Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence

by Peter Øhrstrøm, Per Hasle

Overview

Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence deals with the history of temporal logic as well as the crucial systematic questions within the field. The book studies the rich contributions from ancient and medieval philosophy up to the downfall of temporal logic in the Renaissance. The modern rediscovery of the subject, which is especially due to the work of A. N. Prior, is described, leading into a thorough discussion of the use of temporal logic in computer science and the understanding of natural language.
Temporal Logic: From Ancient Ideas to Artificial Intelligence thus interweaves linguistic, philosophical and computational aspects into an informative and inspiring whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789048145843
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/07/2010
Series:	Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy , #57
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1995
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction: Logic and the study of time.- Introduction: Logic and the study of time.- Time and Logic — From Synthesis to Dissociation.- The sea-fight tomorrow.- The master argument of Diodorus Cronus.- The study of tenses in the middle ages.- Temporal ampliation.- The duration of the present.- The logic of beginning and ending.- Time and consequentia.- Temporalis — the logic of ‘While’.- Human freedom and divine foreknowledge.- The downfall of medieval tense-logic.- Logic as a timeless science.- Time and Logic Reunited.- The 19th century and Boolean logic.- C.S. Peirce on time and modality.-—ukasiewicz’s contribution to temporal logic.- A three-point structure of tenses.- A.N. Prior’s tense-logic.- The idea of branching time.- Tense logic and special relativity.- Some basic systems of temporal logic.- Four grades of tense-logical involvement.- Metric tense logic.- Modern issues in temporal logic.- Two paradigms of temporal logic.- Indeterministic tense logic.- Leibnizian tense logic.- Tense logic and counterfactual reasoning.- Logic of durations.- Graphs for time and modality.- Temporal logic and computer science.- Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

Traces the thinking about the nature and behavior of time through ancient and medieval philosophy to its demise during the Renaissance. Then describes the modern resurrection of temporal logic under the ministrations of A. N. Prior and others, and its applications in computer science and the study of natural languages. Interweaves the linguistic, philosophical, and computational aspects throughout. Assumes a background in formal logic. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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