Menu
Home Explore People Places Arts History Plants & Animals Science Life & Culture Technology
On this page
Normal modal logic
Set of modal formulas containing all propositional tautologies and all instances of the Kripke schema ◻(A→B)→(◻A→◻B) and closed under modus ponens and necessitation

In logic, a normal modal logic is a set L of modal formulas such that L contains:

  • All propositional tautologies;
  • All instances of the Kripke schema: ◻ ( A → B ) → ( ◻ A → ◻ B ) {\displaystyle \Box (A\to B)\to (\Box A\to \Box B)}

and it is closed under:

  • Detachment rule (modus ponens): A → B , A ∈ L {\displaystyle A\to B,A\in L} implies B ∈ L {\displaystyle B\in L} ;
  • Necessitation rule: A ∈ L {\displaystyle A\in L} implies ◻ A ∈ L {\displaystyle \Box A\in L} .

The smallest logic satisfying the above conditions is called K. Most modal logics commonly used nowadays (in terms of having philosophical motivations), e.g. C. I. Lewis's S4 and S5, are normal (and hence are extensions of K). However a number of deontic and epistemic logics, for example, are non-normal, often because they give up the Kripke schema.

Every normal modal logic is regular and hence classical.

We don't have any images related to Normal modal logic yet.
We don't have any YouTube videos related to Normal modal logic yet.
We don't have any PDF documents related to Normal modal logic yet.
We don't have any Books related to Normal modal logic yet.
We don't have any archived web articles related to Normal modal logic yet.

Common normal modal logics

The following table lists several common normal modal systems. The notation refers to the table at Kripke semantics § Common modal axiom schemata. Frame conditions for some of the systems were simplified: the logics are sound and complete with respect to the frame classes given in the table, but they may correspond to a larger class of frames.

NameAxiomsFrame condition
Kall frames
TTreflexive
K44transitive
S4T, 4preorder
S5T, 5 or D, B, 4equivalence relation
S4.3T, 4, Htotal preorder
S4.1T, 4, Mpreorder, ∀ w ∃ u ( w R u ∧ ∀ v ( u R v ⇒ u = v ) ) {\displaystyle \forall w\,\exists u\,(w\,R\,u\land \forall v\,(u\,R\,v\Rightarrow u=v))}
S4.2T, 4, Gdirected preorder
GL, K4WGL or 4, GLfinite strict partial order
Grz, S4GrzGrz or T, 4, Grzfinite partial order
DDserial
D45D, 4, 5transitive, serial, and Euclidean
  • Alexander Chagrov and Michael Zakharyaschev, Modal Logic, vol. 35 of Oxford Logic Guides, Oxford University Press, 1997.