12th International Conference on Deontic logic

The biennial DEON conferences are designed to promote interdisciplinary cooperation amongst scholars interested in linking the formal-logical study of normative concepts and normative systems with computer science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, organization theory and law.

In addition to these general themes, DEON 2014 will encourage a special focus on the topic:

Deontic modalities in natural language

There have been ten previous DEON conferences: Amsterdam, December 1991; Oslo, January 1994; Sesimbra, January 1996; Bologna, January 1998; Toulouse, January 2000; London, May 2002; Madeira, May 2004; Utrecht, July 2006, Luxembourg, July 2008, Fiesole July 2010, Bergen, July 2012.

This DEON will be colocated with the 2014 edition of TiL (Trends in Logic), 8 July - 11 July, same venue:
http://entiaetnomina.blogspot.be/p/trends-in-logic-xiv.html

Invited Speakers

Sven Ove Hansson (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm)
Magdalena Kaufmann (University of Connecticut)
Paul McNamara (University of New Hampshire)
Krister Segerberg (Uppsala University)
Bryan Skyrms (University of California, Irvine)

General themes

The Program Committee invites papers concerned with the following topics (non-exclusive list):

• the logical study of normative reasoning, including formal systems of deontic logic, defeasible normative reasoning, logics of action, logics of time, and other related areas of logic
• the formal analysis of normative concepts and normative systems
• the formal specification of aspects of norm-governed multi-agent systems and autonomous agents, including (but not limited to) the representation of rights, authorization, delegation, power, responsibility and liability
• the normative aspects of protocols for communication, negotiation and multi-agent decision making
• the formal representation of legal knowledge
• the formal specification of normative systems for the management of bureaucratic processes in public or private administration applications of normative logic to the specification of database integrity constraints
• game theoretic aspects of deontic reasoning
• emergence of norms
• deontic paradoxes

Special Theme

DEON 2014’s special focus is “Deontic modalities in natural language”. Deontic or normative modality is a subject of common interest for researchers in several fields, including moral philosophy, meta-ethics, linguistic semantics, and deontic logic.

Over the past, the deontic modalities have been extensively studied on the logic side. Comparatively, much less attention has been paid to them from a natural language perspective, at least in DEON.

There has been a growing interest from linguists in the study of the deontic modalities, mostly in the US, under the influence of Angelika Kratzer’s work. A Deontic Modality Workshop was held in Los Angeles on May 20-22, 2013.

Related Event

DEON2014 immediately follows Trends in Logic VIX (Ghent, July, 8-11 2014).

Chairs of the Program Committee

Fabrizio Cariani, Northwestern University
Davide Grossi, University of Liverpool
Joke Meheus, Ghent University
Xavier Parent, University of Luxembourg

Chairs of the Local Organizing Committee

Christian Straßer (Ghent University)
Erik Weber (Ghent University)