CONFERENCE

 PICTURES - courtesy Alberto Zanardo

PICTURES - courtesy Jørgen Villadsen

The Logic of Time and Modality

Roskilde University, Friday, October 31 - Saturday, November 1, 2003

Arthur Norman Prior (1914-69) was the founding father of the modern logic of time and modality. In the 1950s and 1960s he laid out the foundation of temporal logic and showed that this discipline was intimately connected with modal logic. Since then, temporal and modal logic has grown into a mature discipline with many important applications in philosophy, computer science, and also linguistics.

One characteristic of Prior's work is the point of view that logic should be related as closely as possible to intuitions embodied in everyday discourse. He also argued that temporal logic is fundamental for understanding and describing the world in which we live. An important contribution by Prior was the foundation of what is now known as hybrid logics. One simple form of a hybrid logic is a temporal logic in which a special sort of formulas called instant-propositions can be used to refer to specific instants in a model. Thereby further expressive power is obtained. Hybrid logics are closely related to the so-called description logics used for knowledge representation in computer science. Prior's work on hybrid logic was motivated by a philosophical debate regarding two different conceptions of time: The A-series and B-series conceptions of time. The A-series conception is based on the notions of past, present, and future, as opposed to a ‘tapestry’ view on time, as embodied by the B-series conception of time according to which time is just a set of instants ordered with an earlier-later relation. Prior considered the A-conception to be the fundamental one and in his view, the B-concepts can be defined in terms of the A-concepts using instant-propositions. Branching time logic is another important contribution by Prior. Using this temporal logic, he analysed the fundamental philosophical question of determinism versus freedom of choice. In this analysis Prior demonstrated that it is possible to interpret the general idea of branching time in several fundamentally different ways. 

There is still a lot to learn from Prior’s writings, indeed, Oxford University Press has recently published a revised and enlarged edition of Prior’s last book, Papers on Time and Tense. Since Prior’s foundational work on the logic of time and modality, this discipline has attracted ever more attention not only within logic, but also within computer science, formal linguistics and philosophy in general. It is the aim of the conference at Roskilde University to discuss the modern challenges, problems, and applications of the Priorean approach to the logic of time and modality.

The conference is directed at researchers as well as graduate and PhD students in the fields of philosophical, computational, and mathematical logic. 

Invited Speakers

Patrick Blackburn
INRIA Lorraine, France

An Introduction to Contemporary Hybrid Logic

Arthur Prior and Hybric Logic

Jack Copeland
Philosophy Department, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Free Will and Modality

Kit Fine
Department of Philosophy, New York University, USA

The Metaphysics of Time and Modality

Antony Galton
Department of Computer science, University of Exeter, England

Operators versus Arguments: the Ins and Outs of Reification

Peter Simons
School of Philosophy, University of Leeds, England

The Logic of Location

Heinrich Wansing
Institute of Philosophy, Dresden University of Technology, Germany

Logical Connectives for Constructive Modal Logic

Alberto Zanardo
Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Padova, Italy

Structures and Languages for Branching-Time

Time Tables

October 31

0900 - 0920 Final registration
0920 - 0930 Opening
0930 - 1100 Kit Fine
1100 - 1130 Coffee break
1130 - 1300 Patrick Blackburn
1300 - 1400 Lunch
1400 - 1530 Peter Simons
1530 - 1600 Coffee break
1600 - 1730 Antony Galton
1900 - Conference dinner

November 1

0900 - 1030 Jack Copeland
1030 - 1100 Coffee break
1100 - 1230 Alberto Zanardo
1230 - 1330 Lunch
1330 - 1500 Heinrich Wansing
1500 - 1530 Coffee break
1530 - 1700 Patrick Blackburn
1700 - 1730 General discussion

Program Committee

Torben Braüner (Roskilde University)

Per Hasle (Aalborg University)

Peter Øhrstrøm (Aalborg University)

The conference is organized by FLOG and the Department of Computer Science, Roskilde University

Registration

Please write the FLOG-secretary Pelle Guldborg Hansen to register:

Department of Philosophy and Science Studies
Roskilde University, P6
P.O. Box 260
DK4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Phone: (+45) 4674 2540 Cell: (+45) 2334 2175 Fax: (+45) 4674 3012
Email: pgh@ruc.dk

A small conference fee is to be paid upon final registration (Friday, October 31, 2003). The conference fee is 75,00 Danish kroner a day, thus participation for the entire duration of the conference (Friday, October 31 - Saturday, November 1, 2003) is 150,00 Danish kroner. The conference fee covers the conference booklet, tea and coffee during the breaks.

If email is used include TIME - DK in the subject entry. Be sure to include your name, institutional affiliation, country, zip-code and email in your correspondence. All questions pertaining to registration and accommodations should be directed to Pelle Guldborg Hansen. No individual notification upon registration will be forwarded to individual participants but this conference page will keep a list of registered participants.

Location

All presentations will take place at Roskilde University (RUC) in the auditorium in building 46 (circled on the map below). To reach RUC Friday at 8:45 take the regional train from the Central Station of Copenhagen at 8:10 towards Roskilde and get off at Trekroner Station (an appropiate train for Saturday leaves Copenhagen Central Station at 8:08). To reach RUC from Roskilde Friday at 8:55 take the regional train from Roskilde Station at 8:41 towards Copenhagen and get off at Trekroner Station (an appropiate train for Saturday leaves Roskilde Station at 8:22). There will be signs from the station guiding to the conference site.

Lunch & Dinner

Participants may choose to order lunch through the conference organization; payments for these arrangements are due during final conference registration on Friday October 31. Each lunch costs 75,00 Danish kroner and includes besides danish 'smørrebrød' (open sandwiches) one beverage. A conference dinner is scheduled for Friday, October 31 at 19:00, Restaurant A Porta in the center of Copenhagen. The dinner costs 400,00 Danish kroner and holds a three course meal and wine. Only a limited number of seats are available. Participants interested in lunch orders and/or conference dinner participation should notify the PHILOG-secretary Pelle Guldborg Hansen (pgh@ruc.dk) no later than Friday, October 24. Only cash payments are accepted and no later than upon final conference registration during Friday, October 31.

FLOG is sponsored by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities

© 2002-03 Vincent F. Hendricks