Notes on conditional logic (Q582275)

In the seventies, R. Stalnaker and D. Lewis introduced semantics for counterfactuals making use of three primitive notions: possible worlds, one accessibility relation R, and for any world w a comparative possibility-relation \(<_ w\) \((w'<_ ww''\) to be read as: \(w'\) is closer to w than \(w'')\). The relation \(<_ w\) is new with respect to modal logic. In this paper conditional logic is treated as an extension of modal logic by introducing for every proposition A an accessibility relation R(A) and leaving out the relations \(<_ w.\) A model M is defined as a quadruple \(<W,{\mathfrak P},R,V>\), where 1) W is a non-empty set (of possible worlds), 2) \({\mathfrak P}\) is a set of subsets of W (called propositions), 3) \(R=\{R(S)|\) \(S\in {\mathfrak P}\}\) is a collection of (accessibility) relations over W, and 4) V assigns to every atomic formula P a subset V(P)\(\in {\mathfrak P}\). Let \(\square \to\) denote the counterfactual, M be a model and w a possible world in M. Then \(M\vDash_ wA\square \to B\) \(:=\) for all \(w'\in W\), if \(wR(\| A\|)w'\), then \(M\vDash_{w'}B\), where \(\| A\|:=\{w\in W|\) \(M\vDash_ wA\}.\) A logic L is called relational if it satisfies the following conditions: (EA) If \(A\vdash_{L}B\) and conversely, then \(A\supset C\vdash_{L}B\supset C\) and conversely, (EC) If \(B\vdash_{L}C\) and conversely, then \(A\supset B\vdash_{L}A\supset C\) and conversely, (M1) \(A\square \to (B \& C)\vdash_{L}(A\square \to B) \& (A\square \to C)\) and conversely, (M2) \(\vdash_{L}A\square \to T.\) The author constructs for any relational logic L a canonical model \(M_ L=<W_ L,{\mathfrak P}_ L,R_ L,V_ L>\), where the elements of \(W_ L\) are the maximal L-consistent sets of formulas, and proves that \(M_ L\vDash_ wA\) iff \(A\in w\). From this result there follows strong completeness for the minimal relational logic. Using the technique of filtration it is shown that several extensions of the smallest relational logic, in particular VC, have the finite model property and are decidable.