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Patrick Blackburn
Roskilde University
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Introduction
Over the last few years the basic ideas of hybrid logic have become increasingly
familiar to modal logicians. Nowadays most researchers in modal logic (and most
researchers in the neighbouring field of description logic) know how to name
worlds using nominals, and are aware that this use of formulas as terms can
be traced back to work of Arthur Prior from the 1960s.
But Priors own work on hybrid logic remains largely undiscussed. This is
unfortunate, for hybridisation plays a role in Priors work that is both central
and problematic. Hybridisation isnt an optional extra in Priorean tense logic:
its the fundamental idea used in his reduction of B series talk to A series talk.
But hybridisation solves Priors reduction problem rather too well: as he came
to realise, hybridisation can be applied to any domain, casting doubt on his
claim that tensed talk is privileged.
The aim of this paper is to discuss what Priors contributions to hybrid
logic were and why he made them. I want to evaluate his work in the light of
contemporary approaches, and to examine the role hybridization played in his
philosophy. Accordingly, in the first half of the paper (Sections 2 through 4) I
introduce hybrid logic from a contemporary perspective, mentioning Prior only
in passing. In the second half (Sections 5 through 7) I focus on Priors approach
to hybrid logic. I discuss the strong hybrid language that Prior invented and
employed, and explain why hybridization is both central to and problematic for
his views on tensed talk. I conclude (Section 8) by contrasting the Priorean
perspective on hybrid logic with the (model-theoretic) perspective underlying
most contemporary work.
In this part of the paper I will introduce hybrid logic from a contemporary
perspective. However, as will soon become clear, hybrid logic is very much part
of modal logic, so it is important that readers know what the contemporary
perspective on modal logic (outside pure philosophy) actually is.
The perspective shared by most contemporary modal logicians (a perspective
also held, if not always articulated, by many researchers in theoretical computer
science, computational logic, and description logic) is sometimes called the Amsterdam perspective (a tribute to Johan van Benthem and his students and
colleagues who have been largely responsible for disseminating it). Roughly
speaking, the Amsterdam perspective stresses modal model theory. It lays particular emphasis on the branch of modal model theory called correspondence
theory which deals with the semantic links between modal logic and other forms
of logic, such as first- and second-order classical logic. Here is an attempt, taken
from an (Amsterdam-style) textbook on propositional modal logic, to encapsulate the main ideas in three slogans:
Slogan 1 Modal languages are simple yet expressive languages for talking
about relational structures.
Slogan 2 Modal languages provide an internal, local perspective on relational structures.
Slogan 3 Modal languages are not isolated formal systems.
[From the Preface to Blackburn, de Rijke and Venema [6]].
and modalities). The pair (W, R) is called a frame. The third component V
(the valuation) is a function assigning subsets of W to propositional symbols:
the set of points assigned to a particular symbol (say, p) is the set of points
where that symbol is true. The frame provides us with a relational skeleton,
and the valuation fleshes it with atomic information.
But what do frames represent? The contemporary answer is: just about
anything. Here are some examples. A traditional interpretation is to think of
W as a set of possible worlds, in which case there is usually just one relation
R, and Rww0 is taken to mean that world w0 is a possible alternative world
relative to world w. Another well known interpretation is to take W to be a
set of times. In this case the relation R is often written as <, and w < w0 is
taken to mean that time w precedes time w0 . In this interpretation we would
usually place additional restrictions on <; for example we might demand that
it be transitive and linear, thereby ensuring that our models respect some basic
intuitions about temporal structure.
But these traditional interpretations are merely the tip of the iceberg. A
currently influential perspective is to think of W as the set of states in some
computational system, and the collection of relations in R as processes. Under
this interpretation R ww0 means that state w can be transformed into state w0
by an application of process . If the relations in R are arbitrary relations, then
we have a non-deterministic model of processes, and if we restrict attention to
partial functions, we have a deterministic model.
As a final example, the interpretation of Kripke models that lies at the
heart of contemporary description logic is that the elements of W are ordinary
individuals, and the relations in R are any relations on these individuals of
interest for our application. For example, we might want to reason about a
group of people sharing a house and how they get on with one another (so
we might be interested in such binary relations as likes, loves, respects,
loathes, and so on). As this example shows, in contemporary modal logic the
technical machinery of Kripke models is not always interpreted intensionally.
Incidentally, given this diversity of interpretations, in this paper (when we are
not focusing on one particular interpretation of Kripke models) we shall use the
relatively neutral term point to refer to the elements of W .
We shall shortly examine two of the examples just mentioned in more detail,
but before doing so we must give the satisfaction definition, which links modal
syntax with Kripke models. The satisfaction definition will bring us face-to-face
with the internal perspective characteristic of modal logic (recall Slogan 2).
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
|= p
|=
|=
|=
|=
|= hmi
|= [m]
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
These clauses are probably familiar to the reader. Propositional symbols are
3
evaluated with the help of the information contained in the valuation (clause
one) and boolean connectives are evaluated in the familiar classical manner
(clauses two through four). Diamond formulas are evaluated with the aid of
the relevant relation: hmi is true at a point w if there is an Rm -accessible
point satisfying (clause six). Formulas of the form [m] dually demand the
satisfaction of at all Rm accessible points (clause seven).
But familiar as all this may be, one feature must be explicitly noted: modal
formulas talk about Kripke models from the inside. In first-order classical logic,
when we talk about a model, we do so from the outside. A sentence of first-order
logic does not depend on the contextual information contained in assignments
of values to variables: sentences take a Gods-eye-view of structure, and, irrespective of the variable assignment we use, are simply true or false of a given
model.
Modal logic works differently: we evaluate formulas inside models at some
particular point. So to speak, a modal formula is like a creature (or an automaton) placed inside a structure at some point w, and forced to explore by
making transitions to accessible points. The occurrences of diamonds and boxes
it contains force it to do this. The entire form of such a creature is adapted to
searching models from the inside: each layer of diamonds and boxes forces it to
tunnel deeper into the model.
This is a picturesque (indeed zoological!) way of thinking about the satisfaction definition, but (as Slogan 2 insists) it is important. Indeed, when we
isolate the mathematical content of this intuition, we are led, fairly directly, to
the notion of bisimulation, the key to modal model theory.
But this is jumping ahead. Lets briefly return to two of the interpretations of modal logic mentioned above: the tense logical interpretation, and the
description logic interpretation.
The tense logical interpretation, which is due to Arthur Prior, is the clearest
example of modal logic being appreciated for the internal perspective. It was
Prior who introduced the F and P diamonds (meaning at some F uture time,
and at some P ast time respectively) and their respective duals G and H
(it is always Going to be the case, and it always H as been the case).
Why? Because he viewed tensed talk as fundamental: we exist in time, and
deal with temporal information from the inside. The internal perspective offered
by modal languages makes it an ideal tool for capturing the situated nature of
our experience and the context-dependent way we talk about it. Suppose we
represent the meaning of the present-tensed English sentence Caliban falls by
the propositional symbol caliban-fall. If we prefix this with the P operator we
obtain P caliban-fall, and this is true at a time w if and only if Caliban does
indeed fall at some past time w0 . This captures at least part of the meaning
of the past-tensed English sentence Caliban fell. Moreover, the syntactic
relationship between Caliban falls and Caliban fell (which differ only in their
tense inflection) is reminiscent of the syntactic relationship between caliban-fall
and P caliban-fall.
As a second example of modal logic in action, lets look more closely at description logic. This is an interesting example in several respects. For a start,
4
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
P(x)
stx ()
stx () stx ()
stx () stx ()
stx () stx ()
y(Rm (x, y) sty ())
y(Rm (x, y) sty ()).
The variable y used in the clauses for diamonds and boxes is chosen to be a
new variable (that is, one that has not been used so far in the translation). Note
that stx () always contains exactly one free variable (namely x) so the translation produces contextualised first-order formulas. Moreover, the translation
gets it right in the following sense: it preserves satisfiability.
Proposition 1 For any modal formula , any Kripke model M, and any
point w in M we have M, w |= iff M |= stx ()[x w] (where [x w]
means assign point w to the free variable x occurring in stx ()).
Proof There is practically nothing to prove. The clauses of the standard
translation mirror the clauses of the satisfaction definition. Hence the
result follows by an (easy) induction on the structure of modal formulas.
Summing up, weve just seen that any modal formula can be systematically
converted into an equisatisfiable first-order formula in one free variable. And as
well soon see, the reverse is not possible: first-order logic can describe models
in more detail than orthodox modal logic can. Some first-order formulas (in one
free variable) have no modal equivalent. That is, orthodox modal languages are
strictly weaker than their corresponding first-order languages. So it is natural
to ask, why bother with modal logic at all?
Most contemporary modal logicians would relish the chance to answer this
question. The consensus is that (for many purposes) there are excellent reasons
for favouring modal logic over first-order logic. One reason is this: simplicity.
The standard translation shows that modalities are essentially macros that encode quantification over accessible points without explicitly binding variables.
That is, modal notation is a compact easy-to-read notation that packs quantificational punch. For many applications, simple yet expressive formalisms are
desirable, hence modal logic is often a good choice.
A related point concerns computability. First-order logic is undecidable over
arbitrary models, whereas modal logic is decidable (indeed, the basic modal
languages discussed here are even decidable in PSPACE). Description logicians
strongly emphasise the importance of decidability. They argue that for many
purposes first-order logic offers too much expressivity, and that for many applications it makes far more sense to work with restricted fragments of first-order
logic with better computational properties. This has lead to a highly successful
research program: the description logic community has developed many useful
description logics (most of which are, in essence, decidable fragments of firstorder logic) and implemented optimised theorem provers that deal with them
with impressive efficiency (again, for further discussion, consult [3]).
But the defence of modal logic that I will develop here centres on the internal
perspective. If we carefully think about what the internal perspective says, we
are lead to an elegant characterisation of modal logic as a genuinely internal
fragment of first-order logic.
Recall that I invited the reader to think of modal formulas as small creatures,
or automata, placed inside a model and forced to explore it by making transitions
to accessible points. Now for the key question: when does such a creature view
two models as the same?2 To put it more precisely: suppose we defined a
relation Z between the points of two models. What conditions would such a
relation Z have to satisfy to guarantee that whenever we plucked a creature
from a point w in one model, and placed it at a Z-related point w0 in the other,
then the creature could not tell which of the two models it was exploring?
A little experiment will convince the reader that the following conditions on
Z are necessary. First, any Z-related points in the two models should satisfy
the same proposition symbols (otherwise the simplest creature of all, namely
a propositional symbol, could distinguish the models). Second, any transition
to an accessible point in one model, should be matched by a transition to a
Z-related point in the other. So every step forward the creature takes in one
model is matched by a step to a similar point in the other; no matter how many
steps the creature takes, it can never distinguish one model from another.
These are precisely the conditions required of bisimulations:
Definition 2 (Bisimulations) Let M be the model (W, R, V ) and M0
be the model (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ), both for the same basic modal language. A
relation Z W W 0 is a bisimulation between M and M0 if the following
conditions are met:
1. Atomic equivalence: if wZw0 then w V (p) iff w0 V 0 (p), for all
propositional symbols p.
2. Forth: if wZw0 and wRv then there is a v 0 such that w0 R0 v 0 and
vZv 0 .
3. Back: if wZw0 and w0 R0 v 0 then there is a v such that wRv and vZv 0 .
If w is a point in M and w0 a point in M0 such that wZw0 then we say
that w is bisimilar to w0 .
For all their attractive properties, orthodox modal languages have an obvious
expressive weakness: they cannot name points. We cannot say this happened
then, or that some particular individual has some property, or that two distinct
sequences of processes take us from the current state to identical states. Firstorder logic can do all this. We simply use constants to name individuals of
interest, and the equality symbol for reasoning about their identity. But no
analogous mechanisms exist in propositional modal logic.
This expressive shortcoming is a problem for some of the most interesting
applications of modal logic. For a start, it means that orthodox tense logic is not
strong enough to handle the temporal semantics of natural language properly.
Why not? Because temporal reference (that is, reference to specific times) plays
an important role here.
Consider again the sentence Caliban fell. This does not mean that at some
completely unspecified past time Caliban did in fact fall (which is the meaning
the tense logical representation P caliban-fall, assigns it). Rather, it means that
at some particular, contextually determined, past time Caliban did in fact fall.
Orthodox tense logic offers us no mechanism for labelling this time.
10
Name
Pluperfect
Past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Perfect
Present
Prospective
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future
Future-in-the-future
English example
I had seen
I saw
I would see
I would see
I would see
I have seen
I see
I am going to see
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will see
(Latin: abiturus ero)
11
treatment of the simple past gives us. He analyses this tense as E,RS. That
is, the point of event and the point of reference coincide and lie to the past of
the point of speech. The point of reference is the contextually determined past
time, and by co-locating it with the point of event, we account for the way the
simple past works.
Reichenbachs analyses are open to criticism. Some linguists have objected
to the use of three distinct diagrams (namely RES, RE,S, and RSE) to account for the future-in-the-past tense (and indeed, the future perfect): as there is
only a single natural language form, they demand a single representation. Moreover, many linguists would feel that his analysis of the present perfect (which
amounts to saying that point of reference corresponds to point of speech) does
not get to grips with the subtleties of this construction. Nonetheless, whatever
their shortcomings, Reichenbachs views on temporal semantics are highly influential in contemporary natural language semantics, and Reichenbach-inspired
ideas lie at the heart of much recent work. This is because temporal reference in
natural language is ubiquitous, and without some way of capturing its effects,
we cannot adequately analyse many temporal constructions. Tense logic has
fallen into disuse in natural language semantics largely because it offers no such
mechanism.
The lack of mechanisms for referring to points also means that orthodox
modal logic and description logic, though closely related, are not the same. We
have seen that there is a transparent correspondence between ALC terms and
modal formulas. For example, the term
secretary u boss.manager
is a notational variant of
secretary hbossimanager.
But this correspondence, though systematic, only covers what description logicians call the concept language. The concept language is used to define generalisations of interest in the application domain, and it is accurate to say that the
core of the most commonly used concept languages are notational variants of
orthodox modal logic. But description logic was designed to be used in computational applications. So stating generalisations is not enough: it must also be
possible to apply them to concrete situations. Description logicians represent
concrete situations using what they call the ABox (Assertional Box). Here they
write things like
kai : secretary
(that is, Kai is a secretary) and
(kai, edwin) : boss
(that is, Edwin is Kais boss). In short, via the ABox, description logic offers
a way of representing facts about particular individuals, and the relationships
that exist between them. And this part of description logic has no analog in
orthodox modal logic.
12
We can now state the goal that will lead us to basic hybrid logic. We want to extend orthodox modal logic with a mechanism for referring to points. Moreover,
we want to do this without destroying the simplicity and elegance of propositional modal logic. Propositional modal logic is not some ad-hoc fragment of
classical logic: it is its bisimulation-invariant fragment, and possesses a number
of attractive properties. If we extend it, we should respect such features as best
we can.
How should we proceed? This is not obvious, for propositional modal logic
has few moving parts. But there is an elegant solution, and the first person to
see it was Arthur Prior: sort the propositional symbols, and use formulas as
terms.
Lets do this right away. Take a language of basic modal logic (with propositional symbols p, q, r, and so on) and add a second sort of propositional symbol.
The new symbols are called nominals, and are typically written i, j, k, and l.
Both types of propositional symbol can be freely combined to form more complex formulas in the usual way. And now for the key change: insist that each
nominal be true at exactly one point in any model. A nominal names a point
by being true there and nowhere else.
This is a simple change, but it is far from negligible. Already we have a
richer logic. Consider the following (orthodox) modal formula:
3(r p) 3(r q) 3(p q).
This can be falsified. The first conjunct in the antecedent says that it is possible
to make a transition to an accessible point where both r and p are true together,
and the second asserts that it is possible to make a transition to a point where
r and q are true together. The conclusion then asserts that it possible to make
a transition to a point where p and q are true together. But this is clearly
unjustified: the p-witnessing and q-witnessing successors may be distinct.
But now consider the following hybrid formula:
3(i p) 3(i q) 3(p q).
This is identical to the preceding formula, save that we have replaced the propositional symbol r by the nominal i. But the resulting formula is valid (that is,
impossible to falsify) because we now have extra information: the p-witnessing
and q-witnessing successors both make i truebut there is only one point where
i is true, for i is a nominal. Hence these successors cannot be distinct and the
conclusion follows.
Moreover, as was pointed out in [4], it is now possible to merge Prior and
Reichenbachs views on tense, for nominals are the missing ingredient needed
to handle points of reference. Table 2 is the same as the one given earlier, but
with hybrid representations added in the final column.
Consider the hybrid representation P (i P ) of the pluperfect. This says
that there is some point in the past labelled i and that the event happened
13
Name
Pluperfect
Past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Perfect
Present
Prospective
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future
Future-in-the-future
English example
I had seen
I saw
I would see
I would see
I would see
I have seen
I see
I am going to see
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will see
(Latin: abiturus ero)
Representation
P (i P )
P (i )
P (i F )
P (i F )
P (i F )
i P
i
i F
F (i P )
F (i P )
F (i P )
F (i )
F (i F )
before that. This representation combines Reichenbachs insights on the importance temporal reference with Priors insistence on the privileged role of tensed
talk.
Note that in some cases the hybrid representations improve on Reichenbach.
In particular, note that the future-in-the-past (and the future perfect) now has
a single representation. The formula P (i F ) asserts that there is a reference
point i in the past, and that the point of event occurs to the future of i, which
is what is wanted. Were not forced (as Reichenbach was) to spell out the
irrelevant relationships that can hold between the point of event and the point
of speech.
The addition of nominals is the crucial step towards what is nowadays called
the basic hybrid language, but we also need a second ingredient, namely satisfaction operators. These are operators of the form @i , where i is a nominal.
The formula @i asserts that is satisfied at the (unique) point named by the
nominal i. We pronounce this formula at i, .
Syntactically, satisfaction operators are simply modalities. Viewed semantically, they turn out to be very well-behaved modalities indeed. For a start, it is
easy to check that all instances of the modal distribution schema are valid:
@i ( ) (@i @i ).
Moreover, satisfaction operators also admit the modal generalisation law : if is
valid, then so is @i (for any choice of i). As satisfaction operators have these
properties, they are what modal logicians call normal modal operators. Indeed,
they are even self-dual modalities, for all instances of the following schema are
valid:
@i @i .
To put it another way, satisfaction operators are both boxes and diamonds.
But for present purposes, the most important point is that satisfaction operators give us a modal perspective on the equality relation. To see this, note
14
Reflexivity of equality
Symmetry of equality
Transitivity of equality
Replacement.
That is, basic hybrid logic is decidable, and (up to a polynomial) the complexity of the decision problem is no worse than for the orthodox modal language
we started with.
But more is at hand. We are only a few steps away from a characterisation
result which makes it clear that we have not extended orthodox modal logic
haphazardly. Lets work our way towards this.
15
So once again we are working with a fragment of the (constant and equality
enriched) correspondence language. But which fragment? Once again, bisimulations provide the answer. The following definition extends the notion of
bisimulation given in Definition 2 to cover nominals and first-order constant
symbols:
Definition 8 (Bisimulation-with-names) Let M = (W, R, V ) and M0
= (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ) be models for the same basic hybrid language. A relation
Z W W 0 is a bisimulation-with-names between M and M0 if the
following conditions are met:
1. Atomic equivalence: if wZw0 then w V (p) iff w0 V 0 (p), for all
propositional symbols p, and furthermore w V (i) iff w0 V 0 (i),
for all nominals i.
2. Forth: if wZw0 and wRv then there is a v 0 such that w0 R0 v 0 and
vZv 0 .
3. Back: if wZw0 and w0 R0 v 0 then there is a v such that wRv and vZv 0 .
4. Coverage: For all w W and w0 W 0 , if w and w0 are named by
the same nominal then wZw0 .
4 Note that this translation yields first-order formulas with at most one free variable x, not
with exactly one. This is because a constant may be substituted for the free occurrence of
x. The simplest example of this is the formula @i i, a validity which asserts that the point
named i is self identical. Now consider its standard translation: stx (@i i) = sti (i) = (i = i).
Obviously i = i is the translation we want, and it contains no free occurrence of x.
16
So weve extended the notion of bisimulation in the obvious way.5 And the
extension does everything we would hope. First the easy observation (the analog
of Proposition 3):
Proposition 9 If Z is a bisimulation-with-names between the models M
= (W, R, V ) and M0 = (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ), and wZw0 , then w and w0 satisfy the
same basic hybrid formulas.
Proof An easy extension of the inductive proof of Proposition 3; there
are merely two new cases to check.
In short, basic hybrid logic is a simple notation for capturing exactly the
bisimulation-invariant fragment of first-order logic with constants and equality.
Basic hybrid logic does precisely what we hoped it would: it gives us a genuinely
modal approach to naming and equality.
This concludes our introduction to contemporary hybrid logic, and the first
half of the paper. The introduction has only scratched the surface of an active
area of research. For an introduction to hybrid logic that focuses on their
completeness theory, see Chapter 7 of Blackburn, de Rijke and Venema [6]. For
an introduction to hybrid proof theory (via tableaux systems) see [5]. For more
on the links between hybrid logic and description logic, see [1], and for a detailed
model-theoretic exploration of hybrid logic, see [27]. But it is time to turn from
contemporary developments to the pioneering work of Arthur Prior.
5 In fact, viewed from a first-order perspective, the change is not merely obvious, it is
standard. For we have simply demanded that bisimulation should respect the denotations
of constants, and take all constants into account. Such requirements are typical in firstorder logic when model-theoretic constructions are extended from constant-free languages to
languages with constants.
17
Nowadays Arthur Prior is best known for his invention of tense logic. The basic
ideas of the subject were created by him, and many of its most challenging
problems (for example, in the logic of branching time) trace back to his work.
But Prior also invented hybrid logic, and this work is little known. An exception
to this neglect is the writing of Per Hasle and Peter hrstrm. Their joint book
([19] 1995) discusses Priors treatment of instants of time as propositions (as does
their paper [18] 1993). There are also short discussions of instant propositions
and related topics on pages 56 and 125 of hrstrms habilitation (see [17] 1988,
which is written in Danish) and [11] discusses the relevance of the idea to natural
language processing. But other than this, references are few, and there has been
no systematic discussion of Priors system of hybrid logic and the role it played
in his philosophy.
Why is Priors work on hybrid logic so overlooked? It is puzzling. Prior wrote
a lot on the subject, and it is crucial to his philosophical position. Moreover,
Priors writing on hybrid logic is not buried away in obscure publications: the
bulk of it can be found in his two best known books, Past, Present and Future
([21]), and Papers on Time and Tense ([22], [23]).
To be fair, if your only acquaintance with Priors original work on tense logic
is Past, Present and Future (henceforth PPF) it would be understandable if you
overlooked the parts on hybrid logic or did not appreciate their significance. His
remarks on the topic are confined to Chapter 5, Section 6, entitled Development of the U-calculus within the theory of world-states (pages 8892) and
Appendix B, Section 3, entitled On the range of world-variables, and the interpretation of U-calculi in world-calculi (pages 187197). His discussion is
technically detailed, and Priors later writings often refer back to this material.
But it is easily overlooked in a cursory reading.
But no such excuse is possible when it comes to Papers on Time and Tense
(henceforth PTT). Over a third of the original edition is devoted to hybrid logic.
Indeed, four of the five technical papers it contains deal with or make use of
hybrid logic:
The Logic of Ending Time, pages 139158.
Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later, pages 117138.
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, pages 213221.
Tense Logic for Non-Permanent Existents, pages 257274.
(Here and elsewhere, page references in PTT are for the 2003 edition.) One of
these papers, Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later, is particularly
useful for understanding why hybrid logic was important to Prior. Another,
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, which introduces egocentric logic,
is the key text for understanding why it is problematic. We examine these
papers in Section 7.
It is clear that the problem raised by hybrid logic (or to be more accurate,
the dilemma posed by the existence of both hybrid logic and egocentric logic)
18
occupied Priors thoughts till the end of his life. The book Worlds, Times and
Selves ([24]) was to have dealt with the underlying issues. Kit Fine describes
the goal of Worlds, Times and Selves (henceforth WTS) as follows:
This book was to deal, in one way or another, with the interplay between
modal or tense logic, on the one hand, and quantification theory on the
other. One of its main concerns was to show that modal and tense logic
could stand on their own, that talk of possible worlds or instants was to
be reduced to them rather than the other way around.
[From Fines Preface to WTS]
Indeed, Egocentric Logic and Worlds, Times and Selves explicitly deal with
the problem, first raised in Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, concerning the co-existence of hybrid and egocentric logic, and in his instructions
for the second edition, Prior specified that they should appear directly after this
paper (as you can see from the page numbers, the editors of the 2003 edition
have followed his advice here). Incidentally, the new edition of PTT contains
most of the material by Prior which made up WTS. Thus PTT is now the single
most important source of information on Priors work on hybrid logic.
So Priors writings on hybrid logic are hardly inaccessible. And this makes
the lack of serious discussion harder to understand. For hybrid logic was not an
optional extra for Prior: understanding the role it played in his work is crucial
to evaluating his philosophy of tensed talk. And (as Prior himself admitted)
its role in his philosophy is problematic. Arthur Prior invented hybrid logic
to solve a philosophical difficulty. He then discovered that it had given him a
deeper difficulty. Nothing in his published writing solves the new problem, and
resolving it was one of the major preoccupations of the last years of his life.
So why are Priors writings on the subject so little discussed? A few answers
can be given. For a start, Priors use of Polish notation didnt help. When
this notational choice is coupled with Priors writing style, the difficulty is compounded. Prior doesnt carefully demarcate the various logical languages he
discusses. He is happy to flow from (various kinds of) tense logic, into (different variants of) classical logic, and liked to freely add operators, predicate
19
symbols, and quantifiers. This style makes Prior deceptively easy to read. Moreover, it may have masked the fact that several of the languages and notations
he introduced en passant were really important contributions in their own right.
Still, while this may partly explain the neglect it cant explain it all: in the earlier mentioned Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later there is a fairly
clear demarcation between the four logical languages he considers (the third and
fourth are different versions of hybrid logic) and indeed the entire point of the
paper is to motivate the shifts from one language to another. Incidentally, the
editors of the new edition of PTT have done an immense service by converting
all the papers to orthodox notation. Priors beloved Polish notation is a barrier
that has blocked a proper appreciation of his work.
Another reason may be this. Prior doesnt really use hybrid logic for much
apart from solving his philosophical difficulty. Ordinary tense logic in PPF
is fun. The subject is deliciously motivated and presented. Prior is forever
presenting neat examples of how to capture various aspects of temporal structure. (Indeed, Prior even gives examples of temporal structure that cannot be
captured. For example, though he does not give a proof, Prior saw that the
irreflexivity of time was not something that could be defined in orthodox tense
logic.) It is hard to read PPF with any degree of sensitivity and fail to be
captivated by the vivid way Prior motivated and used his best known invention.
But Priors treatment of hybrid logic in the original edition of PTT is rather
different. He fairly single-mindedly goes about showing that hybridization can
solve his philosophical difficulty (and then goes on, less successfully, to discuss
the difficulties that hybridization in turn raises). But in the original edition
there is little to show that he regarded the ingredients of hybrid logic as of
much independent logical or linguistic interest. For example, in Section 4 we
saw that nominals make it possible to combine Priors insights on tense with
those of Reichenbach. Prior never seems to have seen the connection. His brief
remarks on Reichenbach in PPF (see pages 1215) are rather dismissive; you get
the impression that he thought of Reichenbachs work as fundamentally opposed
to his logical conception of tense. It is ironic that later in the same book he
introduces the nominal, the basic tool needed to give a tense logical analysis of
Reichenbachs ideas.
To put it another way, in the original edition of PTT, there is relatively
little to indicate that Prior played with hybrid logic in the way he played so
brilliantly with tense logic (the only exception is The Logic of Ending Time).
His playfulness in PTT is largely reserved for egocentric logic, which he clearly
found enormous fun. In comparison, hybrid logic comes across as a means to an
end, and it was the end that interested him. Happily, the new edition of PTT
rectifies this impression somewhat. The paper Now , for example, in which
Prior attempts to capture the logic of this word using ideas from hybrid logic,
shows that Prior was aware that his new tool might be of broader interest.
20
In this section I will develop Priors strong hybrid language from a modern
perspective using modern notation.6 As the name suggests, Priors hybrid languages were highly expressive, and the basic hybrid languages considered in the
first half of this paper are highly restricted fragments of the ones he worked
with.
So what was Priors strong hybrid language? In fact, Prior explored a number of options, but the usual setup was as follows: Prior took his best known
creation (tense logic) and added nominals, the universal modality, and quantifiers and for binding nominals. Lets discuss each of these ingredients in
turn. At first my discussion will be informal, but once the elements are in place
I shall give a precise definition of the strong hybrid language and its semantics,
extend the standard translation to cover it, and then reduce the first-order correspondence language to the strong hybrid language via what is now known as
the hybrid translation.
Nominals are the first ingredient on the list. We know a lot about them
already, but some additional comments are in order. First some terminology.
Prior had a number of names for what are now called nominals, such as world
propositions, or world-state propositions or world variables, or instant
propositions. Moreover, Prior sometimes wanted to view nominals as embodying content: he would sometimes think of them as the (infinite) conjunction of all
the information at a world. This is different from the modern conception, which
essentially treats nominals as tags for identifying worlds. Philosophically, the
modern approach has more in common with a Kripke/Kaplan approach to possible worlds (create worlds by naming them) than with Priors tendency to view
them as complete descriptions. 7
Finally, Prior sometimes works with an alternative to nominals, the Q op6 The first rigorous formulation of Priors strong hybrid language is due to Robert Bull (see
[9]). In this early classic of hybrid logic, Bull axiomatises Priors language, points out how easy
it is to get extended completeness results using what are nowadays known as pure formulas
(that is, formulas whose only atomic symbols are nominals) and makes some interesting connections with Robinsons non-standard models of set-theory. The paper (which appeared in
the Prior memorial issue of Theoria) is strongly recommended to the reader. Chronologically,
the next examination of Priors strong language (in the more technically demanding setting of
Propositional Dynamic Logic rather than tense logic) that I know of is due to Solomon Passy
and Tinko Tinchev (see [20]). As the dates of these two papers correctly suggests, hybrid logic
pretty much fell off the intellectual map for about 15 years after Priors death. The Passy
and Tinchev paper, by the way, is highly recommended; it fairly bubbles over with energy
and ideas.
7 As Kripke puts it in Naming and Necessity, possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered
by powerful telescopes; see [16], page 44. Under the stipulation view, to assert @i p is to assert
that p holds at some world and that this world is called i (that is, you name the world i and
stipulate that p holds there). Under the powerful telescope view, to assert @i p is to assert
that p is true at the world named i because i implicitly embodies the information that p.
Priors tendency to think of nominals as powerful telescopes may have been a reason for his
overlooking the link with Reichenbach. If nominals are abstract tags, serving only to uniquely
label a time, then it is natural to use them to denote reference times. But if nominals are
conceived of as infinite conjunctions of all the information at some time, it does not seem
plausible to use them in this way.
21
erator. A formula of the form Q is true at any point in a model iff there is a
unique point in the model where is true. So if we write Qp we have in effect
turned the propositional symbol p into a nominal.
The second ingredient on the list, the universal modality (or the global
modality, as it is sometimes called) has not been discussed so far in this paper,
but it is a standard tool in contemporary hybrid logic. The diamond form of
the universal modality is written E, the box form is written A, and they have
the following semantics: E means is true at some point in the model, and
A means is true at all points in the model.
Prior used the universal modality to define the @ operator. For note that
E(i )
says that somewhere in the model there is a point where i is true, and at that
point is true too, and this is exactly what @i means. To put it another
way, we can define
@i =def E(i ).
Alternatively, we can define
@i =def A(i ).
This says at all points in the model where i is true, is true too, and this
has the same effect.
Thus the first two ingredients of Priors strong language are close to those
discussed in the first half of the paper. The third ingredient, however, brings a
new degree of complexity to the language: Prior added the quantifiers and
and allowed them to bind nominals. That is, Prior worked with a language in
which formulas like
x@x P >
and
xy(@x F y @x y @y F x)
are well formed (as these examples show, I prefer to use symbols such as x and
y, rather than i and j, when binding nominals).
The first of these formulas says there is a time called x, and at x it is
not possible to move into the past, or there is a point in the model with no
predecessors. The second says given any two times x and y in the model,
either y is to the future of x, or x and y name the same time, or x is to the
future of y. To put it another way, it says that any two points of time are
identical, or one precedes the other, or the temporal flow is linear.
As these examples suggest, the addition of and has greatly increased the
expressive power at our disposal. But how much power do we now have? Lets
examine the matter.
First, lets be precise about the syntax and semantics of Priors strong hybrid
language. Choose a denumerably infinite set PVAR = {x, y, z. . . .}, the set of
22
point variables, disjoint from PROP, NOM and MOD. Then the strong hybrid
language (over PROP, NOM, MOD and PVAR) is defined as follows:
WFF
:=
x | i | p | | | | | hmi | E | x.
Note that we have dropped @ from the language (we dont need it now that
we have the universal modality E at our disposal) and weve dropped all the
[m] forms too. Strictly speaking we dont need the point variables either, as we
could directly bind ordinary nominals; nonetheless, I think it is cleaner to draw a
notational distinction between bindable and non-bindable symbols. Define @i
to be E(i ), define [m] to be hmi, define A to be E, and define
x to be x. Other syntactic concepts (such as the distinction between
free and bound point variables) are defined in the expected way.
Now for the semantics. As before, we interpret the language on Kripke models. However, as we now have a distinction between bound and free variables,
we need a mechanism for coping with this. But this is standard: we merely introduce assignments of values to (point) variables, and relativise the evaluation
of formulas to a variable assignment. So, given a Kripke model M = (W, R, V ),
an assignment of values to variables g on M is a function from PVAR to W .
Furthermore, if g and g 0 are assignments of values to variables on M, and g 0
differs from g, if at all, only in what it assigns to x, then we say that g 0 is
x
an x-variant of g, and in such a case we write g 0 g. We can now give the
satisfaction definition:
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
|= x
|= i
|= p
|=
|=
|=
|=
|= hmi
|= E
|= x
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
Most of these clauses are those we have seen before, save that evaluation
has been relativised to an assignment of values to variables g. As promised, the
universal modality really does have access to every point in the model. And the
final clause gives the obvious Tarski-style definition to the existential quantifier.
So now for the key question: just how strong is this language? First a simple
observation: it is certainly not stronger than the correspondence language, for
we can extend the standard translation to cover the three new ingredients in
the language:
stx (y)
= (x = y)
stx (E) = xstx ()
stx (y) = ystx ().
23
@x hmiy
@x p
@x y
ht()
ht() ht()
ht() ht()
ht() ht()
vht()
vht().
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
Note the role of the @ operator. The non-trivial clauses are those that
handle atomic formulas. Consider, for example, the hybrid translation of Rm xy.
This is @x hmiy, which says that at the point x it is possible to make an Rm
transition to the point named y. The use of @ is crucial. In fact, if we dont
have @ in the language (either as a primitive, or defined using some stronger
modality, such as the universal modality) then it is not possible to reduce the
correspondence language to the hybrid language. To put it another way, in
the absence of @, the ability to bind nominals with and does not give rise
to full first-order expressive power! This (at first sight counterintuitive) result
is proved in [7]. Roughly speaking, in the strong hybrid language, classical
quantification is factored into a binding step (the task of and ) and a
carry out the evaluation step there step (which is ultimately based on @).
These two functions, which are conflated in first-order logic, are teased apart in
the hybrid world.
This ideas underlying the hybrid translation (and in particular the important
role of @) were known to Prior when he wrote PPF. Indeed, as we shall now
see, it was the possibility of reducing the correspondence language to the strong
hybrid language that attracted him to hybrid logic in the first place.
So why did Arthur Prior explore hybrid logic, and where did his explorations
lead him? A simple answer can be given to the first part of this question: Priors
work on hybrid logic was strongly influenced by natural language. Prior was
not interested in natural language semantics in the way that a modern (postMontague) formal semanticist would be. That is, natural language semantics
doesnt seem to have been primarily of interest to him for its own sake. Rather,
natural language acted as a springboard into philosophical issues. And the
24
modal logic commits us to less. But such arguments would have to be carefully
constructed. In the light of modern correspondence theory, simple knockdown
arguments based on the presence or absence of explicit quantifiers in the object
language are unconvincing.
This does not mean that the model-theoretic conception rules out the possibility of drawing philosophical conclusions based on logical analysis. For example, a contemporary modal logician might take exception to Priors belief
that the B series commits us to an ontology of temporal instants. Given the
existence of interval-based models of time, and given that in some interval based
models instants can be viewed not as primitives but as maximal collections of
nested intervals, is Priors second objection to the B series conception really so
persuasive? As this example also shows, the philosophical role played by modeltheoretically oriented logic tends to be critical. The most direct way that model
theory helps philosophy is by demonstrating that there are more ontological
possibilities than is apparent at first sight, or that certain possibilities cant be
made to fit together coherently. The model-theoretic perspective helps induce
philosophical modesty.
But Prior did not accord logic such a modest role, for Prior did not regard
logic as a model-theoretic enterprise. It is crucial to grasp this. Priors conception of logic belongs to an older tradition: logic as foundational enterprise.
This attitude towards logic can be found in many writers, ranging from Frege to
contemporary Martin-L
of type theorists. Under the model-theoretic conception,
logic is an interpretational game played in the confines of (some version of) set
theory. Under the foundational conception, logic itself provides the foundation.8
So when Prior insists that tense logic is the correct way of thinking about temporal logic, he does not simply mean that it is a useful tool for capturing this or
that aspect of natural language semantics, or that it correctly mirrors certain
aspects of our conception of time. He means something stronger: tense logic is
the correct foundational basis for all temporal reasoning. It is, itself, the starting point. All other conceptions of time must ultimately be reducible to the A
series conception underlying tense logic, for there is nothing more fundamental
to appeal to.
This conviction led to Priors development of hybrid logic. For Prior faced
an obvious difficulty. Given his position, he had to show that B series talk could
be reduced to A series talk. And if all there is to A series talk is orthodox tense
logic, this cant be done. As Prior was well aware, tense logic (the A series
language) is weaker that the B series language (the first-order correspondence
language).
So Prior hybridized. He took his tense logic and added nominals, the universal modality, and allowed quantification across nominals, creating the strong
hybrid language we discussed in the previous section. He then reduced B series talk to A series talk. The earliest such reduction seems to be that given
in Appendix B Section 3 of PPF, which is entitled On the range of world8 The distinction between the model-theoretic and foundational traditions is broadly in
line with the distinction Hintikka draws between Language as calculus (the model-theoretic
tradition) and Language as the universal medium (the foundational tradition). See [13].
26
The first two grades of tense logical involvement are captured using two
variant forms of the correspondence language (or in Priors terminology, two
variant forms of U -calculi). According to Prior, philosophers uneasy about
tense logic can find little to object to in these systems. In essence, Prior appeals
to the standard translation to show that tense logic can be viewed as a simple
first-order theory of time.
But when he reaches the third level of tense logical involvement, he turns
the tables. For his third level language is what we have been calling the strong
hybrid language, and Prior shows (by making use of ideas familiar from the
hybrid translation) that it has the resources to capture the U-calculi. He does
not give full proof details, but refers the reader to the earlier reduction made in
PPF.
Prior isnt fully satisfied with this step however. Why not? Because of the
presence of the universal modality. The fourth (and highest) grade of tense
logical involvement is achieved by moving to a system where it is possible to
give a tense logical definition of the universal modality (or some device that
plays a similar role). Prior notes two ways of doing this. The first is to work
with (as he puts it) a richer logic. By this he means making more assumptions
about the structure of time so that the universal modality becomes definable
in orthodox tense logic. For example, if we assume that time stretches out in a
single unbroken line, then the formula p Hp GP asserts that p is true at all
points, or to put it in more Priorean terms, it asserts that it is, always has been,
and always will be the case that p. Hence on linear models of time there is a
purely temporal formula that has the same effect as application of the universal
modality.9
9 Incidentally, in [8] the following necessary and sufficient condition for the definability of
the universal modality is proved: for some natural number n, any two times are linked by a
path of length less than or equal to n.
27
The temporal ontology of instants has been banished: only propositions remain.
In many respects, his is an attractive and curiously modern view.11
10 One argument might run as follows: the C operator can be defined in the modal -calculus,
one of the most interesting modal logics to have emerged in the last 20 years (see [15]). The
modal -calculus makes it possible to modally define fixed-points of various relation, transitive
closures being one of the simplest examples. What is interesting for present purposes is that
the fixed-point mechanism offered by modal -calculus does not work by adding the kind
of global reach to modal logic that the universal modality does, rather it works by chasing
internally through the paths inside a model, rather as Priors inductive definition of C does. In
fact, a beautiful result due to [14] tells us that the modal -calculus is actually the bisimulation
invariant fragment of monadic second-order logic! Thus Priors use of quantification over the
natural numbers could be replaced by a definition in a modal language which offers the kind
of internal expressivity that Prior thought appropriate for grade four languages.
11 The distinction that Prior draws in passing here between being the index of an instant,
28
29
Now, it is quite clear that Prior regarded egocentric logic as important. For
example, in his plan for the enlarged second edition of PTT he stipulated that
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals should be followed by Egocentric
Logic and Worlds, Times and Selves, both of which deal with the topic.
Moreover, Kit Fine used these two papers as chapters two and four of the unfinished WTS, which was to have been devoted to exploring the inter-relationships
between modal logic and first-order logic. Egocentric logic was important in
Priors later work.
However, as Prior was well aware, the existence of egocentric logic posed a
challenge to his claim that hybridisation had satisfactorily solved his B series
to A series reduction problem. After all, as we have just seen, he knew exactly
how the ideas of modal logic could be applied to any domain. But once this
has been done, the apparatus of his strong hybrid logic would allow him to turn
around and swallow the first-order theory of that domain. As he puts it in
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals:
Does not the possibility of this reversal mark off tense logic from other
calculi that may be presented as by-products of first-order theories? Or
can this reversal be equally performed in these other cases too? I am
afraid the answer is that it can. Consider again our egocentric version
of the theory of the Tall and the Short. Not only can it be explicated as
30
a by-product of the normal version of this theory, but the latter can also
be explicated as a by-product of the former. [PTT, page 216]
Prior is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Egocentric logic is clearly interesting and important, but its existence undercuts the fundamental distinction
he thought he had drawn between A series and B series talk. If hybridisation
can be applied to any domain, what remains of the privileged status of tensed
talk?
I know of nothing in his published work that satisfactorily resolves this
quandary. In Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals he first responds as
follows:
Philosophically, where do we go from here? We could turn the tables
on the objectors to tense logic by saying that not only are instants not
genuine individuals, but there are no genuine individuals, only certain
propositions that can be formally treated as if they were individuals.
[PTT, page 219]
In the paper World, Times and Selves, Prior hints at a different solution.
It seems to mark a partial retreat from his insistence that B series talk must
be reducible to A series talk, but it is interesting in that it is reminiscent of
contemporary views on the relation between modal and first-order logic. As we
saw in the first part of the paper, modal and hybrid logic are nowadays viewed
as interesting precisely because they are well-behaved fragments of first-order
logic, and the point of logical modeling is to find the tools which best fit the
requirements of the task at hand. This often means looking for less expressive
sublogics, rather than working with full first-order logic. Bearing this in mind,
first consider the following passage:
Logicians have tended to welcome the presentation of modal logic as an
artificially truncated bit of predicate calculus because we know all about
predicate calculus, or at all events know an enormous lot about it, whereas
modality is a comparatively obscure and unfamiliar field. And even philosophically, it might be said, it is in general pretty clear what is going on
in predicate calculus, but not very clear what is going on in modal logic
or even in tense logic. [PTT, page 245]
It is not clear to me how seriously Prior took this idea, or how he might
have developed it. Nonetheless describing first-order logic as an artificially
expanded modal or tense logic strikes a distinctly contemporary note.
As I said earlier, I know of nothing in Priors published work that satisfactorily resolves the issues raised in Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals.
What is clear is that in his last working years he was actively struggling to
reconcile his belief in the suitability of modal and hybrid formalisms for certain
tasks, with the realisation that the expressivity of his strong hybrid languages
undercut his attempt to capture his cherished distinction between tensed and
untensed talk. Perhaps his unpublished writings will reveal more that bears on
the issue. And it should now be clear why I view the unfinished WTS as the
great might-have-been of hybrid logic.
32
Concluding remarks
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kit Fine and Per Hasle for discussing earlier versions of
this work with me during the Logic of Time and Modality Conference, Roskilde
University, November 2003. Thanks also to Per Hasle and Peter hrstrm for
34
comments on the first version of the paper, and to Torben Brauner for exhibiting
that finest of editorial virtues: detailed feedback. Finally, special thanks to
Carlos Areces for helpful discussions of Prior and editorial advice.
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