Introduction to modal logic

Description:

Official course description

During the 8 lecture we will introduce some of the basic concepts of modal logic, roughly in the following order:

Basic logic and semantics
Bisimulation and definability
Axiomatic systems and frame correspondence
Completness proof
Standard Translation
Poly-modal languages
Modal predicate logic

Materials:

The notions are relatively standard and there are many good textbooks on the market as well as a lot of free material accessible on-line. Below we list some of our favourites. Especially, read the first 3 chapters of Blackburn and van Benthem and notes by Rosalie Iemhoff, excluding ch. 3, 8.2-8.5, and 10.

Patrick Blackburn, Johan van Benthem "Modal logic: a semantic perspective", in "Handbook of Modal Logic" Edited by: P. Blackburn, J. Van Benthem and F. Wolter.
Rosalie Iemhoff "Modal Logic. Facts" and some solutions for exercises.
Patrick Blackburn, Maarten de Rijke and Yde Venema "Modal Logic", CUP 2001
Johan van Benthem "Modal logic for open minds", CSLI, forthcoming.
Eric Pacuit's Stanford "Notes on Modal Logic"
Jussi Rintanen and Stefan Wolfl "Modal logics: theory and applications"
Edward Zalta "Basic Concepts in Modal Logic", 1996.
Brian Chellas "Modal logic an introduction", CUP 1980.
G.E. Hughes and M.J. Cresswell "A new introduction to modal logic", Routledge 1996.
James Garson "Modal Logic", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Homeworks:

Assignments will successively appear here on Fridays. You're supposed to hand in solutions the next Friday (week later) during the practice session. Here is "A guide for making proofs". Here are your current results including the first exam.

Exam:

The exam will cover the most important notions discussed in classes (points 1-5): semantics for the basic modal language; bisimulation; provability and validity in various modal logics (K, T, K4, S4, S5), first-order standard translation, frame correspondence, and (un)definability. The exam's problems will be very similar to those you had to solve in your homeworks. Then the best way to prepare for the exam is by understanding solutions to the homeworks' problems and familiarizing yourself with the material and examples presented in the first chapters of Blackburn and van Benthem as well as notes and exercises by Rosalie Iemhoff. Finally, this is not and open book exam!

Exam