Invited Talk: On a (Quite) Universal Theorem Proving Approach and Its Application in Metaphysics

Abstract

Classical higher-order logic is suited as a meta-logic in which a range of other logics can be elegantly embedded. Interactive and automated theorem provers for higher-order logic are therefore readily applicable. By employing this approach, the automation of a variety of ambitious logics has recently been pioneered, including variants of first-order and higher-order quantified multimodal logics and conditional logics. Moreover, the approach supports the automation of meta-level reasoning, and it sheds some new light on meta-theoretical results such as cut-elimination. Most importantly, however, the approach is relevant for practice: it has recently been successfully applied in a series of experiments in metaphysics in which higher-order theorem provers have actually contributed some new knowledge.