Generic Modal Cut Elimination Applied to Conditional Logics

We develop a general criterion for cut elimination in sequent calculi for propositional modal logics, which rests on absorption of cut, contraction, weakening and inversion by the purely modal part of the rule system. Our criterion applies also to a wide variety of logics outside the realm of normal modal logic. We give extensive example instantiations of our framework to various conditional logics. For these, we obtain fully internalised calculi which are substantially simpler than those known in the literature, along with leaner proofs of cut elimination and complexity. In one case, conditional logic with modus ponens and conditional excluded middle, cut elimination and complexity were explicitly stated as open in the literature

Set-Theoretic Completeness for Epistemic and Conditional Logic

The standard approach to logic in the literature in philosophy and mathematics, which has also been adopted in computer science, is to define a language (the syntax), an appropriate class of models together with an interpretation of formulas in the language (the semantics), a collection of axioms and rules of inference characterizing reasoning (the proof theory), and then relate the proof theory to the semantics via soundness and completeness results. Here we consider an approach that is more common in the economics literature, which works purely at the semantic, set-theoretic level. We provide set-theoretic completeness results for a number of epistemic and conditional logics, and contrast the expressive power of the syntactic and set-theoretic approachesComment: This is an expanded version of a paper that appeared in AI and Mathematics, 199

"A Smack of Irrelevance" in Inconsistent Mathematics?

Recently, some proponents and practitioners of inconsistent mathe- matics have argued that the subject requires a conditional with ir- relevant features, i.e. where antecedent and consequent in a valid conditional do not behave as expected in relevance logics —by shar- ing propositional variables, for example. Here we argue that more fine-grained notions of content and content-sharing are needed to ex- amine the language of (inconsistent) arithmetic and set theory, and that the conditionals needed in inconsistent mathematics are not as irrelevant as it is suggested in the current literature

"A Smack of Irrelevance" in Inconsistent Mathematics?

Recently, some proponents and practitioners of inconsistent mathe- matics have argued that the subject requires a conditional with ir- relevant features, i.e. where antecedent and consequent in a valid conditional do not behave as expected in relevance logics —by shar- ing propositional variables, for example. Here we argue that more fine-grained notions of content and content-sharing are needed to ex- amine the language of (inconsistent) arithmetic and set theory, and that the conditionals needed in inconsistent mathematics are not as irrelevant as it is suggested in the current literature