Last update: 02/11/2025, 17.00
Contact: V.Goranko
Date 03/11/2025
Introduction to the course.
Brief revision on:
-- Kripke models and possible worlds semantics for modal logics.
-- Deductive systems for normal modal logics. Axiomatic systems and (optionally, time permitting) semantic tableaux.
Richard Zach, Boxes and Diamonds, Open Logic Project, Chapters 1, 2.1-2.6, 3, 6
Eric Pacuit, Lecture notes on modal Logic, Sect.1, 2, 3.1, 4
Stefan Wölfl, Introduction to Modal Logics, Lecture notes (July 22, 2015), Chapters 1, 2, 3.1-3.3, 5
Sara Negri, Proof theory for modal logic, Philosophy Compass, vol. 6, 2011, pp. 523-538. Sections 1-4.
Gary Hardegree, Introduction to Modal Logic, Ch.1,3,4
Ed Zalta, Basic Concepts of Modal Logic, Lecture notes, CSLI, Stanford University, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4(§1-§3)
Johan van Benthem, "Modal Logic for Open Minds", Chapters 1. 2
James Garson, Modal Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Sections 6-9
Handbook of Modal Logic. Elsevier (2007) (available electronically from the university library), Chapter: P. Blackburn and J. van Benthem, Modal Logic: a Semantic perspective.
Melvin Fitting, Modal Proof Theory, in: Handbook of Modal Logic, pp 85-138. Sections 1, 3, 5, 6
Melvin Fitting, Prefixed Tableaus and Nested Sequents, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, vol. 163 (2012), pp. 291–313. Sections 1-3
Rajeev Goré, Tableau Methods for Modal and Temporal Logics, in: Handbook of Tableau Methods, pp 297-396. Sections 1-4.6, 4.14
For more practicing and fun with possible worlds semantics, go to this Modal Logic Playground
Introduction to the course
Revision of Kripke models and possible worlds semantics for modal logics
Deductive systems for normal modal logics.
Axiomatic systems and (optionally) semantic tableaux.
To be posted on Athena
Date 05/11/2025
Canonical models and completeness theorems for normal modal logics.
Finite model property and decidability of modal logics.
Optionally, time permitting: Filtration method.
Richard Zach, Boxes and Diamonds, Open Logic Project, Chapter 4.
Stefan Wölfl, Introduction to Modal Logics, Lecture notes (July 22, 2015), Chapters 3, 4
Melvin Fitting, Modal Proof Theory, in: Handbook of Modal Logic, pp 85-138. Section 2
Ed Zalta, Basic Concepts of Modal Logic, Lecture notes, CSLI, Stanford University, Chapters 4(§4-§6), 5
Canonical models and completeness theorems for some basic modal logics.
Finite model property and decidability.
Optionally: filtration method.
To be posted on Athena
Assignment 1 to be posted.
Date 10/11/2025
Brief revision on multi-agent epistemic logics.
Public and private announcements.
Introduction to dynamic epistemic logic. Epistemic events and epistemic model updates.
Chapter 12 of the book "Modal Logic for Open Minds" by Johan van Benthem (available from the SU library)
Chapter on Epistemic Logic from the book "Dynamic Epistemic Logic" by H. van Ditmarcsh, W. van der Hoek and B. Kooi, Ch 2.1, 2.2, 4
Eric Pacuit. Dynamic Epistemic Logic II: Logics of Information Change. Philosophy Compass, 8:9, pgs. 815 - 833, 2013.
Revision on epistemic logics.
Introduction to dynamic epistemic logic. Epistemic events and epistemic model updates.
Date 12/11/2025
Brief revision on relevant implications and relevance logics.
Introduction to logics of conditionals.
H. Arlo-Costa, The Logic of Conditionals, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
D. Edgington, “Indicative conditionals,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
W. Starr, “Counterfactuals” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Edgington, D., “Conditionals,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition)
Paul Egre and Mikael Cozic, Introduction to the Logic of Conditionals, ESSLLI 2008 Course material
Introduction to logics of conditionals.
Exercises on logics of conditionals.
Date 17/11/2025
Brief revision on linear and branching time temporal logics.
Temporal epistemic logics.
Valentin Goranko and Antje Rumberg, Temporal Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
John Burgess, Philosophical Logic, Princeton University Press, 2009. Ch.2: Temporal Logic (2.1-2.8)
J. van Benthem, Tense logic and time. Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 25 (1984), no. 1, 1--16.
Burgess, J., 1984, “Basic tense logic”, in Gabbay and Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic (Volume 2), Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 89–133. New revised edition in: Handbook of Philosophical Logic , 2nd edition, Volume 7, Gabbay and Guenthner (eds.) (2002), pp. 1–42.
Brief revision on linear and branching time temporal logics.
Temporal epistemic logics.
Date 19/11/2025
Propositional dynamic logics of programs (PDL).
D. Harel, D. Kozen, J. Tiuryn. Dynamic Logic, Chapter in: Handbook of Philosophical Logic, 2nd ed., 2002, vol. 4, pp. 99-218, Sections 1,2,4 (Provided on Athena)
1. J. van Benthem, H. van Ditmarsch, J. van Eijck, J. Jaspars, Logic in Action, Ch. 6.
2. Andre Platzer, Lecture Notes on Dynamic Logic
Rob Goldblatt, Logics of Time and Computations, CSLI pubblications, 2nd ed., 1992. Chapter 10
Introduction to PDL
Exercises on PDL
Solutions to selected exercises on on PDL
Submission of assignment 1.
Assignment 2 to be posted.
Date 24/11/2025
Normative reasoning and deontic logics.
G. H. von Wright, Deontic Logic, Mind, Vol. 60, No. 237, 1951, pp. 1-15.
Paul McNamara, Deontic Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Pablo Navarro and Jorge Rodríguez, Deontic Logic and Legal Systems, Cambridge University Press, 2014, Chapters 1 (1.3-1.5), 2 (available electronically from the SU library)
John Horty, Agency and Deontic Logic, Oxford UP, 2001, Chapters 3, 4. (available electronically from the SU library)
G. H. von Wright, On the Logic of Norms and Actions, in: New Studies in Deontic Logic Norms, Actions, and the Foundations of Ethics, R. Hilpinen (Ed.), Synthese, 1981 (available electronically from the SU library)
D. Føllesdal and R. Hilpinen. “Deontic Logic: An Introduction.” In: Deontic Logic: Introductory And Systematic Readings, R. Hilpinen (Ed), Reidel, Dordrecht, 1971, pp 1–35. (available electronically from the SU library)
Lennart Åqvist, “Deontic Logic.” In Gabbay and Guenthner, 2nd ed. vol. 8(2002), pp147–264. (First edition 1984) (also available electronically from the SU library)
Normative reasoning and deontic logics.
To be posted on Athena
Date 26/11/2025
Modal logics of agency. `Seeing to it That' (STIT) theory.
Nuel Belnap & Michael Perloff, Seeing to it that: a canonical form for agentives, Theoria 54 (3):175-199 (1988). A corrected version re-published in: Knowledge Representation and Defeasible Reasoning, (Loui Kyberg, Jr. and Carlson (eds.)), Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1990, pp. 167–90. (available electronically from the SU library)
Burgess, J., 1984, “Basic tense logic”, in Gabbay and Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic (Volume 2), Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 89–133. New revised edition in: Handbook of Philosophical Logic , 2nd edition, Volume 7, Gabbay and Guenthner (eds.) (2002), pp. 1–42.
Nuel Belnap, Michael Perloff and Ming Xu, Facing the Future: Agents and Choices in Our Indeterminist World. Oxford University Press, 2001. (available electronically from the SU library)
Brian Chellas, Time and Modality in the Logic of Agency, Studia Logica, vol 51. 1992, pp. 485-517
Mark A. Brown: On the logic of ability. J. Phil. Logic 17(1), 1988, pp. 1-26
Jan M. Broersen, Andreas Herzig: Using STIT Theory to Talk About Strategies. in: Models of Strategic Reasoning: Logics, Games and Communities, J. van Benthem, S. Ghosh, R. Verbrugge (eds.), Springer, LNCS/FoLLI series, vol. 8972, 2015, pp. 137-173. Sections 1, 2, 3.1
Modal logics of actions and agency. `Seeing to it That' (STIT) theory.
Date 01/12/2025
Logics for strategic reasoning in multi-agent systems.
Supplementary lecture notes (uploaded on Athena), Chapter 7.
S. Demri, V. Goranko, M. Lange: Temporal Logics in Computer Science, CUP, 2016, Chapter 9
R. Alur, T.A. Henzinger, and O. Kupferman. Alternating-time temporal logic. Journal of the ACM 49:672-713, 2002 Sections 1-3.
Nils Bulling, Valentin Goranko, Wojciech Jamroga: Logics for reasoning about strategic abilities in multi-player games, in: Models of Strategic Reasoning: Logics, Games and Communities, J. van Benthem, S. Ghosh, R. Verbrugge (eds.), Springer, LNCS/FoLLI series, vol. 8972, 2015, pp. 93--136.
Sebastian Enqvist and Valentin Goranko, Socially Friendly and Group Protecting Coalition Logics in: Proc. of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS'2018), IFAAMAS publ., 2018.
Logics for strategic reasoning in multi-agent systems with perfect information.
Exercises: Supplementary notes (To be posted on Athena), Section 8.5, pp 137-140, exercises: 61, 64, 66, 67
Selected solutions: To be posted on Athena
Date 03/12/2025
Temporal and epistemic logics for strategic reasoning in multi-agent systems with imperfect information.
Temporal and epistemic logics for strategic reasoning in multi-agent systems with imperfect information.
Submission of assignment 2.
Assignment 3 to be posted.
Date 08/12/2025
Some philosophical problems of the interaction between modality and quantification. First-order modal logics (FOML). Formal semantics of FOML. Possibilist and actualist semantics. Models and logics with constant and variable domains. Barcan formulae.
W. Quine, Three Grades of Modal Involvement, in: the Proceedings of the Xlth Intern. Congress of Philosophy, Brussels, 1953, Volume 14 (Available electronically from the SU library)
R. Ballarin, Quine on intensional entities: Modality and quantification, truth and satisfaction, Journal of Applied Logic 10 (2012) 238–249. (Available on Athena)
Melvin Fitting, First order alethic modal logic, A Companion to Philosophical Logic, Blackwell, 2002, pp. 410--421
Melvin Fitting and Richard L. Mendelsohn, First-order modal logic, Kluwer, Synthese Library, 1998, Chapter 4, 6-12, (available electronically from the SU library)
Sten Lindström & Krister Segerberg, Modal Logic and Philosophy, chapter in: P. Blackburn & J. van Benthem (eds.), Handbook of Modal Logic. Elsevier (2007), Section 1: Alletic modal logic. (available electronically from the SU library)
George Hughes and Max Cresswell, A new introduction to modal logic, Routledge, 1996. Ch 13, pp 235-255; Ch 15, pp 274-287. (available electronically from the SU library)
M. Cresswell, Rudolf Carnap: Modal Logic, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
R. Carnap, Modalities and Quantification, J. of Symb. Logic, Vol. 11, Nr 2, 1946. (Available on Athena)
James Garson, Modal Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Gary Hardegree, Introduction to Modal Logic, Ch.6,8,9,10
Melvin Fitting, Barcan Both Ways, Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics, Vol. 9, Issue 2-3, 1999, pp. 329-344.
Ted Sider, Logic for Philosophy, OUP, 2010, (available from the SU library), Chapter 9.
Ed Zalta, Basic Concepts of Modal Logic, Lecture notes, CSLI, Stanford University, Chapter 6
Francesco Belardinelli, Counterpart Semantics for Quantified Modal Logic, 2007
Torben Braüner and Silvio Ghilardi, First-order modal logic, Chapter 9 in: Handbook of Modal Logic, Elsevier, 2007, pp. 549-620 (available electronically from the SU library)
Introduction to first-order modal logics (FOML).
Exercises on first-order modal logics
Date 10/12/2025
First-order epistemic logics.
First-order temporal logics.
Conclusion of the course.
R. Fagin, J. Halpern, Y. Moses, M. Vardi, Reasoning About Knowledge, MIT Press, 1995. Chapter 3.7 pages 80-91.
Valentin Goranko and Antje Rumberg, Temporal Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Section 8
Jaakko Hintikka, Knowledge and Belief - An Introduction to the Logic of the Two Notions, Cornell UP, 1962, Ch.6 (available from Athena)
Introduction to first-order epistemic logics (FOEL).
Introduction to first-order temporal logics (FOTL).
Exercises on first-order epistemic logics
Exercises on first-order temporal logics
Submission of assignment 3: December 17
Date 12/01/2026
Feedback on assignment 3 and final meeting.
By appointment
Lecture notes, slides and other reading material will be provided on Athena or linked to this page on an ongoing basis.
List of exercises will be provided on a weekly basis, usually taken from the lecture notes and handouts. Students are advised to do as many exercises on each topic as they need to master it. Solutions or hints to some selected exercises will be provided and will be discussed in the discussion time before and during the lectures.
There will be 2 mandatory written assignments during the course, each consisting of a set of exercises. The assignments will be provided about 2 weeks before the submission deadline. Students must do these exercises individually and prepare written reports with their solutions.
If you have any queries on the information above, talk to me or send me an email.
Mail to V.Goranko