B.T.F. (Bjørn) Jespersen, Dr

Brief Profile

My areas of specialization are philosophical logic and analytic philosophy of language. My areas of competence include epistemology, metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, philosophy of mind. My research topics include attitudes, various modalities, theory of meaning, propositions, predication, modifiers, quantifying-in, hyperintensionality (fine-grained intensionality). My background theory is Transparent Intensional Logic. I am currently co-editing a special issue of Inquiry on impossibility. I was a Marie Curie Fellow at Logos, University of Barcelona, 2014-16 on a project devoted to the unity of the proposition, a topic I still like to revisit.   

Books

Transparent Intensional Logic. Selected Recent Essays (co-edited with M. Duží, M. Kosterec, D. Vacek), v + 754 pp., Studies in Logic, vol. 95, College Publications (2023).

Procedural Semantics for Hyperintensional Logic. Foundations and Applications of Transparent Intensional Logic (with M. Duží, P. Materna), xiii + 552 pp., Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol. 17, Springer (2010).

Editorships

Special issue of Inquiry on the logic, philosophy, and history of impossibility (co-edited with I. Binini, M. Carrara), in progress.

Logically Speaking. A Festschrift for Marie Duží (co-edited with P. Materna), 356 pp., Tributes, vol. 49, College Publications (2022).

Special issue of Synthese on the unity of structured propositions (co-edited with M. García-Carpintero), vol. 196, issue 4 (2019), pp. 1209-1553; papers by J. King, S. Soames, P. Hanks, J. Speaks, R. Gaskin, M. Eklund, G. Ostertag, P. Pagin, B. Pickel, F. Recanati, M. Duží, L. Keller, B. Jespersen.

Special section of Synthese on hyperintensionality (co-edited with M. Duží), vol. 192, issue 3 (2015), pp. 525-677; papers by C. Pollard, C. Fox & S. Lappin, M. Jago, B. Wieckowski, M. Duží & B. Jespersen.

Pavel Tichý’s Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy (co-edited with V. Svoboda and C. Cheyne), University of Otago Press and Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (2004), 901 pp.

Introductions to special issues

Impossibilities (with I. Binini, M. Carrara), Inquiry, forthcoming.

Primitivism versus reductionism about the problem of the unity of the proposition (with M. García-Carpintero), Synthese, vol. 196 (2019), 1209-24.

Hyperintensionality (with M. Duží), Synthese, vol. 192 (2015), 525-34.

Papers in journals  

Impossibilities without impossibilia (with M. Duží, M. Carrara), Inquiry, accepted.

Is act theory a propositional logic without logic?, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 120 (2023), 484-510.

Transparent quantification into hyperpropositional attitudes de dicto (with M. Duží), Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 45 (2022), 1119–64.

First among equals: co-hyperintensionality for structured propositions, Synthese, vol. 199 (2021), 4483–97.

Anatomy of a proposition, Synthese, vol. 196 (2019), 1285-1324.

Iterated privation and positive predication (with M. Carrara, M. Duží), Journal of Applied Logic, vol. 25 (2017), 48-71.

Left subsectivity: how to infer that a round peg is round, dialectica, vol. 70 (2016), 531-47.

Should propositions proliferate?, Thought, vol. 4 (2015), 243-51.

Transparent quantification into hyperintensional objectual attitudes (with M. Duží), Synthese, vol. 192 (2015), 635-77.

Structured lexical concepts, property modifiers, and Transparent Intensional Logic, Philosophical Studies, vol. 172 (2015), 321-45.

A new logic of technical malfunction (with M. Carrara), Studia Logica, vol. 101 (2013), 547-81.  

Procedural isomorphism, analytic information, and β-conversion by value (with M. Duží), Logic Journal of the IGPL, vol. 21 (2013), 291-308.

Recent work on structured meaning and propositional unity, Philosophy Compass, vol. 7 (2012), 620-30.

Transparent quantification into hyperpropositional contexts de re (with M. Duží), Logique et Analyse, vol. 220 (2012), 513-54.

Contra Bealer’s reductio of direct reference theory (with M. Zouhar), Logique et Analyse, vol. 54 (2011), 487-502.

Two conceptions of technical malfunction (with M. Carrara), Theoria, vol. 77 (2011), 117-38.

An intensional solution to the bike puzzle of intentional identity, Philosophia, vol. 39 (2011), 297-307.

How hyper are hyperpropositions?, Language and Linguistics Compass, vol. 4 (2010), 96-106.

Substitution in simple sentences: validity versus soundness, Epistemologia, vol. 31 (2009), 241-62.

Predication and extensionalization, Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 37 (2008), 479-99.

Tractarian Sätze, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the very idea of script as picture (with C. Reintges), Philosophical Forum, vol. 39 (2008), 1-19.

Knowing that p rather than q, Sorites, vol. 20 (2008), 125-34.

Explicit intensionalization, anti-actualism, and how Smith’s murderer might not have murdered Smith, dialectica, vol. 59 (2005), 285-314.

Why the tuple theory of structured propositions isn’t a theory of structured propositions, Philosophia, vol. 31 (2003), 171-83.

Are wooden tables necessarily wooden? (with P. Materna), Acta Analytica, vol. 17 (2002), 115-50.

Book chapters

Entries on: property modifiers; structured meaning; quantifying-in, in: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (3^rd edition), Elsevier, H. Nesi, P. Milin (eds.), 3x2000 words, expected in March 2026 (commissioned), in progress.

The Zinfandel/Primitivo puzzle, in: Logically Speaking, B. Jespersen, P. Materna (eds.), Tributes, vol. 49, College Publications (2022), 329-349 (commissioned).

Is predication an act or an operation?, in: Philosophy and Logic of Predication, P. Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Studies in Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, vol. 7, Peter Lang GmbH (2017), 223-45 (commissioned).

Qualifying quantifying-in, in: Quantifiers, Quantifiers, and Quantifiers, A. Torza (ed.), Synthese Library, vol. 373 (2015), 241-69 (commissioned).

Post-Fregean thoughts on propositional unity, in: Rationis Defensor. Essays in Honour of Colin Cheyne; Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 28, J. Maclaurin (ed.), Springer (2012), 235-54 (commissioned).

The logos of semantic structure (with M. Duží and P. Materna), in: Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, vol. I: The Formal Turn, P. Stalmaszczyk (ed.), Ontos-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main (2010), 85-101 (commissioned).

‘π’ in the sky (with M. Duží and P. Materna), in: Acts of Knowledge. A Festschrift for Göran Sundholm, G. Primiero and S. Rahman (eds.), College Publications, London (2009), 337-51 (commissioned).

The foundations of Tichý’s logic, in: Pavel Tichý’s Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy (co-edited with V. Svoboda and C. Cheyne), University of Otago Press and Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (2004), 9-23.

Proper names and primitive senses, in: Between Words and Worlds. A Festschrift for Pavel Materna, T. Childers and J. Palomäki (eds.), Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague (2000), 70-87 (commissioned).

Singular propositions in two-stage theory, in: Topics in Conceptual Analysis and Modeling, O. Majer (ed.), Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague (2000), 196-218 (commissioned).

Papers in proceedings

Impossible events and the knowability paradox (with M. Carrara), in: Times, Events, and Logical Specification, Organon F, vol. 30 (2023), Z. Rybaříková, M. Čihalová (eds.), 53-65 (invited, refereed).

Two tales of the turnstile, IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications, vol. 8 (2021), M. Carrara, D. Chiffi, C. De Florio (eds.), 511-30 (refereed).

Impossible individuals as necessarily empty individual concepts (with M. Duží, D. Glavaničová), in: Logic in High Definition, issue of Trends in Logic (Studia Logica Library), vol. 56 (2021), A. Giordani, J. Malinowski (eds.), 177-202 (refereed).

An intelligent question-answer system over natural-language text (with M. Duží), Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol. 554 (2020), 164-72 (refereed).

Alleged assassins: realist and constructivist semantics for modal modifiers (with G. Primiero), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7758 (2013), 94-114 (refereed).     

Two kinds of procedural semantics for privative modification (with G. Primiero), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 6284 (2010), 252-71 (refereed).       

Hyperintensions and procedural isomorphism: Alternative (½), in: The Analytical Way. Proceedings of the 6^th European Congress of Analytic Philosophy, T. Czarnecki, K. Kijania-Placek, O. Poller, J. Woleński (eds.), College Publications, London (2010), 299-320.

From nut-cracking to assisted driving: stratified instrumental systems and the modeling of complexity (with M. Franssen), in: R. Robins (ed.), Engineering Systems: Achievements and Challenges, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (2009), 1-11.

Epistemic closure and inferable knowledge (with M. Duží, J. Müller) in: The Logica Yearbook 2004, L. Běhounek, M. Bilková (eds.), Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague (2005), 125-40.

On seeking and finding, in: The Logica Yearbook 1998, T. Childers (ed.), Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague (1999), 61-72.

Can wide scope ascription replace rigid designation? in: The Logica Yearbook 1997, T. Childers (ed.), Filozofia, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague (1998), 71-81.

Reviews

Müller, J.-W., What is Populism? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Organon F, vol. 24 (2017), 244-53.

Hartmann, D., On Inferring. An Enquiry into Relevance and Validity, Mentis Verlag, Paderborn (2003), History and Philosophy of Logic, vol. 26 (2005), 267- 68.

Materna, P., Concepts and Objects, vol. 63 of Acta Philosophica Fennica, Helsinki (1998), Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques, vol. 22 (2002), 130-1.