Reasoning about Knowledge in Linear Logic: Modalities and Complexity

In a recent paper, Jean-Yves Girard commented that ”it has been a long time since philosophy has stopped intereacting with logic”[17]. Actually, it has no

Proof Theoretic Concepts for the Semantics of Types and Concurrency

We present a method for providing semantic interpretations for languages with a type system featuring inheritance polymorphism. Our approach is illustrated on an extension of the language Fun of Cardelli and Wegner, which we interpret via a translation into an extended polymorphic lambda calculus. Our goal is to interpret inheritances in Fun via coercion functions which are definable in the target of the translation. Existing techniques in the theory of semantic domains can be then used to interpret the extended polymorphic lambda calculus, thus providing many models for the original language. This technique makes it possible to model a rich type discipline which includes parametric polymorphism and recursive types as well as inheritance. A central difficulty in providing interpretations for explicit type disciplines featuring inheritance in the sense discussed in this paper arises from the fact that programs can type-check in more than one way. Since interpretations follow the type-checking derivations, coherence theorems are required: that is, one must prove that the meaning of a program does not depend on the way it was type-checked. The proof of such theorems for our proposed interpretation are the basic technical results of this paper. Interestingly, proving coherence in the presence of recursive types, variants, and abstract types forced us to reexamine fundamental equational properties that arise in proof theory (in the form of commutative reductions) and domain theory (in the form of strict vs. non-strict functions)

Natural deduction for intuitionistic linear logic

AbstractThe paper deals with two versions of the fragment with unit, tensor, linear implication and storage operator (the exponential!) of intuitionistic linear logic. The first version, ILL, appears in a paper by Benton, Bierman, Hyland and de Paiva; the second one, ILL+, is described in this paper. ILL has a contraction rule and an introduction rule !I for the exponential; in ILL+, instead of a contraction rule, multiple occurrences of labels for assumptions are permitted under certain conditions; moreover, there is a different introduction rule for the exponential, !I+, which is closer in spirit to the necessitation rule for the normalizable version of S4 discussed by Prawitz in his monograph “Natural Deduction”.It is relatively easy to adapt Prawitz's treatment of natural deduction for intuitionistic logic to ILL+; in particular one can formulate a notion of strong validity (as in Prawitz's “Ideas and Results in Proof Theory”) permitting a proof of strong normalization.The conversion rules for ILL explicitly mentioned in the paper by Benton et al. do not suffice for normal forms with subformula property, but we can show that this can be remedied by addition of a special permutation conversion plus some “satellite” permutation conversions.Some discussion of the categorical models which might correspond to ILL+ is given

Relations between Propositional Normal Modal Logics: an Overview

The modal logic literature is notorious for multiple axiomatizations of the same logic and for conflicting overloading of axiom names. Many of the interesting interderivability results are still scattered over the often hard to obtain classics. We catalogue the most interesting axioms, their numerous variants, and explore the relationships between them in terms of interderivability as both axiom (schema) and as simple formulae. In doing so we introduce the Logics Workbench (LWB, see http://lwbwww.uniba.ch:8080/LWBinfo.html), a versatile tool for proving theorems in numerous propositional (nonclassical) logics. As a side-effect we fulfill a call from the modal theorem proving community for a database of known theorem

Game Semantics, Quantifiers and Logical Omniscience

Logical omniscience states that the knowledge set of ordinary rational agents is closed for its logical consequences. Although epistemic logicians in general judge this principle unrealistic, there is no consensus on how it should be restrained. The challenge is conceptual: we must find adequate criteria for separating obvious logical consequences (consequences for which epistemic closure certainly holds) from non-obvious ones. Non-classical game-theoretic semantics has been employed in this discussion with relative success. On the one hand, with urn semantics [15], an expressive fragment of classical game semantics that weakens the dependence relations between quantifiers occurring in a formula, we can formalize, for a broad array of examples, epistemic scenarios in which an individual ignores the validity of some first-order sentence. On the other hand, urn semantics offers a disproportionate restriction of logical omniscience. Therefore, an improvement of this system is needed to obtain a better solution of the problem. In this paper, I argue that our linguistic competence in using quantifiers requires a sort of basic hypothetical logical knowledge that can be formulated as follows: when inquiring after the truth-value of ∀xφ, an individual might be unaware of all substitutional instances this sentence accepts, but at least she must know that, if an element a is given, then ∀xφ holds only if φ(x/a) is true. This thesis accepts game-theoretic formalization in terms of a refinement of urn semantics. I maintain that the system so obtained (US+) affords an improved solution of the logical omniscience problem. To do this, I characterize first-order theoremhood in US+. As a consequence of this result, we will see that the ideal reasoner depicted by US+ only knows the validity of first-order formulas whose Herbrand witnesses can be trivially found, a fact that provides strong evidence that our refinement of urn semantics captures a relevant sense of logical obviousness

Teoria tradicional da informação semântica sem escândalo da dedução : uma reavaliação moderadamente externalista do tópico baseada em semântica urna e uma aplicação paraconsistente

Orientador: Walter Alexandre CarnielliTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências HumanasResumo: A presente tese mostra que é possível reestabelecer a teoria tradicional da informação semântica (no que segue apenas TSI, originalmente proposta por Bar-Hillel e Carnap (1952, 1953)) a partir de uma descrição adequada das condições epistemológicas de nossa competência semântica. Uma consequência clássica de TSI é o assim chamado escândalo da dedução (no que segue SoD), tese segundo a qual verdades lógicas têm quantidade nula de informação. SoD é problemático dado que conflita com o caráter ampliativo do conhecimento formal. Baseado nisso, trabalhos recentes (e.g., Floridi (2004)) rejeitam TSI apesar de suas boas intuições sobre a natureza da informação semântica. Por outro lado, esta tese reconsidera a estratégia de assumir a semântica urna (RANTALA, 1979) como o pano de fundo metateórico privilegiado para o reestabelecimento de TSI sem SoD. A presente tese tem o seguinte plano. O capítulo 1 introduz o plano geral da tese. No capítulo 2, valendo-se fortemente de trabalhos clássicos sobre o externalismo semântico, eu apresento algum suporte filosófico para essa estratégia ao mostrar que a semântica urna corretamente caracteriza as condições epistemológicas de nossa competência semântica no uso de quantificadores. O capitulo 3 oferece uma descrição precisa da semântica urna a partir da apresentação de suas definições básicas e alguns de seus teoremas mais funda- mentais. No capítulo 4, eu me concentro mais uma vez no tema da informação semântica ao formalizar TSI em semântica urna e provar que nesse contexto SoD não vale. Finalmente, nos capítulos 5 e 6 eu considero resultados modelo-teóricos mais avançados sobre semântica urna e exploro uma possível aplicação paraconsistente das ideias principais dessa tese, respectivamenteAbstract: This thesis shows that it is possible to reestablish the traditional theory of semantic information (TSI, originally proposed by Bar-Hillel and Carnap (1952, 1953)) by providing an adequate account of the epistemological conditions of our semantic competence. A classical consequence of TSI is the so-called scandal of deduction (hereafter SoD) according to which logical truths have null amount of information. SoD is problematic since it does not make room for the ampliative character of formal knowledge. Based on this, recent work on the subject (e.g., Floridi (2004)) rejects TSI despite its good insights on the nature of semantic information. On the other hand, this work reconsiders the strategy of taking urn semantics (RANTALA, 1979) as a privileged metatheoretic framework for the formalization of TSI without SoD. The present thesis is planned in the following way. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis¿ overall plan. In chapter 2, relying heavily on classical works on semantic externalism, I present some philosophical support for this strategy by showing that urn semantics correctly characterizes the epistemological conditions of our semantic competence in the use of quantifiers. Chapter 3 offers a precise description of urn semantics by characterizing its basic definitions and some of its most fundamental theorems. In chapter 4, turning the focus once again to semantic information, I formalize TSI in urn semantics and show that in this context SoD does not hold. Finally, in chapter 5 and 6 I consider more advanced model-theoretic results on urn semantics and explore a paraconsistent possible application of the present idea, respectivelyDoutoradoFilosofiaDoutor em Filosofia142038/2014-8CNP