Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 534.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2024-04-07 13:45:12+00:00
        From: Henri Stephanou <henri.stephanou@GMAIL.COM>
        Subject: CfP on Semantics and Computation

We invite submissions on the topic of “Semantics and Computation” for a
special issue of the peer-reviewed, open-access, high-impact journal
Philosophies <https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies> (Q1 in Scopus
for the category Philosophy and phi of science). The special issue is
co-edited by Pr. Ray Turner and Dr. Henri Stephanou.

Submission Deadline: October 15th, 2024

Description:

The discipline of computer science is underwritten by its multifarious
languages. Some interface directly with physical machines, while others
are designed to be as far removed as possible from such devices. How are
these languages defined? In particular, how are they defined
semantically? And how do these semantic accounts reflect their
computational nature? The objective of this special issue is to address
such conceptual questions from the general perspective of the theories
of meaning, as may be found in the philosophy of language and in
semiotics in general. Bertrand Russell, following John Stuart Mill,
argued that linguistic expressions are signs of something other than
themselves, and suggested that the meaning of an expression is whatever
that expression applies to. In the case of programming languages
referential semantics comes in the guise of denotational semantics.
However, Programming languages are used for computation and, in order to
compute with them, we require rules of computation (operational
semantics). These two approaches to semantics are taken to be
complementary with soundness and completeness theorems employed to
establish their agreement. But they raise a series of philosophical and
conceptual questions.

   * What kind of denotations are appropriate for programming languages?
     Are sets, categories and games all equally appropriate? Should
     decidability concerns enter the picture?
   * Does compositional semantics guarantee good language design?
   * How are expressions that apparently refer to nothing dealt with? A
     referential semantics would appear to be committed to the view that
     expressions such as Father Christmas, and Sherlock Holmes are
     meaningless. Are programs that do not terminate meaningless?
   * Is there a notion of sense as well as reference for programming
     languages? Which is taken to define the language, the referential
     semantics or the operational one?
   * How are semantic accounts related to actual implementations? Can an
     actual implementation act as a definitional semantics? Or does such
     an approach succumb to Kripke’s criticism of dispositional semantics?
   * What are the philosophical issues that surround the various notions
     of process and their application to any analysis of non-determinism
     and parallelism?
   * Are there problems of providing semantic accounts for non-standard
     ways of programming, e.g. machine learning?
   * How do semantic theories of programming languages take into account
     external interactions (e.g. other computing processes or an external
     environment)?
   * These questions are not meant to be exhaustive, nor entirely clear,
     but only to encourage reflection and provide a flavor of the kind of
     foundational and philosophical concerns that the special issue is
     aimed at. We encourage you to submit first an abstract of the
     proposed submission.

More detail can be found here
<https://www.mdpi.com/journal/philosophies/special_issues/E21G29255P>.

Guest Editors

Prof. Dr. Raymond Turner
Dr. Henri Stephanou



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