1,237 research outputs found
From Linear to Branching-Time Temporal Logics: Transfer of Semantics and Definability
This paper investigates logical aspects of combining linear orders as semantics for modal and temporal logics, with modalities for possible paths, resulting in a variety of branching time logics over classes of trees. Here we adopt a unified approach to the Priorean, Peircean and Ockhamist semantics for branching time logics, by considering them all as fragments of the latter, obtained as combinations, in various degrees, of languages and semantics for linear time with a modality for possible paths. We then consider a hierarchy of natural classes of trees and bundled trees arising from a given class of linear orders and show that in general they provide different semantics. We also discuss transfer of definability from linear orders to trees and introduce a uniform translation from Priorean to Peircean formulae which transfers definability of properties of linear orders to definability of properties of all paths in tree
Probability Logic for Harsanyi Type Spaces
Probability logic has contributed to significant developments in belief types
for game-theoretical economics. We present a new probability logic for Harsanyi
Type spaces, show its completeness, and prove both a de-nesting property and a
unique extension theorem. We then prove that multi-agent interactive
epistemology has greater complexity than its single-agent counterpart by
showing that if the probability indices of the belief language are restricted
to a finite set of rationals and there are finitely many propositional letters,
then the canonical space for probabilistic beliefs with one agent is finite
while the canonical one with at least two agents has the cardinality of the
continuum. Finally, we generalize the three notions of definability in
multimodal logics to logics of probabilistic belief and knowledge, namely
implicit definability, reducibility, and explicit definability. We find that
S5-knowledge can be implicitly defined by probabilistic belief but not reduced
to it and hence is not explicitly definable by probabilistic belief
Counting Incompossibles
We often speak as if there are merely possible people—for example, when we make such claims as that most possible people are never going to be born. Yet most metaphysicians deny that anything is both possibly a person and never born. Since our unreflective talk of merely possible people serves to draw non-trivial distinctions, these metaphysicians owe us some paraphrase by which we can draw those distinctions without committing ourselves to there being merely possible people. We show that such paraphrases are unavailable if we limit ourselves to the expressive resources of even highly infinitary first-order modal languages. We then argue that such paraphrases are available in higher-order modal languages only given certain strong assumptions concerning the metaphysics of properties. We then consider alternative paraphrase strategies, and argue that none of them are tenable. If talk of merely possible people cannot be paraphrased, then it must be taken at face value, in which case it is necessary what individuals there are. Therefore, if it is contingent what individuals there are, then the demands of paraphrase place tight constraints on the metaphysics of properties: either (i) it is necessary what properties there are, or (ii) necessarily equivalent properties are identical, and having properties does not entail even possibly being anything at all
An Integrated First-Order Theory of Points and Intervals over Linear Orders (Part II)
There are two natural and well-studied approaches to temporal ontology and
reasoning: point-based and interval-based. Usually, interval-based temporal
reasoning deals with points as a particular case of duration-less intervals. A
recent result by Balbiani, Goranko, and Sciavicco presented an explicit
two-sorted point-interval temporal framework in which time instants (points)
and time periods (intervals) are considered on a par, allowing the perspective
to shift between these within the formal discourse. We consider here two-sorted
first-order languages based on the same principle, and therefore including
relations, as first studied by Reich, among others, between points, between
intervals, and inter-sort. We give complete classifications of its
sub-languages in terms of relative expressive power, thus determining how many,
and which, are the intrinsically different extensions of two-sorted first-order
logic with one or more such relations. This approach roots out the classical
problem of whether or not points should be included in a interval-based
semantics. In this Part II, we deal with the cases of all dense and the case of
all unbounded linearly ordered sets.Comment: This is Part II of the paper `An Integrated First-Order Theory of
Points and Intervals over Linear Orders' arXiv:1805.08425v2. Therefore the
introduction, preliminaries and conclusions of the two papers are the same.
This version implements a few minor corrections and an update to the
affiliation of the second autho
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