Deontic logic is devoted to the study of logical properties of normative predicates such as permission, obligation and prohibition. Since it is usual to apply these predicates to actions, many deontic logicians have proposed formalisms where actions and action combinators are present. Some standard action combinators are action conjunction, choice between actions and not doing a given action. These combinators resemble boolean operators, and therefore the theory of boolean algebra offers a well-known athematical framework to study the properties of the (...) classic deontic operators when applied to actions. In his seminal work, Segerberg uses constructions coming from boolean algebras to formalize the usual deontic notions. Segerberg’s work provided the initial step to understand logical properties of deontic operators when they are applied to actions. In the last years, other authors have proposed related logics. In this chapter we introduce Segerberg’s work, study related formalisms and investigate further challenges in this area. (shrink)

We give an overview of decidability results for modal logics having a binary modality. We put an emphasis on the demonstration of proof-techniques, and hope that this will also help in finding the borderlines between decidable and undecidable fragments of usual first-order logic.

For every finite n ≥ 4 there is a logically valid sentence φ n with the following properties: φ n contains only 3 variables (each of which occurs many times); φ n contains exactly one nonlogical binary relation symbol (no function symbols, no constants, and no equality symbol): φ n has a proof in first-order logic with equality that contains exactly n variables, but no proof containing only n - 1 variables. This result was first proved using the machinery of (...) algebraic logic developed in several research monographs and papers. Here we replicate the result and its proof entirely within the realm of (elementary) first-order binary predicate logic with equality. We need the usual syntax, axioms, and rules of inference to show that φ n has a proof with only n variables. To show that φ n has no proof with only n - 1 variables we use alternative semantics in place of the usual, standard, set-theoretical semantics of first-order logic. (shrink)

Treating the existential quantification ∃ν i as a diamond $\diamond_i$ and the identity ν i = ν j as a constant δ ij , we study restricted versions of first order logic as if they were modal formalisms. This approach is closely related to algebraic logic, as the Kripke frames of our system have the type of the atom structures of cylindric algebras; the full cylindric set algebras are the complex algebras of the intended multidimensional frames called cubes. The main (...) contribution of the paper is a characterization of these cube frames for the finite-dimensional case and, as a consequence of the special form of this characterization, a completeness theorem for this class. These results lead to finite, though unorthodox, derivation systems for several related formalisms, e.g. for the valid n-variable first order formulas, for type-free valid formulas and for the equational theory of representable cylindric algebras. The result for type-free valid formulas indicates a positive solution to Problem 4.16 of Henkin, Monk and Tarski [16]. (shrink)

We characterise the class S Ra CA n of subalgebras of relation algebra reducts of n -dimensional cylindric algebras by the notion of a ‘hyperbasis’, analogous to the cylindric basis of Maddux, and by representations. We outline a game–theoretic approximation to the existence of a representation, and how to use it to obtain a recursive axiomatisation of S Ra CA n.