A Cut-Free Sequent Calculus for Defeasible Erotetic Inferences

In recent years, the effort to formalize erotetic inferences (i.e., inferences to and from questions) has become a central concern for those working in erotetic logic. However, few have sought to formulate a proof theory for these inferences. To fill this lacuna, we construct a calculus for (classes of) sequents that are sound and complete for two species of erotetic inferences studied by Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL): erotetic evocation and regular erotetic implication. While an attempt has been made to axiomatize the former in a sequent system, there is currently no proof theory for the latter. Moreover, the extant axiomatization of erotetic evocation fails to capture its defeasible character and provides no rules for introducing or eliminating question-forming operators. In contrast, our calculus encodes defeasibility conditions on sequents and provides rules governing the introduction and elimination of erotetic formulas. We demonstrate that an elimination theorem holds for a version of the cut rule that applies to both declarative and erotetic formulas and that the rules for the axiomatic account of question evocation in IEL are admissible in our system

Labelled sequent calculi for logics of strict implication

n this paper we study the proof theory of C.I. Lewis’ logics of strict conditional S1- S5 and we propose the first modular and uniform presentation of C.I. Lewis’ systems. In particular, for each logic Sn we present a labelled sequent calculus G3Sn and we discuss its structural properties: every rule is height-preserving invertible and the structural rules of weakening, contraction and cut are admissible. Completeness of G3Sn is established both indirectly via the embedding in the axiomatic system Sn and directly via the extraction of a countermodel out of a failed proof search. Finally, the sequent calculus G3S1 is employed to obtain a syntactic proof of decidability of S1

Cut-Simulation and Impredicativity

We investigate cut-elimination and cut-simulation in impredicative (higher-order) logics. We illustrate that adding simple axioms such as Leibniz equations to a calculus for an impredicative logic -- in our case a sequent calculus for classical type theory -- is like adding cut. The phenomenon equally applies to prominent axioms like Boolean- and functional extensionality, induction, choice, and description. This calls for the development of calculi where these principles are built-in instead of being treated axiomatically.Comment: 21 page

Structural completeness in propositional logics of dependence

In this paper we prove that three of the main propositional logics of dependence (including propositional dependence logic and inquisitive logic), none of which is structural, are structurally complete with respect to a class of substitutions under which the logics are closed. We obtain an analogues result with respect to stable substitutions, for the negative variants of some well-known intermediate logics, which are intermediate theories that are closely related to inquisitive logic

Iterated reflection principles over full disquotational truth

Iterated reflection principles have been employed extensively to unfold epistemic commitments that are incurred by accepting a mathematical theory. Recently this has been applied to theories of truth. The idea is to start with a collection of Tarski-biconditionals and arrive by finitely iterated reflection at strong compositional truth theories. In the context of classical logic it is incoherent to adopt an initial truth theory in which A and 'A is true' are inter-derivable. In this article we show how in the context of a weaker logic, which we call Basic De Morgan Logic, we can coherently start with such a fully disquotational truth theory and arrive at a strong compositional truth theory by applying a natural uniform reflection principle a finite number of times