Completeness theory for propositional logics (Q2372412)

This is a carefully written, concise monograph on various completeness properties for a wide class of abstract propositional logics and on the definition of several concrete propositional logics using conditions imposed upon the consequence operation \(Cn\). The first chapter starts with a syntactic definition of a very general nature of a propositional logic, with emphasis on the notions of admissible, derivable, and structural rules of inference, and ends with a presentation of the most important propositional logics (classical, intuitionistic, Lewis's modal system S5, Łukasiewicz's logics). The second chapter, on semantic methods, presents pre-ordered algebras and logical matrices, which are then connected via the notion of adequacy to propositional logics, as well as the connections between propositional logic and Heyting algebras. The third chapter examines various notions of completeness (including Post and structural completeness), provides a great number of theorems regarding very general classes of propositional logics, as well as theorems on the important propositional logics (classical propositional logic is Post-incomplete, but structurally complete; intuitionistic propositional logic is structurally incomplete, finite-valued Łukasiewicz logic is structurally complete). A final chapter, ``Characterizations of propositional connectives'', is devoted to consequence operation (\(Cn\)) characterizations of logics. Although intuitionistic logic can be characterized by \(Cn\)-conditions, the authors could not find a like-minded characterization for classical propositional logic and conjecture that no such characterization exists.