Metalogical properties, being logical and being formal

The predicate ‘being logical’ has at least four applications. We can apply it to concepts, propositions, sets of propositions (systems, theories) and methods. The concepts of quantifier or disjunction are logical but those of horse or water are not. Some propositions, for instance, the principle of excluded middle, are logical, others, for instance the law of gravity, are not. Propositional calculus is a logical theory (belongs to logic), but the theory of evolution is not. In a sense, the problem of logical propositions reduces itself to the question of logical systems, because we can say that A is logical if and only if it belongs to a logical systems (however, see below). Finally, deduction is a logical method of justification, but observation is not

Metalogical properties, being logical and being formal

The predicate 'being logical' has at least four applications. We can apply it to concepts, propositions, sets of propositions (systems, theories) and methods. The concepts of quantifier or disjunction are logical but those of horse or water are not. Some propositions, for instance, the principle of excluded middle, are logical, others, for instance the law of gravity, are not. Propositional calculus is a logical theory (belongs to logic), but the theory of evolution is not. In a sense, the problem of logical propositions reduces itself to the question of logical systems, because we can say that A is logical if and only if it belongs to a logical systems (however, see below). Finally, deduction is a logical method of justification, but observation is not

Complete Additivity and Modal Incompleteness

In this paper, we tell a story about incompleteness in modal logic. The story weaves together a paper of van Benthem, `Syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness theorems,' and a longstanding open question: whether every normal modal logic can be characterized by a class of completely additive modal algebras, or as we call them, V-BAOs. Using a first-order reformulation of the property of complete additivity, we prove that the modal logic that starred in van Benthem's paper resolves the open question in the negative. In addition, for the case of bimodal logic, we show that there is a naturally occurring logic that is incomplete with respect to V-BAOs, namely the provability logic GLB. We also show that even logics that are unsound with respect to such algebras do not have to be more complex than the classical propositional calculus. On the other hand, we observe that it is undecidable whether a syntactically defined logic is V-complete. After these results, we generalize the Blok Dichotomy to degrees of V-incompleteness. In the end, we return to van Benthem's theme of syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness

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

Metatheory of actions: beyond consistency

Consistency check has been the only criterion for theory evaluation in logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that and contributes to the metatheory of actions by investigating what other properties a good domain description in reasoning about actions should have. We state some metatheoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all postulates are satisfied together we have a modular action theory. Besides being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy's sense, modular theories have interesting properties. We point out the problems that arise when the postulates about modularity are violated and propose algorithmic checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them

A Short and Readable Proof of Cut Elimination for Two 1st Order Modal Logics

Since 1960s, logicians, philosophers, AI people have cast eyes on modal logic. Among various modal logic systems, propositional provability logic which was established by Godel modeling provability in axiomatic Peano Arithmetic (PA) was the most striking application for mathematicians. After Godel, researchers gradually explored the predicate case in provability logic. However, the most natural application QGL for predicate provability logic is not able to admit cut elimination. Recently, a potential candidate for the predicate provability logic ML3 and its precursors BM and M3 introduced by Toulakis,Kibedi, Schwartz dedicated that A is always closed. Although ML3, BM and M3 are cut free, the cut elimination proof with the unfriendly nested induction of high multiplicity is difficult to understand. In this thesis, I will show a cut elimination proof for all (Gentzenisations) of BM, M3 and ML3, with much more readable inductions of lower multiplicity