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Time in Philosophical Logic

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Synonyms

Logic of time; Temporal logic

Definition

The aim of the study of time in philosophical logic is to provide a conceptual framework for an interdisciplinary study of the nature of time and to formalize and study various conceptions and systems of time. In addition, the introduction of time into logic has led to the development of formal systems, which are particularly well suited to represent and study temporal phenomena such as program execution, temporal databases, and argumentation in natural language.

Historical Background

The philosophy of time is based on a long tradition, going back to ancient thought. It is an accepted wisdom within the field that no attempt to clarify the concept of time can be more than an accentuation of some aspects of time at the expense of others. Plato’s statement that time is the “moving image of eternity” and Aristotle’s suggestion that “time is the number of motion with respect to earlier and later” are no exceptions (see [17]). According to...

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Recommended Reading

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Correspondence to Peter Øhrstrøm .

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Øhrstrøm, P., Hasle, P.F.V. (2016). Time in Philosophical Logic. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_389-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7993-3_389-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7993-3

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