated from H. Field and has been shown equivalent to and a natural generalization of truth-value semantics. Like truth-value semantics, it is also non-referential in nature.

Notes[link]

Logic portal

Formal semantics may refer to:

• Formal semantics (logic)
• Formal semantics of programming languages
• Formal semantics (linguistics)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The Honourable Gary Mar
Minister-Counsellor of the Province of Alberta to the United States of America
In office September 27, 2007 – March 16, 2011
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Calgary Mackay Calgary Nose Creek (1993–2004)
In office 1993–2007
Preceded by	new district
Succeeded by	Teresa Woo-Paw
Personal details
Born	(1962-07-26) July 26, 1962 (age 49) Calgary, Alberta
Political party	Progressive Conservative
Spouse(s)	Nancy
Children	Lauren, Jared, Mackenzie
Residence	Edmonton, Alberta
Website	garymar.ca

Gary Glen Mar QC, (simplified Chinese: 马健威; traditional Chinese: 馬健威; pinyin: Mǎ Jiànwēi; born July 26, 1962) is a Canadian politician in Alberta, Canada. He served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1993 to 2007. On December 3, 2007, he was appointed as the Official Representative for Alberta in Washington, D.C., and worked in the Canadian Embassy with the official title of Minister-Counsellor of the Province of Alberta to the United States.^[1] In March 2011, he resigned his post in order to seek the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta in its 2011 leadership election.^[2][3]

Early life[link]

Mar was born in Calgary, Alberta as the grandson of Chinese immigrants who came to what is now Alberta before it became a province. He was named after actor Gary Cooper and astronaut John Glenn.^[4] The son and grandson of entrepreneurs, Mar spent his early years working in his family's restaurants and other businesses. His parents supported his education, and Mar graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) at the University of Calgary (1984) and Bachelor of Laws at the University of Alberta (1987).

From 1987 to 1990 Mar worked at the law firm MacKimmie Matthews, Barristers and Solicitors in Calgary and corporate, commercial, and real estate law at Code Hunter, Barristers and Solicitors from 1990 to 1992. He also practiced general law in Calgary.

Political career[link]

At the age of 31, Mar was first elected the Alberta Legislature in the 1993 general election. He won the electoral district of Calgary Nose Creek defeating incumbent Liberal MLA Yolande Gagnon.^[5] Premier Ralph Klein had campaigned on a debt-reduction platform, and Mar's first years as a Cabinet minister in the Klein government developed and reinforced his fiscal management and commitment to balanced budgeting. Over 14 years, Mar served as minister responsible for the arts, amateur sport, seniors, education, environment, provincial parks, health care, Alberta's centennial celebrations, Alberta's international offices and international relations, and Alberta's relations with other governments within Canada. He was a member of the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund Committee, the Members’ Services Committee and the Cabinet Policy Committee on Managing Growth Pressures.

As Minister of Education, Mar introduced First Things First…Our Children, an initiative that focused on school children of all ages. It made a commitment to ensuring children can read well by grade 3, and focused on high standards for junior and senior high school students, keeping them in school and ensuring they have the skills they need when they graduate.^[6] As Minister of Health and Wellness, Mar was instrumental in a number of changes to the system with long-lasting results. He ensured primary care networks, in which physicians lead a team of health care professionals. This interdisciplinary, community-accessible approach became the focus of the health system. He reduced the number of health regions; took steps with electronic health records, negotiated for different funding from the federal government of Canada, and worked with the physicians union to create a controversial model for their pay.^[6]

Washington, D.C.[link]

As Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations, Mar led the minimally successful Alberta at the Smithsonian project in 2006 which included Alberta as the first Canadian province ever featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Leading up to the Folklife Festival, Alberta Week in Washington included forums and meetings between Alberta leaders and U.S. decision makers and policy makers in Washington, D.C.

On September 27, 2007, Mar was named Alberta Envoy in Washington, D.C. The Alberta Office in Washington is co-located in the Canadian Embassy and is geared to representing Alberta’s interests to U.S. policymakers and seeking out opportunities for the province.^[6][7] Over four years, Mar led U.S. senators, congressmen and industry members to tour Alberta's oil sands, and promoted Alberta energy, agriculture and other products and opportunities in Washington and across the United States, speaking at conferences and symposiums, and representing Alberta at meetings and discussions. He welcomed and hosted Alberta delegations to Washington and introduced them to decision-makers and business leaders.

2011 PC leadership election[link]

On March 16, 2011, after resigning his post in Washington, Mar announced he was seeking the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party. Although he received the most votes on the first and second ballots, he achieved less than 50% of the votes on the second ballot. Under the rules, the second preference votes were added, and Alison Redford was declared the winner.

Controversies[link]

As Minister of Health and Wellness, Mar awarded a contract worth over $389,000^[8] of taxpayers' money, without going through an official competitive government tender process, to Charlebois Consulting Limited, a consulting firm owned by his former executive assistant, Kelley Charlebois. The purpose of the contract was purported to provide advice to the government. During question period in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Dr. Kevin Taft, Leader of the Official Opposition, asked what reports were provided by Charlebois Consulting had produced for the government, Mar responded that "there are no reports as such."^[9][10]

References[link]

Jan Woleński (Jan Hertrich-Woleński), born on (1940-09-21) September 21, 1940 (age 71), Polish philosopher. He is currently Professor of philosophy at the Jagiellonian University (since 1991); he graduated both in philosophy and law, attaining his doctorate and "habilitation" (second degree) in jurisprudence. He belongs to the tradition of analytic philosophy, and considers himself close to the heritage of Lwow-Warsaw School. His main fields of research are philosophy of language and epistemology (mainly theory of truth), however among his numerous (ca. 800) papers and books (ca. 20) many focus on the theory of law and politics. Jan Woleński is also involved in the Jewish (secular) movement, i.e. commenting on Polish-Jewish common past and today's relationships.

Main works in English[link]

• Logic and philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw school, Dordrecht, London, Kluwer, 1989.
• Kotarbinski: logic, semantics and ontology (ed.), Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.
• Philosophical Logic in Poland (ed.), Dordrecht, London, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.
• Alfred Tarski and the Vienna circle : Austro-Polish connections in logical empiricism, with Eckehart Köhler, Dordrecht, London, Kluwer Academic, 1999.
• Essays in the history of logic and logical philosophy, Cracov, Jagiellonian University Press 1999.

Main works in Polish[link]

• Z zagadnień analitycznej filozofii prawa, Quaestiones ad philosophiam analyticam iuris pertinentes, Warsaw, PWN, 1980.
• Filozoficzna szkoła lwowsko-warszawska, Warsaw, PWN, 1985.
• Kotarbiński, Wiedza Powszechna, Warszaw, 1990.
• Metamatematyka a epistemologia, Warszaw, PWN, 1993.
• W stronę logiki, Aureus, Cracow, 1996.
• Szkoła Lwowsko-Warszawska w polemikach, Warsaw, Scholar, 1997.
• Okolice filozofii prawa, Cracow, Universitas, 1999.
• Epistemologia, 3 volumes, Cracow, Aureus, 2000 (reedited in one volume in 2005 by WN PWN, Warsaw).
• Granice niewiary, Cracow, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2004.

Online Works[link]

• Humanism and Rationalism
• The Lvóv-Warsaw School entry by Jan Woleński in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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