The extensions of the modal logic K5

Extract

Our purpose is to delineate the extensions (normal and otherwise) of the propositional modal logic K5. We associate with each logic extending K5 a finitary index, in such a way that properties of the logics (for example, inclusion, normality, and tabularity) become effectively decidable properties of the indices. In addition we obtain explicit finite axiomatizations of all the extensions of K5 and an abstract characterization of the lattice of such extensions.

This paper refines and extends the Ph.D. thesis [2] of the first-named author, who wishes to acknowledge his debt to Brian F. Chellas for his considerable efforts in directing the research culminating in [2] and [3]. We also thank W. J. Blok and Gregory Cherlin for observations which greatly simplified the proofs of Theorem 3 and Corollary 10.

By a logic we mean a set of formulas in the countably infinite set Var of propositional variables and the connectives ⊥, →, and □ (other connectives being used abbreviatively) which contains all the classical tautologies and is closed under detachment and substitution. A logic is classical if it is also closed under RE (from A↔B infer □A ↔□B) and normal if it is classical and contains □ ⊤ and □ (P → q) → (□p → □q). A logic is quasi-classical if it contains a classical logic and quasi-normal if it contains a normal logic. Thus a quasi-normal logic is normal if and only if it is classical, and if and only if it is closed under RN (from A infer □A).