My purpose in this paper is to show the evolution of the relationship between nonmonotonic logic and logic programming. I think that there are two periods in the evolution of this relationship. The first one isthe point of contact between these two fields that had been developed independently. In the second period, as I will show, the motivation to propose three-valued nonmonotonic logic comes from the study of the relationship between these two fields, and not from the study of nonmonotonic logic itself.

This final part of the essay begins by exploring some linguistic resources that organize the overall structure of utterances and longer stretches of discourse. Then specific study of emission is broached: after touching upon some further constraints and patterns of interpersonal behavior, the previously developed general sketch of (actionlike) activities’ inception is applied to several types of speech (soliloquy, full other-addressed speech and an intermediate type); the section ends with an assessment of results. Study of linguistic reception is prefaced by a general sketch of processes occurring in perception-like activities, which is then specified for Iinguistic reception; on this basis alternative preferential interpretations of an example are delved into. After an appraisal of results and perspectives and a section on general (mainly methodological) conclusions, the essay comes to a close with several Appendixes.

Does the deconstruction of scientific discourse and experimental procedures undercut realism? In this paper I want to argue that the revelation of the rhetorical character of science serves rather to support realism, since it is in the interests of the presentation of scientific writing as factual and of scientific experiments as disclosing or revealing reality that the various rhetorical devices are employed.

It is widely acknowledged that scientific discourse is full of metaphors. Does this undermine the commitment of such a discourse to truth and objective knowledge? Does this mean that the scientist (any scientist) is, after all, only a ‘rhetorician in disguise’?In what follows I will try to argue for quite the opposite view. I will show that metaphor is not simply a rhetorical device -at least, in the derogatory sense of rhetoric. There are metaphors which can be used to increment our knowledge, and to explore new conceptual domains. This appears to be the case not only for natural science, but also for the so-called ‘sciences of the social’.

La argumentación es un aspecto publico y comunicativo, quizás no el único, de los procesos cognitivos inferenciales en la especie humana. Aunque los propios procesos cognitivos inferenciales no son exclusivos de los seres humanos, su expresión a través de la comunicación lingüística, su utilización en los procesos sociales para la conformación y cambio de las creencias y la conducta es propiamente humana. Una explicación correcta del concepto de argumentación es por tanto importante para captar nuestro concepto de racionalidad, de uso de la razón. EI trabajo explora la forma que tiene el concepto de argumentación en la cultura occidental utilizando las herramientas de teorías cognitivas recientes sobre la naturaleza de los conceptos, sugiriendo sus consecuencias para el concepto de razón.The argumentation is a public and communicative aspect, maybe not the only one, of inferential cognitive processes in the human species. While the very inferential, cognitive processes are not exclusive of the human beings, their expression through the linguistic communication, their use in social processes to shape and change beliefs and behaviour is properly human. An accurate description of the concept of argumentation is important then to grasp our concept of rationality, of the use of the reason. This paper explores the form of the concept of argumentation in western culture using the tools of recent cognitive theories on the nature of concepts, suggesting its consequences for the concept of reason.