Abstract
The paper provides a tableau approach to definite descriptions. We focus on several formalizations of the so-called minimal free description theory (MFD) usually formulated axiomatically in the setting of free logic. We consider five analytic tableau systems corresponding to different kinds of free logic, including the logic of definedness applied in computer science and constructive mathematics for dealing with partial functions (here called negative quasi-free logic). The tableau systems formalise MFD based on PFL (positive free logic), NFL (negative free logic), PQFL and NQFL (the quasi-free counterparts of the former ones). Also the logic \(\textsf {NQFL}^{-}\) is taken into account, which is equivalent to NQFL, but whose language does not comprise the existence predicate. It is shown that all tableaux are sound and complete with respect to the semantics of these logics.
Both authors are supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant number: DEC- 2017/25/B/HS1/01268). The second author is supported by the EPSRC projects OASIS (EP/S032347/1), AnaLOG (EP/P025943/1), and UK FIRES (EP/S019111/1), the SIRIUS Centre for Scalable Data Access, and Samsung Research UK.
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Indrzejczak, A., Zawidzki, M. (2021). Tableaux for Free Logics with Descriptions. In: Das, A., Negri, S. (eds) Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods. TABLEAUX 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12842. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86059-2_4
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