861 research outputs found
Changing a semantics: opportunism or courage?
The generalized models for higher-order logics introduced by Leon Henkin, and
their multiple offspring over the years, have become a standard tool in many
areas of logic. Even so, discussion has persisted about their technical status,
and perhaps even their conceptual legitimacy. This paper gives a systematic
view of generalized model techniques, discusses what they mean in mathematical
and philosophical terms, and presents a few technical themes and results about
their role in algebraic representation, calibrating provability, lowering
complexity, understanding fixed-point logics, and achieving set-theoretic
absoluteness. We also show how thinking about Henkin's approach to semantics of
logical systems in this generality can yield new results, dispelling the
impression of adhocness. This paper is dedicated to Leon Henkin, a deep
logician who has changed the way we all work, while also being an always open,
modest, and encouraging colleague and friend.Comment: 27 pages. To appear in: The life and work of Leon Henkin: Essays on
his contributions (Studies in Universal Logic) eds: Manzano, M., Sain, I. and
Alonso, E., 201
Categories for Dynamic Epistemic Logic
The primary goal of this paper is to recast the semantics of modal logic, and
dynamic epistemic logic (DEL) in particular, in category-theoretic terms. We
first review the category of relations and categories of Kripke frames, with
particular emphasis on the duality between relations and adjoint homomorphisms.
Using these categories, we then reformulate the semantics of DEL in a more
categorical and algebraic form. Several virtues of the new formulation will be
demonstrated: The DEL idea of updating a model into another is captured
naturally by the categorical perspective -- which emphasizes a family of
objects and structural relationships among them, as opposed to a single object
and structure on it. Also, the categorical semantics of DEL can be merged
straightforwardly with a standard categorical semantics for first-order logic,
providing a semantics for first-order DEL.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2017, arXiv:1707.0825
Positive Logic with Adjoint Modalities: Proof Theory, Semantics and Reasoning about Information
We consider a simple modal logic whose non-modal part has conjunction and
disjunction as connectives and whose modalities come in adjoint pairs, but are
not in general closure operators. Despite absence of negation and implication,
and of axioms corresponding to the characteristic axioms of (e.g.) T, S4 and
S5, such logics are useful, as shown in previous work by Baltag, Coecke and the
first author, for encoding and reasoning about information and misinformation
in multi-agent systems. For such a logic we present an algebraic semantics,
using lattices with agent-indexed families of adjoint pairs of operators, and a
cut-free sequent calculus. The calculus exploits operators on sequents, in the
style of "nested" or "tree-sequent" calculi; cut-admissibility is shown by
constructive syntactic methods. The applicability of the logic is illustrated
by reasoning about the muddy children puzzle, for which the calculus is
augmented with extra rules to express the facts of the muddy children scenario.Comment: This paper is the full version of the article that is to appear in
the ENTCS proceedings of the 25th conference on the Mathematical Foundations
of Programming Semantics (MFPS), April 2009, University of Oxfor
An algebraic generalization of Kripke structures
The Kripke semantics of classical propositional normal modal logic is made
algebraic via an embedding of Kripke structures into the larger class of
pointed stably supported quantales. This algebraic semantics subsumes the
traditional algebraic semantics based on lattices with unary operators, and it
suggests natural interpretations of modal logic, of possible interest in the
applications, in structures that arise in geometry and analysis, such as
foliated manifolds and operator algebras, via topological groupoids and inverse
semigroups. We study completeness properties of the quantale based semantics
for the systems K, T, K4, S4, and S5, in particular obtaining an axiomatization
for S5 which does not use negation or the modal necessity operator. As
additional examples we describe intuitionistic propositional modal logic, the
logic of programs PDL, and the ramified temporal logic CTL.Comment: 39 page
State-of-the-art on evolution and reactivity
This report starts by, in Chapter 1, outlining aspects of querying and updating resources on
the Web and on the Semantic Web, including the development of query and update languages
to be carried out within the Rewerse project.
From this outline, it becomes clear that several existing research areas and topics are of
interest for this work in Rewerse. In the remainder of this report we further present state of
the art surveys in a selection of such areas and topics. More precisely: in Chapter 2 we give
an overview of logics for reasoning about state change and updates; Chapter 3 is devoted to briefly describing existing update languages for the Web, and also for updating logic programs;
in Chapter 4 event-condition-action rules, both in the context of active database systems and
in the context of semistructured data, are surveyed; in Chapter 5 we give an overview of some relevant rule-based agents frameworks
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