A Cut-Free Sequent System for Two-Dimensional Modal Logic, and why it matters

November 2012

“A Cut-Free Sequent System for Two-Dimensional Modal Logic—and why it matters,” Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 2012 (163:11) 1611–1623

doi:10.1016/j.apal.2011.12.012

The two-dimensional modal logic of Davies and Humberstone is an important aid to our understanding the relationship between actuality, necessity and a priori knowability. I show how a cut-free hypersequent calculus for 2d modal logic not only captures the logic precisely, but may be used to address issues in the epistemology and metaphysics of our modal concepts. I will explain how use of our concepts motivates the inference rules of the sequent calculus, and then show that the completeness of the calculus for Davies–Humberstone models explains why those concepts have the structure described by those models. The result is yet another application of the completeness theorem.

(This paper was awarded a Silver Medal for the Kurt Gödel Prize in 2011.)

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