Perception, memory, and imagination as propositional attitudes

Abstract

Jaakko Hintikka started in 1969 the study of the logic of perception as a special case of his more general approach to propositional attitudes by means of the possible worlds semantics. His students and co-workers extended this study to the logic of memory and imagination. The key elements of this approach are the distinction between physical and perspectival cross-identification and the related two kinds of quantifiers, which allow a formulation of the syntax and semantics of various types of statements about perceiving, remembering and imagining. This paper surveys the main results of these logical investigations.