A new formal theory DT of truth extending PA is introduced, whose language is that of PA together with one new unary predicate symbol T (x), for truth applied to Gödel numbers of suitable sentences in the extended language. Falsity of x, F(x), is defined as truth of the negation of x; then, the formula D(x) expressing that x is the number of a determinate meaningful sentence is defined as the disjunction of T(x) and F(x). The axioms of DT are those of PA extended by (I) full induction, (II) strong compositionality axioms for D, and (III) the recursive defining axioms for T relative to D. By (II) is meant that a sentence satisfies D if and only if all its parts satisfy D; this holds in a slightly modified form for conditional sentences. The main result is that DT has a standard model. As an improvement over earlier systems developed by the author, DT meets a number of leading criteria for formal theories of truth that have been proposed in the recent literature and comes closer to realizing the informal view that the domain of the truth predicate consists exactly of the determinate meaningful sentences.

A Gödel sentence is often described as a sentence saying about itself that it is not provable, and a Henkin sentence as a sentence stating its own provability. We discuss what it could mean for a sentence of arithmetic to ascribe to itself a property such as provability or unprovability. The starting point will be the answer Kreisel gave to Henkin’s problem. We describe how the properties of the supposedly self-referential sentences depend on the chosen coding, the formulae expressing the properties and the way a fixed points for the formulae are obtained. This paper is the first of two papers. In the present paper we focus on provability. In part II, we will consider other properties like Rosser provability and partial truth predicates.

A unified answer is offered to two distinct fundamental questions: whether a nonclassical solution to the semantic paradoxes should be extended to other apparently similar paradoxes (in particular, to the paradoxes of logical properties) and whether a nonclassical logic should be expressed in a nonclassical metalanguage. The paper starts by reviewing a budget of paradoxes involving the logical properties of validity, inconsistency, and compatibility. The author’s favored substructural approach to naive truth is then presented and it is explained how that approach can be extended in a very natural way so as to solve a certain paradox of validity. However, three individually decisive reasons are later provided for thinking that no approach adopting a classical metalanguage can adequately account for all the features involved in the paradoxes of logical properties. Consequently, the paper undertakes the task to do better, and, building on the system already developed, introduces a theory in a nonclassical metalanguage that expresses an adequate logic of naive truth and of some naive logical properties.

A decision procedure (PrSAT) for classical (Kolmogorov) probability calculus is presented. This decision procedure is based on an existing decision procedure for the theory of real closed fields, which has recently been implemented in Mathematica. A Mathematica implementation of PrSAT is also described, along with several applications to various non-trivial problems in the probability calculus.

We show that the set of ultimately true sentences in Hartry Field's Revenge-immune solution model to the semantic paradoxes is recursively isomorphic to the set of stably true sentences obtained in Hans Herzberger's revision sequence starting from the null hypothesis. We further remark that this shows that a substantial subsystem of second-order number theory is needed to establish the semantic values of sentences in Field's relative consistency proof of his theory over the ground model of the standard natural numbers: -CA0 (second-order number theory with a -comprehension axiom scheme) is insufficient. We briefly consider his claim to have produced a ‘revenge-immune’ solution to the semantic paradoxes by introducing this conditional. We remark that the notion of a ‘determinately true’ operator can be introduced in other settings.

In the topological semantics for modal logic, S4 is well-known to be complete for the rational line, for the real line, and for Cantor space: these are special cases of S4’s completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. The construction used to prove completeness can be slightly amended to show that S4 is not only complete, but also strongly complete, for the rational line. But no similarly easy amendment is available for the real line or for Cantor space and the question of strong completeness for these spaces has remained open, together with the more general question of strong completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. In this paper, we prove that S4 is strongly complete for any dense-in-itself metric space.

This is part B of a paper in which we defend a semantics for counterfactuals which is probabilistic in the sense that the truth condition for counterfactuals refers to a probability measure. Because of its probabilistic nature, it allows a counterfactual ‘if A then B’ to be true even in the presence of relevant ‘A and not B’-worlds, as long such exceptions are not too widely spread. The semantics is made precise and studied in different versions which are related to each other by representation theorems. Despite its probabilistic nature, we show that the semantics and the resulting system of logic may be regarded as a naturalistically vindicated variant of David Lewis’ truth-conditional semantics and logic of counterfactuals. At the same time, the semantics overlaps in various ways with the non-truth-conditional suppositional theory for conditionals that derives from Ernest Adams’ work. We argue that counterfactuals have two kinds of pragmatic meanings and come attached with two types of degrees of acceptability or belief, one being suppositional, the other one being truth based as determined by our probabilistic semantics; these degrees could not always coincide due to a new triviality result for counterfactuals, and they should not be identified in the light of their different interpretation and pragmatic purpose. However, for plain assertability the difference between them does not matter. Hence, if the suppositional theory of counterfactuals is formulated with sufficient care, our truth-conditional theory of counterfactuals is consistent with it. The results of our investigation are used to assess a claim considered by Hawthorne and Hájek, that is, the thesis that most ordinary counterfactuals are false.

We discuss the interplay between the axiomatic and the semantic approach to truth. Often, semantic constructions have guided the development of axiomatic theories and certain axiomatic theories have been claimed to capture a semantic construction. We ask under which conditions an axiomatic theory captures a semantic construction. After discussing some potential criteria, we focus on the criterion of ℕ-categoricity and discuss its usefulness and limits.

We introduce partial Esakia morphisms, well partial Esakia morphisms, and strong partial Esakia morphisms between Esakia spaces and show that they provide the dual description of (∧, →) homomorphisms, (∧, → , 0) homomorphisms, and (∧ , → , ∨) homomorphisms between Heyting algebras, thus establishing a generalization of Esakia duality. This yields an algebraic characterization of Zakharyaschev’s subreductions, cofinal subreductions, dense subreductions, and the closed domain condition. As a consequence, we obtain a new simplified proof (which is algebraic in nature) of Zakharyaschev’s theorem that each intermediate logic can be axiomatized by canonical formulas.

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein advocates two major notational innovations in logic. First, identity is to be expressed by identity of the sign only, not by a sign for identity. Secondly, only one logical operator, called “N” by Wittgenstein, should be employed in the construction of compound formulas. We show that, despite claims to the contrary in the literature, both of these proposals can be realized, severally and jointly, in expressively complete systems of first-order logic. Building on early work of Hintikka’s, we identify three ways in which the first notational convention can be implemented, show that two of these are compatible with the text of the Tractatus, and argue on systematic and historical grounds, adducing posthumous work of Ramsey’s, for one of these as Wittgenstein’s envisaged method. With respect to the second Tractarian proposal, we discuss how Wittgenstein distinguished between general and non-general propositions and argue that, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, an expressively adequate N-operator notation is implicit in the Tractatus when taken in its intellectual environment. We finally introduce a variety of sound and complete tableau calculi for first-order logics formulated in a Wittgensteinian notation. The first of these is based on the contemporary notion of logical truth as truth in all structures. The others take into account the Tractarian notion of logical truth as truth in all structures over one fixed universe of objects. Here the appropriate tableau rules depend on whether this universe is infinite or finite in size, and in the latter case on its exact finite cardinality.

In proof-theoretic semantics the meaning of an atomic sentence is usually determined by a set of derivations in an atomic system which contain that sentence as a conclusion (see, in particular, Prawitz, 1971, 1973). The paper critically discusses this standard approach and suggests an alternative account which proceeds in terms of subatomic introduction and elimination rules for atomic sentences. A simple subatomic normal form theorem by which this account of the semantics of atomic sentences and the terms from which they are composed is underpinned, shows moreover that the proof-theoretic analysis of first-order logic can be pursued also beneath the atomic level.

Stit semantics grows out of a modal tradition in the logic of action that concentrates on an operator representing the agency of an individual in seeing to it that some state of affairs holds, rather than on the actions the individual performs in doing so. The purpose of this paper is to enrich stit semantics, and especially epistemic stit semantics, by supplementing the overall framework with an explicit treatment of action types. We show how the introduction of these new action types allows us to define a modal operator capturing an epistemic sense of agency, and how this operator can be used to express an epistemic sense of ability.

Substructural logics extending the full Lambek calculus FL have largely benefited from a systematical algebraic approach based on the study of their algebraic counterparts: residuated lattices. Recently, a nonassociative generalization of FL (which we call SL) has been studied by Galatos and Ono as the logic of lattice-ordered residuated unital groupoids. This paper is based on an alternative Hilbert-style presentation for SL which is almost MP-based. This presentation is then used to obtain, in a uniform way applicable to most (both associative and nonassociative) substructural logics, a form of local deduction theorem, description of filter generation, and proper forms of generalized disjunctions. A special stress is put on semilinear substructural logics (i.e., logics complete with respect to linearly ordered algebras). Axiomatizations of the weakest semilinear logic over SL and other prominent substructural logics are provided and their completeness with respect to chains defined over the real unit interval is proved.

This paper traces the evolution of thinking on how mathematics relates to the world—from the ancients, through the beginnings of mathematized science in Galileo and Newton, to the rise of pure mathematics in the nineteenth century. The goal is to better understand the role of mathematics in contemporary science.

This article explores conditionals expressing that the antecedent makes a difference for the consequent. A ‘relevantised’ version of the Ramsey Test for conditionals is employed in the context of the classical theory of belief revision. The idea of this test is that the antecedent is relevant to the consequent in the following sense: a conditional is accepted just in case (i) the consequent is accepted if the belief state is revised by the antecedent and (ii) the consequent fails to be accepted if the belief state is revised by the antecedent’s negation. The connective thus defined violates almost all of the traditional principles of conditional logic, but it obeys an interesting logic of its own. The article also gives the logic of an alternative version, the ‘Dependent Ramsey Test,’ according to which a conditional is accepted just in case (i) the consequent is accepted if the belief state is revised by the antecedent and (ii) the consequent is rejected (e.g., its negation is accepted) if the belief state is revised by the antecedent’s negation. This conditional is closely related to David Lewis’s counterfactual analysis of causation.

We introduce a new understanding of deontic modals that we call obligations as weakest permissions. We argue for its philosophical plausibility, study its expressive power in neighborhood models, provide a complete Hilbert-style axiom system for it and show that it can be extended and applied to practical norms in decision and game theory.

A logical approach to Bell’s Inequalities of quantum mechanics has been introduced by Abramsky and Hardy (Abramsky & Hardy, 2012). We point out that the logical Bell’s Inequalities of Abramsky & Hardy (2012) are provable in the probability logic of Fagin, Halpern and Megiddo (Fagin et al., 1990). Since it is now considered empirically established that quantum mechanics violates Bell’s Inequalities, we introduce a modified probability logic, that we call quantum team logic, in which Bell’s Inequalities are not provable, and prove a Completeness theorem for this logic. For this end we generalise the team semantics of dependence logic (Väänänen, 2007) first to probabilistic team semantics, and then to what we call quantum team semantics.

In a wide range of fields, the word “modular” is used to describe complex systems that can be decomposed into smaller systems with limited interactions between them. This essay argues that mathematical knowledge can fruitfully be understood as having a modular structure and explores the ways in which modularity in mathematics is epistemically advantageous.

This paper explores a new language of neighbourhood structures where existential information can be given about what kind of worlds occur in a neighbourhood of a current world. The resulting system of ‘instantial neighbourhood logic’ INL has a nontrivial mix of features from relational semantics and from neighbourhood semantics. We explore some basic model-theoretic behavior, including a matching notion of bisimulation, and give a complete axiom system for which we prove completeness by a new normal form technique. In addition, we relate INL to other modal logics by means of translations, and determine its precise SAT complexity. Finally, we discuss proof-theoretic fine-structure of INL in terms of semantic tableaux and some expressive fine-structure in terms of fragments, while discussing concrete illustrations of the instantial neighborhood language in topological spaces, in games with powers for players construed in a new way, as well as in dynamic logics of acquiring or deleting evidence. We conclude with some coalgebraic perspectives on what is achieved in this paper. Many of these final themes suggest follow-up work of independent interest.

1.1 In standard modal logics, the worlds are 2-valued in the following sense: there are 2 values (true and false) that a sentence may take at a world. Technically, however, there is no reason why this has to be the case. The worlds could be many-valued. This paper presents one simple approach to a major family of many-valued modal logics, together with an illustration of why this family is philosophically interesting.