Umberto Rivieccio

Nothing but the Truth

A curious feature of Belnap’s “useful four-valued logic”, also known as first-degree entailment (FDE), is that the overdetermined value B (both true and false) is treated as a designated value. Although there are good theoretical reasons for this, it seems prima facie more plausible to have only one of the four values designated, namely T (exactly true). This paper follows this route and investigates the resulting logic, which we call Exactly True Logic.

The logic of distributive bilattices

Bilattices, introduced by Ginsberg (1988, Comput. Intell., 265–316) as a uniform framework for inference in artificial intelligence, are algebraic structures that proved useful in many fields. In recent years, Arieli and Avron (1996, J. Logic Lang. Inform., 5, 25–63) developed a logical system based on a class of bilattice-based matrices, called logical bilattices, and provided a Gentzen-style calculus for it. This logic is essentially an expansion of the well-known Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic to the standard language of bilattices. Our aim is to study Arieli and Avron’s logic from the perspective of abstract algebraic logic (AAL). We introduce a Hilbert-style axiomatization in order to investigate the properties of the algebraic models of this logic, proving that every formula can be reduced to an equivalent normal form and that our axiomatization is complete w.r.t. Arieli and Avron’s semantics. In this way, we are able to classify this logic according to the criteria of AAL. We show, for instance, that it is non-protoalgebraic and non-self-extensional. We also characterize its Tarski congruence and the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models, which in the general theory of AAL is usually taken to be the algebraic counterpart of a sentential logic. This class turns out to be the variety generated by the smallest non-trivial bilattice, which is strictly contained in the class of algebraic reducts of logical bilattices. On the other hand, we prove that the class of algebraic reducts of reduced models of our logic is strictly included in the class of algebraic reducts of its reduced generalized models. Another interesting result obtained is that, as happens with some implicationless fragments of well-known logics, we can associate with our logic a Gentzen calculus which is algebraizable in the sense of

Paraconsistent Modal Logics

We introduce a modal expansion of paraconsistent Nelson logic that is also as a generalization of the Belnapian modal logic recently introduced by Odintsov and Wansing. We prove algebraic completeness theorems for both logics, defining and axiomatizing the corresponding algebraic semantics. We provide a representation for these algebras in terms of twist-structures, generalizing a known result on the representation of the algebraic counterpart of paraconsistent Nelson logic.

Kripke Semantics for Modal Bilattice Logic

We employ the well-developed and powerful techniques of algebraic semantics and Priestley duality to set up a Kripke semantics for a modal expansion of Arieli and Avrons bilattice logic, itself based on Belnaps four-valued logic. We obtain soundness and completeness of a Hilbert-style derivation system for this logic with respect to four-valued Kripke frames, the standard notion of model in this setting. The proof is via intermediary relational structures which are analysed through a topological reading of one of the axioms of the logic. Both local and global consequence on the models are covered.

Residuated bilattices

We introduce a new product bilattice construction that generalizes the well-known one for interlaced bilattices and others that were developed more recently, allowing to obtain a bilattice with two residuated pairs as a certain kind of power of an arbitrary residuated lattice. We prove that the class of bilattices thus obtained is a variety, give a finite axiomatization for it and characterize the congruences of its members in terms of those of their lattice factors. Finally, we show how to employ our product construction to define first-order definable classes of bilattices corresponding to any first-order definable subclass of residuated lattices.

Priestley Duality for Bilattices

We develop a Priestley-style duality theory for different classes of algebras having a bilattice reduct. A similar investigation has already been realized by B. Mobasher, D. Pigozzi, G. Slutzki and G. Voutsadakis, but only from an abstract category-theoretic point of view. In the present work we are instead interested in a concrete study of the topological spaces that correspond to bilattices and some related algebras that are obtained through expansions of the algebraic language.

An infinity of super-Belnap logics

We look at extensions (i.e., stronger logics in the same language) of the Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic. We prove the existence of a countable chain of logics that extend the Belnap–Dunn and do not coincide with any of the known extensions (Kleene’s logics, Priest’s logic of paradox). We characterise the reduced algebraic models of these new logics and prove a completeness result for the first and last element of the chain stating that both logics are determined by a single finite logical matrix. We show that the last logic of the chain is not finitely axiomatisable.

Four-valued modal logic: Kripke semantics and duality

Combining multi-valued and modal logics into a single system is a long-standing concern in mathematical logic and computer science, see for example [7] and the literature cited there. Recent work in this trend [15, 17, 14] develops modal expansions of many-valued systems that are also inconsistencytolerant, along the tradition initiated by Belnap with his “useful four-valued logic” [3]. Our contribution continues on this line, and the specific problem we address is that of defining and axiomatizing the least modal logic over the four-element Belnap lattice. The problem was inspired by [5], but our solution is quite different from (and in some respects more satisfactory than) that of [5] in that we make an extensive and profitable use of algebraic and topological techniques. In fact, our algebraic and topological analyses of the logic have, in our opinion, an independent interest and contribute to the appeal of our approach. Kripke frames provide a semantics for modal logics that is both flexible with regards to intended applications and interpretations, and highly intuitive. When the non-modal part is multi-valued, though, one may wonder whether the accessibility relation between worlds should remain two-valued or be allowed to assume the same range of truth values as the logic itself. Starting from the point of view of AI applications, [7] argues forcefully that multiple values are an appropriate and useful modeling device. This is the approach taken in [5] and here, too. Our aim is to study the least modal logic over the Belnap lattice, that is, the logic determined by the class of all Kripke frames where the accessibility relation as well as semantic valuations are four-valued.

Representation of interlaced trilattices

Abstract Trilattices are algebraic structures introduced ten years ago into logic with the aim to provide a uniform framework for the notions of constructive truth and constructive falsity. In more recent years, trilattices have been used to introduce a number of many-valued systems that generalize the Belnap–Dunn logic of first-degree entailment, proposed as logics of how several computers connected together in a network should think in order to deal with incomplete and possibly contradictory information. The aim of the present work is to develop a first purely algebraic study of trilattices, focusing in particular on the problem of representing certain subclasses of trilattices as special products of bilattices. This approach allows to extend the known representation results for interlaced bilattices to the setting of trilattices and to reduce many algebraic problems concerning these new structures to the better-known framework of lattice theory.

Bilattices with Implications

In a previous work we studied, from the perspective of Abstract Algebraic Logic, the implicationless fragment of a logic introduced by O. Arieli and A. Avron using a class of bilattice-based logical matrices called logical bilattices. Here we complete this study by considering the Arieli-Avron logic in the full language, obtained by adding two implication connectives to the standard bilattice language. We prove that this logic is algebraizable and investigate its algebraic models, which turn out to be distributive bilattices with additional implication operations. We axiomatize and state several results on these new classes of algebras, in particular representation theorems analogue to the well-known one for interlaced bilattices.