Three-valued logics, uncertainty management and rough sets

This paper is a survey of the connections between three-valued logics and rough sets from the point of view of incomplete information management. Based on the fact that many three-valued logics can be put under a unique algebraic umbrella, we show how to translate three-valued conjunctions and implications into operations on ill-known sets such as rough sets. We then show that while such translations may provide mathematically elegant algebraic settings for rough sets, the interpretability of these connectives in terms of an original set approximated via an equivalence relation is very limited, thus casting doubts on the practical relevance of truth-functional logical renderings of rough sets

Potential infinity, abstraction principles and arithmetic (Leniewski Style)

This paper starts with an explanation of how the logicist research program can be approached within the framework of Leśniewski’s systems. One nice feature of the system is that Hume’s Principle is derivable in it from an explicit definition of natural numbers. I generalize this result to show that all predicative abstraction principles corresponding to second-level relations, which are provably equivalence relations, are provable. However, the system fails, despite being much neater than the construction of Principia Mathematica (PM). One of the key reasons is that, just as in the case of the system of PM, without the assumption that infinitely many objects exist, (renderings of) most of the standard axioms of Peano Arithmetic are not derivable in the system. I prove that introducing modal quantifiers meant to capture the intuitions behind potential infinity results in the (renderings of) axioms of Peano Arithmetic (PA) being valid in all relational models (i.e. Kripke-style models, to be defined later on) of the extended language. The second, historical part of the paper contains a user-friendly description of Leśniewski’s own arithmetic and a brief investigation into its properties

Constructive Fuzzy Logics

We generalise Kripke’s semantics for Intuitionistic logic to Hajek’s BL and consider the constructive subsystems of GBLewf and Intuitionistic Affine logic or ALi. The genesis of our semantics is the Poset Product construction for GBL-algebras elucidated in a series of papers by Peter Jipsen, Simone Bova, and Franco Montagna. We present natural deduction systems for all of these systems and corresponding deduction theorems for these same. We present the algebraic semantics for each of the logics under consideration, demonstrate their soundness and completeness with respect to these algebraic semantics. We also show how the classical Kripke semantics for Intuitionistic logic can be recast in terms of Poset Products. We then proceed to the main results, showing how a very natural generalisation of the Kripke semantics holds for each of GBLewf , ALi and Hajek’s BL based on the embedding results of Jipsen and Montagna and the decidability results of Bova and Montagna. We demonstrate soundness and completeness of the logics under our semantics in each case, with the exception of ALi, whose robust completeness with respect to the intended models (relational models with frames valued in involutive pocrims) we leave as an open problem for the ambitious reader

Achieving while maintaining:A logic of knowing how with intermediate constraints

In this paper, we propose a ternary knowing how operator to express that the agent knows how to achieve $\phi$ given $\psi$ while maintaining $\chi$ in-between. It generalizes the logic of goal-directed knowing how proposed by Yanjing Wang 2015 'A logic of knowing how'. We give a sound and complete axiomatization of this logic.Comment: appear in Proceedings of ICLA 201

Implementing Theorem Provers in Logic Programming

Logic programming languages have many characteristics that indicate that they should serve as good implementation languages for theorem provers. For example, they are based on search and unification which are also fundamental to theorem proving. We show how an extended logic programming language can be used to implement theorem provers and other aspects of proof systems for a variety of logics. In this language first-order terms are replaced with simply-typed λ-terms, and thus unification becomes higher-order unification. Also, implication and universal quantification are allowed in goals. We illustrate that inference rules can be very naturally specified, and that the primitive search operations of this language correspond to those needed for searching for proofs. We argue on several levels that this extended logic programming language provides a very suitable environment for implementing tactic style theorem provers. Such theorem provers provide extensive capabilities for integrating techniques for automated theorem proving into an interactive proof environment. We are also concerned with representing proofs as objects. We illustrate how such objects can be constructed and manipulated in the logic programming setting. Finally, we propose extensions to tactic style theorem provers in working toward the goal of developing an interactive theorem proving environment that provides a user with many tools and techniques for building and manipulating proofs, and that integrates sophisticated capabilities for automated proof discovery. Many of the theorem provers we present have been implemented in the higher-order logic programming language λProlog

Parikh and Wittgenstein

A survey of Parikh’s philosophical appropriations of Wittgensteinian themes, placed into historical context against the backdrop of Turing’s famous paper, “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem” (Turing in Proc Lond Math Soc 2(42): 230–265, 1936/1937) and its connections with Wittgenstein and the foundations of mathematics. Characterizing Parikh’s contributions to the interaction between logic and philosophy at its foundations, we argue that his work gives the lie to recent presentations of Wittgenstein’s so-called metaphilosophy (e.g., Horwich in Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) as a kind of “dead end” quietism. From early work on the idea of a feasibility in arithmetic (Parikh in J Symb Log 36(3):494–508, 1971) and vagueness (Parikh in Logic, language and method. Reidel, Boston, pp 241–261, 1983) to his more recent program in social software (Parikh in Advances in modal logic, vol 2. CSLI Publications, Stanford, pp 381–400, 2001a), Parikh’s work encompasses and touches upon many foundational issues in epistemology, philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, and value theory. But it expresses a unified philosophical point of view. In his most recent work, questions about public and private languages, opportunity spaces, strategic voting, non-monotonic inference and knowledge in literature provide a remarkable series of suggestions about how to present issues of fundamental importance in theoretical computer science as serious philosophical issues

Logics of formal inconsistency

Orientadores: Walter Alexandre Carnielli, Carlos M. C. L. CaleiroTexto em ingles e portuguesTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias HumanasTese (doutorado) - Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Instituto Superior TecnicoResumo: Segundo a pressuposição de consistência clássica, as contradições têm um cará[c]ter explosivo; uma vez que estejam presentes em uma teoria, tudo vale, e nenhum raciocínio sensato pode então ter lugar. Uma lógica é paraconsistente se ela rejeita uma tal pressuposição, e aceita ao invés que algumas teorias inconsistentes conquanto não-triviais façam perfeito sentido. A? Lógicas da Inconsistência Formal, LIFs, formam uma classe de lógicas paraconsistentes particularmente expressivas nas quais a noção meta-teónca de consistência pode ser internalizada ao nível da linguagem obje[c]to. Como consequência, as LIFs são capazes de recapturar o raciocínio consistente pelo acréscimo de assunções de consistência apropriadas. Assim, por exemplo, enquanto regras clássicas tais como o silogismo disjuntivo (de A e {não-,4)-ou-13, infira B) estão fadadas a falhar numa lógica paraconsistente (pois A e (nao-A) poderiam ambas ser verdadeiras para algum A, independentemente de B), elas podem ser recuperadas por uma LIF se o conjunto das premissas for ampliado pela presunção de que estamos raciocinando em um ambiente consistente (neste caso, pelo acréscimo de (consistente-.A) como uma hipótese adicional da regra). A presente monografia introduz as LIFs e apresenta diversas ilustrações destas lógicas e de suas propriedades, mostrando que tais lógicas constituem com efeito a maior parte dos sistemas paraconsistentes da literatura. Diversas formas de se efe[c]tuar a recaptura do raciocínio consistente dentro de tais sistemas inconsistentes são também ilustradas Em cada caso, interpretações em termos de semânticas polivalentes, de traduções possíveis ou modais são fornecidas, e os problemas relacionados à provisão de contrapartidas algébricas para tais lógicas são examinados. Uma abordagem formal abstra[cjta é proposta para todas as definições relacionadas e uma extensa investigação é feita sobre os princípios lógicos e as propriedades positivas e negativas da negação.Abstract: According to the classical consistency presupposition, contradictions have an explosive character: Whenever they are present in a theory, anything goes, and no sensible reasoning can thus take place. A logic is paraconsistent if it disallows such presupposition, and allows instead for some inconsistent yet non-trivial theories to make perfect sense. The Logics of Formal Inconsistency, LFIs, form a particularly expressive class of paraconsistent logics in which the metatheoretical notion of consistency can be internalized at the object-language level. As a consequence, the LFIs are able to recapture consistent reasoning by the addition of appropriate consistency assumptions. So, for instance, while classical rules such as disjunctive syllogism (from A and (not-A)-or-B, infer B) are bound to fail in a paraconsistent logic (because A and (not-.4) could both be true for some A, independently of B), they can be recovered by an LFI if the set of premises is enlarged by the presumption that we are reasoning in a consistent environment (in this case, by the addition of (consistent-/!) as an extra hypothesis of the rule). The present monograph introduces the LFIs and provides several illustrations of them and of their properties, showing that such logics constitute in fact the majority of interesting paraconsistent systems from the literature. Several ways of performing the recapture of consistent reasoning inside such inconsistent systems are also illustrated. In each case, interpretations in terms of many-valued, possible-translations, or modal semantics are provided, and the problems related to providing algebraic counterparts to such logics are surveyed. A formal abstract approach is proposed to all related definitions and an extended investigation is carried out into the logical principles and the positive and negative properties of negation.DoutoradoFilosofiaDoutor em Filosofia e Matemátic

Tempered Pragmatism

This paper assesses the prospects of a pragmatist theory of content. I begin by criticising the theory presented in D.H. Mellor’s essay ‘Successful Semantics’. I then identify problems and lacunae in the pragmatist theory of meaning sketched in Chapter 13 of Dummett’s The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. The prospects are brighter, I contend, for a tempered pragmatism, in which the theory of content is permitted to draw upon irreducible notions of truth and falsity. I sketch the shape of such a theory and illustrate the role of its pragmatist elements by showing how they point towards a promising account of the truth conditions of indicative conditionals. A feature of the account is that it validates Modus Ponens whilst invalidating Modus Tollens