Uniform Lyndon Interpolation for Basic Non-normal Modal Logics

In this paper, a proof-theoretic method to prove uniform Lyndon interpolation (ULIP) for non-normal modal and conditional logics is introduced and applied to show that the logics, $\textsf{E}$, $\textsf{M}$, $\textsf{EN}$, $\textsf{MN}$, $\textsf{MC}$, $\textsf{K}$, and their conditional versions, $\textsf{CE}$, $\textsf{CM}$, $\textsf{CEN}$, $\textsf{CMN}$, $\textsf{CMC}$, $\textsf{CK}$, in addition to $\textsf{CKID}$ have that property. In particular, it implies that these logics have uniform interpolation (UIP). Although for some of them the latter is known, the fact that they have uniform LIP is new. Also, the proof-theoretic proofs of these facts are new, as well as the constructive way to explicitly compute the interpolants that they provide. On the negative side, it is shown that the logics $\textsf{CKCEM}$ and $\textsf{CKCEMID}$ enjoy UIP but not uniform LIP. Moreover, it is proved that the non-normal modal logics, $\textsf{EC}$ and $\textsf{ECN}$, and their conditional versions, $\textsf{CEC}$ and $\textsf{CECN}$, do not have Craig interpolation, and whence no uniform (Lyndon) interpolation.

A logic has uniform interpolation if its formulas can be projected down to given subsignatures, preserving all logical consequences that do not mention the removed symbols; the weaker property of (Craig) interpolation allows the projected formula - the interpolant - to be different for each logical consequence of the original formula. These properties are of importance, e.g., in the modularization of logical theories. We study interpolation in the context of coalgebraic modal logics, i.e. modal logics axiomatized in rank 1, restricting for clarity to the case with finitely many modalities. Examples of such logics include the modal logics K and KD, neighbourhood logic and its monotone variant, finite-monoid-weighted logics, and coalition logic. We introduce a notion of one-step (uniform) interpolation, which refers only to a restricted logic without nesting of modalities, and show that a coalgebraic modal logic has uniform interpolation if it has one-step interpolation. Moreover, we identify preservation of finite surjective weak pullbacks as a sufficient, and in the monotone case necessary, condition for one-step interpolation. We thus prove or reprove uniform interpolation for most of the examples listed above.

A logic satisfies Craig interpolation if whenever one formula ?1 in the logic entails another formula ?2 in the logic, there is an intermediate formula -- one entailed by ?1 and entailing ?2 -- using only relations in the common signature of ? and ?2. Uniform interpolation strengthens this by requiring the interpolant to depend only on ?1 and the common signature. A uniform interpolant can thus be thought of as a minimal upper approximation of a formula within a sub signature. For first-order logic, interpolation holds but uniform interpolation fails. Uniform interpolation is known to hold for several modal and description logics, but little is known about uniform interpolation for fragments of predicate logic over relations with arbitrary arity. Further, little is known about ordinary Craig interpolation for logics over relations of arbitrary arity that have a recursion mechanism, such as fix point logics. In this work we take a step towards filling these gaps, proving interpolation for a decidable fragment of least fix point logic called unary negation fix point logic. We prove this by showing that for any fixed k, uniform interpolation holds for the k-variable fragment of the logic. In order to show this we develop the technique of reducing questions about logics with tree-like models to questions about modal logics, following an approach by Gradel, Hirsch, and Otto. While this technique has been applied to expressivity and satisfiability questions before, we show how to extend it to reduce interpolation questions about such logics to interpolation for the µ-calculus.

A modular proof-theoretic framework was recently developed to prove Craig interpolation for normal modal logics based on generalizations of sequent calculi (e.g. nested sequents, hypersequents and labelled sequents). In this paper, we turn to uniform interpolation, which is stronger than Craig interpolation. We develop a constructive method for proving uniform interpolation via nested sequents and apply it to reprove the uniform interpolation property for normal modal logics $\textsf{K}$, $\textsf{D}$ and $\textsf{T}$. We then use the know-how developed for nested sequents to apply the same method to hypersequents and obtain the first direct proof of uniform interpolation for $\textsf{S5}$ via a cut-free sequent-like calculus. While our method is proof-theoretic, the definition of uniform interpolation for nested sequents and hypersequents also uses semantic notions, including bisimulation modulo an atomic proposition.

A modular proof-theoretic framework was recently developed to prove Craig interpolation for normal modal logics based on generalizations of sequent calculi (e.g., nested sequents, hypersequents, and labelled sequents). In this paper, we turn to uniform interpolation, which is stronger than Craig interpolation. We develop a constructive method for proving uniform interpolation via nested sequents and apply it to reprove the uniform interpolation property for normal modal logics $\mathsf{K}$, $\mathsf{D}$, and $\mathsf{T}$. We then use the know-how developed for nested sequents to apply the same method to hypersequents and obtain the first direct proof of uniform interpolation for $\mathsf{S5}$ via a cut-free sequent-like calculus. While our method is proof-theoretic, the definition of uniform interpolation for nested sequents and hypersequents also uses semantic notions, including bisimulation modulo an atomic proposition.

Uniform interpolation and the existence of sequent calculi

It is known that the modal \(\mu \)-calculus has the Craig interpolation property, indeed uniform interpolation. We prove Lyndon interpolation for the calculus, a strengthening of Craig interpolation which is not implied by uniform interpolation. The proof utilises ‘cyclic’ sequent calculus and provides an algorithmic construction of interpolants from valid implications. This direct approach enables us to derive a correspondence between the shape of interpolants and existence of sequent calculus proofs.KeywordsLyndon interpolationModal \(\mu \)-calculusCyclic proofsSequent calculus

C. I. Lewis’ systems were the first axiomatisations of modal logics. However some of those systems are non-normal modal logics, since they do not admit a full rule of necessitation, but only a restricted version thereof. We provide G3-style labelled sequent calculi for Lewis’ non-normal propositional systems. The calculi enjoy good structural properties, namely admissibility of structural rules and admissibility of cut. Furthermore they allow for straightforward proofs of admissibility of the restricted versions of the necessitation rule. We establish completeness of the calculi and we discuss also related systems.

Bisimulation quantifiers and uniform interpolation for guarded first order logic

A method is presented that connects the existence of uniform interpolants to the existence of certain sequent calculi. This method is applied to several modal logics and is shown to cover known results from the literature, such as the existence of uniform interpolants for the modal logic mathsf{K}. New is the result that mathsf{KD} has uniform interpolation. The results imply that for modal logics mathsf{K4} and mathsf{S4}, which are known not to have uniform interpolation, certain sequent calculi cannot exist.

A logic $\mathcal{L}$ is said to satisfy the descending chain condition, DCC, if any descending chain of formulas in $\mathcal{L}$ with ordering induced by $\vdash _{\mathcal{L}};$ eventually stops. In this short note, we first establish a general theorem, which states that if a propositional logic $\mathcal{L}$ satisfies both DCC and has the Craig Interpolation Property, CIP, then it satisfies the Uniform Interpolation Property, UIP, as well. As a result, by using the Nishimura lattice, we give a new simply proof of uniform interpolation for $\textbf{IPL}_2$, the two-variable fragment of Intuitionistic Propositional Logic; and one-variable uniform interpolation for $\textbf{IPL}$. Also, we will see that the modal logics $\textbf{S}_4$ and $\textbf{K}_4$ do not satisfy atomic DCC.

We consider the problem of the existence of uniform interpolants in the modal logic K4. We first prove that all $${\square}$$ -free formulas have uniform interpolants in this logic. In the general case, we shall prove that given a modal formula $${\phi}$$ and a sublanguage L of the language of the formula, we can decide whether $${\phi}$$ has a uniform interpolant with respect to L in K4. The $${\square}$$ -free case is proved using a reduction to the Godel Lob Logic GL, while in the general case we prove that the question of whether a modal formula has uniform interpolants over transitive frames can be reduced to a decidable expressivity problem on the μ-calculus.

In previous publications, it was shown that finite non-deterministic matrices are quite powerful in providing semantics for a large class of normal and non-normal modal logics. However, some modal logics, such as those whose axiom systems contained the Löb axiom or the McKinsey formula, were not analyzed via non-deterministic semantics. Furthermore, other modal rules than the rule of necessitation were not yet characterized in the framework.In this paper, we will overcome this shortcoming and present a novel approach for constructing semantics for normal and non-normal modal logics that is based on restricted non-deterministic matrices. This approach not only offers a uniform semantical framework for modal logics, while keeping the interpretation of the involved modal operators the same, and thus making different systems of modal logic comparable. It might also lead to a new understanding of the concept of modality.

The problem of computing a uniform interpolant of a given formula on a sublanguage is known in Artificial Intelligence as variable forgetting. In propositional logic, there are well known methods for performing variable forgetting. Variable forgetting is more involved in modal logics, because one must forget a variable not in one world, but in several worlds. It has been shown that modal logic K has the uniform interpolation property, and a method has recently been proposed for forgetting variables in a modal formula (of mu-calculus) given in disjunctive normal form. However, there are cases where information comes naturally in a more conjunctive form. In this paper, we propose a method, based on an extension of resolution to modal logics, to perform variable forgetting for formulae in conjunctive normal form, in the modal logic K .

The topic of this paper may be introduced by fast zooming in and out of the philosophy of information. In recent years, philosophical interest in the nature of information has been increasing steadily. This has led to a focus on semantic information, and then on the logic of being informed, which has attracted analyses concentrating both on the statal sense in which S holds the information that p (this is what I mean by logic of being informed in the rest of this article) and on the actional sense in which S becomes informed that p. One of the consequences of the logic debate has been a renewed epistemological interest in the principle of information closure (henceforth PIC), which finally has motivated a revival of a skeptical objection against its tenability first made popular by Dretske. This is the topic of the paper, in which I seek to defend PIC against the skeptical objection. If I am successful, this means – and we are now zooming out – that the plausibility of PIC is not undermined by the skeptical objection, and therefore that a major epistemological argument against the formalization of the logic of being informed based on the axiom of distribution in modal logic is removed. But since the axiom of distribution discriminates between normal and non-normal modal logics, this means that a potentially good reason to look for a formalization of the logic of being informed among the non-normal modal logics, which reject the axiom, is also removed. And this in turn means that a formalization of the logic of being informed in terms of the normal modal logic B (also known as KTB) is still very plausible, at least insofar as this specific obstacle is concerned. In short, I shall argue that the skeptical objection against PIC fails, so it is not a good reason to abandon the normal modal logic B as a good formalization of the logic of being informed.