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An Introductory Chapter
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Some preliminary issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Bare algebraizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1 The equational consequence relative to a class of algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Translating formulas into equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Translating equations into formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.4 Putting it all together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4 The origins of algebraizability: the Lindenbaum-Tarski process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1 The process for classical logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2 The process for algebraizable logics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.3 The universal Lindenbaum-Tarski process: matrix semantics . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.4 Algebraizability and matrix semantics: definability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.5 Implicative logics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5 Modes of algebraizability, and non-algebraizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6 Beyond algebraizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.1 The Leibniz hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.2 The general definition of the algebraic counterpart of a logic . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6.3 The Frege hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
7 Exploiting algebraizability: bridge theorems and transfer theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8 Algebraizability at a more abstract level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
1 Introduction
This chapter has been conceived as a brief introduction to (my personal view of)
abstract algebraic logic. It is organized around the central notion of algebraizabil-
ity, with particular emphasis on its connections with the techniques of traditional
algebraic logic and especially with the so-called Lindenbaum-Tarski process. It
1
2 Josep Maria Font
logic, but classes of logics that are treated in a uniform way;2 often these classes
are defined by some abstract characteristic (such as the classes in the hierarchies
reviewed in Section 6) or constitute a set of extensions of a particular logic (as in
the applications of Theorem 4.2 mentioned at the end of Section 7).
Naturally, these three aspects are inextricably intertwined. In particular, the gen-
eral notions need to be tested against many examples, either natural or ad hoc, not
just to obtain properties of particular logics, but in order to gain insight into the
general notions themselves, their relations, their applicability, their scope and their
limits. This empirical work is an important guide for the more abstract work.
The framework where the connections we are interested in here have been found
to be tighter and more fruitful, and where the algebra-based semantics is exclusively
algebraic, is undoubtedly that of algebraizable logics. This justifies devoting more
than half of this chapter to describing that framework, its variants and extensions,
and its roots in the earliest milestone in modern algebraic logic: the construction
of the Lindenbaum-Tarski algebras in order to obtain the first general algebraic
completeness theorems.
After the preliminary Section 2, algebraizability is gradually described in Sec-
tions 3 to 5 by relating it to the progressive generalization of the Lindenbaum-
Tarski construction, starting from its well-known application to classical proposi-
tional logic and extending it to increasingly larger classes of logics. These sections,
which are decidedly introductory and discuss the details of (some of) the key proofs,
should be accessible to any reader with a general background in mathematical logic.
A certain tendency to identify abstract algebraic logic with the theory of alge-
braizability initiated by Blok and Pigozzi has been observed in the literature; how-
ever, this is misguided, as algebraizability is only the core of the subject. More-
over, the full development of the theory of algebraizability itself does indeed need
the more general approach to algebraic logic provided by the classical theory of
matrices (the next kind of algebra-based semantics); the results concerning alge-
braizability that appear in this context form the crowning stage of a very elaborated
framework, where the classical theory is extended in newer and more abstract di-
rections. Some of those directions were developed by Blok and Pigozzi themselves
(the theory of protoalgebraic logics), some earlier on by Czelakowski (the theory
of equivalential logics), and some later on by others (such as Herrmann’s exten-
sion to non-finitary logics, or Raftery’s theory of truth-equational logics). Abstract
algebraic logic has led to the development of tools and techniques together with
a strong and convoluted mathematical construction with deep results that provide
the whole construction with unity. Moreover, it turns out that some less standard
logics do show some algebraic behaviour, but it is not naturally captured by the the-
ory of matrices; this brings generalized matrices (a more complicated algebra-based
semantics) into the picture.
2 This feature has also been highlighted as distinctive of (some of) the modern studies of non-
classical logics, notably of modal logics; see for instance Chagrov and Zakharyashev (1997,
p. 109).
4 Josep Maria Font
The essentials of all these issues, in a brief overview or survey style, are described
in Section 6 (which is anticipated in Section 4.3). In particular, that survey includes a
description of several of the classification criteria3 that have arisen, and which have
given rise to the so-called Leibniz and Frege hierarchies. Section 6.3 also reviews
the main relations between the two hierarchies and mentions a few recent results
and some open problems.
Revealing a general notion behind the Lindenbaum-Tarski process is only part of
the interest in the notion of algebraizability. It is certainly true that the general notion
helped to make it clear that some obscure logics are actually amenable to algebraic
treatment, or to provide a sound foundation for claims of the form “such-and-such
class of algebras is the algebraic counterpart of such-and-such logic”. However, the
importance of the notion also lies in its consequences, that is, in how it can be ap-
plied to obtain a precise formulation of the equivalences, informally called bridge
theorems, that hold between certain metalogical properties (such as the deduction
theorem or the interpolation property) and certain purely algebraic properties (such
as having equationally definable principal congruences or several forms of amal-
gamation); in some cases, these equivalences had previously been reported in the
literature for restricted groups of particular logics. Although most of this would be
the natural continuation of Section 5, it is treated in Section 7, after the exposition of
the hierarchies, because it has been discovered that some of the equivalences men-
tioned are best dealt with within the framework of a class in the Leibniz hierarchy
that is larger than the class of algebraizable logics.
Finally, in Section 8, one of the new directions along which the theory is expand-
ing, a rather abstract one, is just hinted at. It is impossible to describe all the topics
and directions of research that have been pursued in the last two decades. Among
these4 are: categorical abstract algebraic logic (Voutsadakis, 2003); applications to
many-sorted logics and in particular to behavioural logics (Caleiro and Gonçalves,
2013); the algebraization of Gentzen systems, hypersequent systems and other more
general formalisms (Raftery, 2006a); the use of generalized matrices as models of
Gentzen systems, and the interplay with their rôle as generalized models of sen-
tential logics as described in Section 6.2 (Font, Jansana, and Pigozzi, 2001); the
interplay with equality-free model theory (Nurakunov and Stronkowski, 2013); the
implicational hierarchy (Cintula and Noguera, 2010); the algebraic study of log-
ics that preserve degrees of truth (Bou et al., 2009); the algebraization of logics by
classes of algebras of a different signature (Russo, 2013); etc. Something similar
happens when considering applications to the study of particular metalogical prop-
erties, and of particular classes of logics and their algebraic counterparts: the choice
of the topics to be discussed in detail was difficult and often dictated—besides per-
sonal taste—by the space constraints of a chapter of this kind.
This Introduction opens with an attempt to describe what abstract algebraic logic
is. An alternative way of grasping this is to disregard the introductory discussion
3 Looking back at history, it is easy to see that finding useful classifications has been one major
driving force in the development of several areas of mathematics, and of all sciences.
4 The references given here for each case are just pointers to facilitate contact with the topic, rather
and just to go ahead and read the technical contents of the chapter. I hope that, as a
sample of the topic, it speaks for itself, and sufficiently supports the statement that,
simply: abstract algebraic logic is the algebraic logic of the twenty-first century.
Further reading
Only proofs of basic results in the first sections are given or sketched; detailed proofs
of all the statements can be found in the monumental monograph by Czelakowski
(2001), or in my textbook (Font, 2016); or also in the references given for selected
results. The Handbook of Mathematical Fuzzy Logic contains a long chapter (Cin-
tula and Noguera, 2011) whose aim is, in the author’s own words, “to present a
marriage of Mathematical Fuzzy Logic and (Abstract) Algebraic Logic”; it also
contains proofs and its (more specialized) point of view may appeal particularly to
readers of the present volume. As a matter of fact, the seminal monograph by Blok
and Pigozzi (1989) still makes a good introduction to the core of the subject, as
does the unpublished (but available) Blok and Pigozzi (2001). Some survey papers
that may complement this chapter with different views are Andréka, Németi, and
Sain (2001), Font, Jansana, and Pigozzi (2003) and Raftery (2011b), as well as the
encyclopædia articles by Pigozzi (2001) and by Jansana (2011).
For very precise historical information on technical points, see the notes at the
end of each chapter of Czelakowski (2001); in general, Anellis and Houser (1991),
Blok and Pigozzi (1988), Burris and Legris (2015), Czelakowski and Malinowski
(1985) and Surma (1982) provide a wider historical context.
The simplest, neatest kind of algebra-based models are just plain algebras. The no-
tion of algebraizability expresses a relation between a (sentential) logic and a class
of algebras. Before presenting that notion, we have to agree on what we understand
by each of these two components, and this entails fixing some terminology and no-
tations.
Let L be an algebraic language, that is, a similarity type with no relational sym-
bols. The set of terms of L is defined in the usual way, starting from a certain count-
ably infinite set V of variables. In our context, the terms are also called formulas
and constitute an algebra of type L denoted by Fm (or FmL if necessary); it is the
absolutely free algebra of type L generated by V. The algebraic operations of L are
called connectives when their logical function is privileged; the usual such opera-
tions are ¬ , ∧ , ∨ , →, etc. Substitutions of formulas for variables are, algebraically
speaking, the endomorphisms of the formula algebra.
Besides formulas or terms, we can form equations, which are just pairs hα , β i of
formulas, denoted by α ≈ β , for α , β ∈ Fm; and quasi-equations, which are first-
6 Josep Maria Font
If ϕ ∈ Γ , then Γ `L ϕ. (I)
If Γ `L ϕ, then ∆ `L ϕ for any ∆ ⊆ Fm such that Γ ⊆ ∆ . (M)
If Γ `L ϕ, then ∆ `L ϕ for any ∆ ⊆ Fm such that ∆ `L ψ for all ψ ∈ Γ . (C)
If Γ `L ϕ, then σ (Γ ) `L σ (ϕ) for every substitution σ . (S)
Ordinary infix notation for the binary relation `L has been used.
The labels are self-explanatory: (I) is for “identity”, (M) is for “monotonicity”,
(C) is for “cut” and (S) stands for structurality or “substitution invariance”. A re-
lation satisfying (I), (M) and (C) is a closure relation. Thus, it is safe to identify a
logic with a substitution-invariant closure relation on the algebra6 of formulas.
The relation `L is called the derivability relation or the consequence relation of
the logic. A theorem of the logic is a formula ϕ such that 0/ `L ϕ (one usually writes
just `L ϕ ); in semantically defined logics, the term tautology is used as a synonym
of “theorem”. A theory is a set of formulas that is closed under consequence; that
is, a set Γ ⊆ Fm such that Γ `L ϕ implies ϕ ∈ Γ . The set of all theories of L is
denoted by ThL .
some rôle, are Kracht (2007) and Galatos et al. (2007, pp. 72,88).
8 Josep Maria Font
the fact that a logic is or is not algebraizable depends only on the consequence rela-
tion itself, not on its presentation.9
In contrast, in Galatos, Jipsen, Kowalski, and Ono (2007, p. 9), we can read that
“one and the same logic can be algebraizable in one presentation and not algebraiz-
able in another”. This seems to contradict the previous paragraph, but the contra-
diction is only apparent, because the terms “logic” and “presentation” are used in
different senses: in the previous paragraph the term “logic” was used in the techni-
cal sense of Definition 2.1, and by different “presentations” I meant different ways
of defining the consequence relation; in the sentence just quoted, the term “logic”
is used in a liberal, informal way, so that several formal systems of incomparable
frameworks are viewed as different “presentations” (or “formalizations”) of “the
same logic”, in the sense we say, for instance, that classical logic can be formalized
or presented both as a sentential logic (in the technical sense of Definition 2.1) and
as a two-sided, multiple-conclusion sequent calculus.
In this chapter, algebraizability is described primarily as concerning sentential
logics in the sense of Definition 2.1; but in Section 8, we see that it can be applied
to Gentzen systems as well, mutatis mutandis, so that the situation hinted at in the
sentence quoted applies. To mention just a very simple example: the conjunction-
disjunction fragment of classical logic is not algebraizable when it is formalized as a
sentential logic (Font and Verdú, 1991), but it is algebraizable when it is formalized
as a Gentzen system (Rebagliato and Verdú, 1993).
Logics defined by syntactic means are normally finitary; that is, they satisfy, for
all Γ ∪ {ϕ} ⊆ Fm,
Logics defined semantically need not have this property, and accordingly in this
chapter it is not considered as part of the definition; but notice that many works (in
particular, those by Blok and Pigozzi themselves) do consider it so.
Definition 2.1 establishes a crisp boundary delimiting which formalizations of
logic may be covered by the algebraizability paradigm, and more generally by ab-
stract algebraic logic as evolved from the algebraizability paradigm and related stud-
ies. Before going on, let me say a word about what is not covered by Definition 2.1,
and hence by the algebraizability paradigm; notice that almost every alternative for-
malization of the notion of a logic has been studied algebraically to some degree,
but such studies either do not fit into the framework of this chapter, or have not
attained a comparable degree of sophistication. Technically, logics understood as
Gentzen-style systems of several kinds (one-conclusion, multiple-conclusion, one-
sided, many-sided, etc.) do not fall under Definition 2.1, but as already said, many
9 Quite a different issue is whether one is able or not, or whether it is easy, to prove that a given
logic is algebraizable, or to disprove this. This indeed may depend heavily on its presentation.
Indeed, there are better tools to achieve this for syntactically presented logics (see Theorems 4.1
and 5.3) than for semantically presented ones (see Theorem 4.14); but, more generally, Moraschini
(2016) has proved that the general classification problem, either in the Leibniz hierarchy or in the
Frege hierarchy, is undecidable for axiomatically presented logics (hence a fortiori for arbitrary
logics), while it is decidable for logics defined by a finite set of finite matrices of finite type.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 9
of the basic ideas can be adapted to fit these formalisms, since they define conse-
quence relations on sets of “formulas” of more complicated grammatical structure.
More radical is the difference in the case of “symmetric” consequence relations, and
of non-monotonic logics. But probably the most important large area that may be
missing here is the algebraization of predicate logics. As Blok and Pigozzi (1989,
Appendix C) say: “The problem of algebraizing predicate logic is of a different
character than the problem for propositional logics because the standard deductive
systems for predicate logic are not structural [. . . ]”. In fact, the algebraic study of
predicate logics has a long tradition10 and has produced a vast literature as well
as many remarkable results, some of great technical difficulty; but the approach is
based on another general definition of the notion of a logic, which incorporates a
semantic component. The chapter by Andréka, Németi, and Sain (2001) is a good
guide to and place to start the study of this area.
Note the usage of ≈ for formal equations, and of ∧ and → for the first-order con-
junction and implication needed to write quasi-equations; these two symbols should
not be confused with the sentential connectives of conjunction (∧) and implication
(→), which may or may not be present in the language L of a particular sentential
logic under consideration.
ConA is the set of congruences of an algebra A. Hom(A, B) is the set of all
homomorphisms from algebra A to algebra B, and End(A) := Hom(A, A) is the set
of all endomorphisms of A.
Sequences of the form ha1 , . . . , an i or han : n ∈ ωi are denoted by ~a, while “~a ∈
~A” is shorthand for “ai ∈ A for every i”; this is used for variables, formulas and
elements of arbitrary algebras. If δ denotes a formula, writing it as δ (z,~z) expresses
the assumption that the variables occurring in it belong to the set {z, z1 , . . . , zn }, and
that a special rôle is assigned to z (the remaining variables are then referred to
as parameters); this notation is mainly used so as to be able to write δ (α , ~β ) to
denote the result of a substitution (defined by z 7→ α and zi 7→ βi ) on δ (z,~z), and to
describe the interpretations of this formula in a practical way: if h ∈ Hom(Fm, A)
satisfies h(z) = a and h(zi ) = ci , then h(δ ) is also denoted by δ A (a,~c). The same
notation (more familiar in the interpretation of terms in universal algebra and model
theory) is extended to sets of formulas and of equations in the natural way; recall
10 To the best of my knowledge, the term “abstract algebraic logic” first appears in the literature
in the title of Section 5.6 of Henkin, Monk, and Tarski (1985), which is devoted to a general study
of the connections between theories of classical first-order logic and classes of cylindric algebras.
A related approach, through polyadic algebras, is offered by Halmos (1962), who is generally
credited for having coined the term “algebraic logic”. A third, essentially different approach to
the algebraic study of predicate logics exploits Mostowski’s idea of interpreting quantifiers as
infinite meets and joins in ordered structures (rather than as independent algebraic operations);
over time this has become the most popular choice for the algebraic study of particular first-order
non-classical logics for which a successful algebraic study of their sentential fragment exists: see
Rasiowa (1974), Cintula and Noguera (2015) and Hájek (1998).
10 Josep Maria Font
that equations are just pairs of formulas, so that if E(x) ⊆ Eq is a set of equations
A
a single variable x and a ∈AA, then E A(a) ⊆ AA × A; more precisely, if E(x) =
in
αi (x) ≈ βi (x) : i ∈ I , then E (a) = hαi (a), βi (a)i : i ∈ I .
The consequence `L of a logic relates sets of formulas to single formulas. This
relation is extended, with the same notation, to a relation between two sets of for-
mulas, by putting, for Γ , Γ 0 ⊆ Fm,
def
Γ `L Γ 0 ⇐⇒ Γ `L ϕ for all ϕ ∈ Γ 0 .
3 Bare algebraizability
There is a host of logics L for which there exists a class of algebras K such that
the following algebraic completeness theorem holds. For all Γ ∪ {ϕ} ⊆ Fm,
Here, 1 denotes a special element in the algebras of the class K. When this element
is an algebraic constant of the class K, a logic L satisfying (1) is called the asser-
tional logic of K. Table 1 recaps some of the best-known examples, but you most
probably know of other cases.
For many years, the algebraic study of many logics rested mainly upon this kind
of algebraic completeness and its consequences. The genius of Blok and Pigozzi
was to realize that this completeness result can be generalized and enhanced in
three directions:
• Expressing (1) as a relation between two substitution-invariant closure relations:
the consequence relation `L of the logic and another relation K , associated
with the class of algebras K.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 11
L K
Classical (sentential) logic Boolean algebras
Intuitionistic logic Heyting algebras
Dummett-Gödel logic Linear Heyting algebras
Łukasiewicz’s infinitely-valued logic MV-algebras
Global consequence of modal system K Normal modal algebras
Global consequence of modal system S4 Closure algebras
Global consequence of modal system S5 Monadic algebras
BCK logic BCK algebras
Table 1 Some logics and their algebraic counterparts obtained by the traditional method.
Definition 3.1. Let K be a class of algebras (of a common similarity type). The
equational consequence relative to K is the relation between sets of equations and
equations defined, for any Θ ∪ {ε ≈ δ } ⊆ Eq, as
def
Θ K ε ≈ δ ⇐⇒ for all A ∈ K and all h ∈ Hom(Fm, A) ,
(2)
h(α) = h(β ) for all α ≈ β ∈ Θ implies h(ε) = h(δ ).
T
For an algebra A, A means {A} , so that K = A∈K A . Sometimes writing A
α ≈ β [[h]] instead of h(α) = h(β ) helps to emphasize the model-theoretic aspect of
this relation.
As usual, A α ≈ β means that h(α) = h(β ) for all h ∈ Hom(Fm, A). These two
consequences are really different, as may be guessed from the different scope of the
quantifiers “for all h” present in (2) and implicit in (3). Both consequences and
K satisfy the replacement rule
α ≈β
for each formula δ (z,~z), (4)
δ (α,~z) ≈ δ (β ,~z)
where ~x denotes the sequence of the variables that occur in the enclosed formula.
The algebraic completeness theorem (1) can be expressed, in terms of K , as
Γ `L ϕ ⇐⇒ {γ ≈ 1 : γ ∈ Γ } K ϕ ≈ 1. (5)
In light of this, the completeness result acquires a more algebraic rather than seman-
tic tone, and at the same time one that makes several generalizations possible and
natural, as discussed next.
12For simplicity, closure under the product operator includes the case of the product of an empty
family, which is defined to be a trivial algebra.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 13
the associated equivalence relation =||=K and its extension to sets are defined simi-
larly to a`L :
def
Θ =||=K Θ 0 ⇐⇒ Θ K Θ 0 and Θ 0 K Θ
The use of the equational consequence of the relevant class of algebras in order
to convert the algebraic completeness theorem (1) into the equivalence (5) was
made possible by “rewriting” each formula α as the equation α ≈ 1. For this to
make sense, this 1 should be a symbol of the language; either a primitive con-
stant or a constant term in the relevant class of algebras. We often say that we
have “translated” formulas into equations, but technically, the function is called a
transformer;13 moreover, in general we take it that it turns a formula into a set of
equations rather than a single equation (you will see why later on). Observe also
that the translation has been achieved by taking a “basic” equation x ≈ 1 and then
replacing x by α in it. Putting all these features together, we arrive at the following
notion.
For this definition to make sense, substitutions are extended to equations in the
natural way, i.e., by defining σ (α ≈ β ) :=Sσ (α) ≈ σ (β ), and to sets of equations
by taking unions, i.e., by defining σ (Θ ) := α≈β ∈Θ σ (α ≈ β ); then, the expression
σ τ (ϕ) makes sense.
Meanwhile, transformers are also extended to sets of formulas by taking unions,
S
i.e., τ (Γ ) := ϕ∈Γ τ (ϕ). A function between the two power sets satisfies this if
and only if it commutes with unions; thus, it is equally useful to think of a structural
transformer as a function τ : P(Fm) → P(Eq) that commutes with unions14 and
with substitutions.
It is easy to see that:
13 The term “translation” is much overused in the literature.
14 Considering the natural lattice structure of these power sets (with set inclusion as the order rela-
tion), a function that commutes with unions is just a residuated function from P(Fm) to P(Eq).
The residuation view is the key to the more abstract approaches to the notion of algebraizability
that are briefly touched upon in Section 8.
14 Josep Maria Font
In many cases, the set τ (ϕ) is actually unitary, as in the previous example, where
τ (α) = {α ≈ 1}, obtained from the equation x ≈ 1. In many cases where there is no
constant 1 in the language, the equation x ≈ x → x works as well; but there are more
complicated examples; for instance, Blok and Pigozzi (1989) show that relevance
logic R satisfies a result like (5) with x ∧ (x → x) ≈ x → x playing the rôle of x ≈ 1.
Those authors gave the general form of (5) a name:
Γ `L ϕ ⇐⇒ τ (Γ ) K τ (ϕ). (ALG1)
A logic has an algebraic semantics when it has a τ -algebraic semantics for some
structural transformer, τ . The equations in a single variable of the set E(x) that
defines τ are called the defining equations of the algebraic semantics.
and we can view Table 1 as listing algebraic semantics of a few well-known logics.
In this way, the term “algebraic semantics” has acquired a very precise, technical
meaning. Note, however, that the term is very often used in a more ambiguous sense:
as indicating that there is some kind of relation between a certain logic and a certain
class of algebras, but not necessarily in the sense of Definition 3.4; as an example
of this consider the local consequence associated with modal system S4: it is also
related to the class of closure algebras, as we see on page 27, but this class is not,
technically, an algebraic semantics for that logic.
Observe that if K is an algebraic semantics for a logic L , then any other class
K0 such that K = K0 is one as well, with the same defining equations. Thus, for
instance, the single two-element Boolean algebra 2, or the class of all finite Boolean
algebras, are also algebraic semantics for classical logic (together with the class
of all Boolean algebras). The results of Blok and Rebagliato (2003) show that an
algebraic semantics for a logic can be quite weird; the bare notion has received little
attention and seems to be of limited interest by itself. Only when coupled with the
inverse translation to be discussed in the next section does it give rise to a more
interesting notion.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 15
Θ K ε ≈ δ ⇐⇒ ρ (Θ ) `L ρ (ε ≈ δ ). (ALG2)
There is no name for logics that satisfy this property alone; it holds in all equivalen-
tial logics (one of the classes in the Leibniz hierarchy), and it actually characterizes
them if supplemented with a rather natural property of the set ∆ (x, y); see Theo-
rem 6.2.
The “reverse algebraic completeness” expressed by (ALG2) is certainly found in
classical logic and Boolean algebras, or in intuitionistic logic and Heyting algebras,
although it is not usually expressed through K . Those logics (and many others) sat-
isfy (ALG2) relative to the corresponding class of algebras with ∆ (x, y) = {x ↔ y};
the case where Θ is the empty set may look more familiar: it says that an equation
ε ≈ δ holds in all Boolean (resp. Heyting) algebras if and only if the formula ε ↔ δ
is a theorem of classical (resp. intuitionistic) logic, and these are well-known facts.
It is easy to see that if a logic L satisfies (ALG2) with respect to a class K
through a transformer ρ , then any fragment of L whose language contains the
language of the formulas that define ρ also satisfies it, with respect to the appro-
priate class of algebraic reducts of the algebras in K. In the examples of classical
and intuitionistic logic, this applies to all their fragments containing ↔ (obvious);
but also to all those containing implication →, if instead of {x ↔ y} we consider
∆ (x, y) = {x → y , y → x}, which performs the same function. This explains why, in
the general case, it is natural to take transformers as mapping an equation to a set of
formulas, and symmetrically a formula to a set of equations.
Algebraizability adds, to the existence of two transformers going back and forth
between the logic and the equational consequence of the class of algebras, the re-
quirement that these transformers are mutually inverse modulo the consequences.
This is reflected in the two additional conditions found in the real definition:15
15 This is actually an extension of the original notion, due to Blok and Pigozzi (1989); see Section 5
for details.
16 Josep Maria Font
Definition 3.5. A logic L is algebraizable when there are a class K of algebras and
structural tranformers τ : P(Fm) → P(Eq) and ρ : P(Eq) → P(Fm) such that
for all Γ ∪ {ϕ} ⊆ Fm and all Θ ∪ {ε ≈ δ } ⊆ Eq, the following conditions hold:
Γ `L ϕ ⇐⇒ τ (Γ ) K τ (ϕ) (ALG1)
Θ K ε ≈ δ ⇐⇒ ρ (Θ ) `L ρ (ε ≈ δ ) (ALG2)
ϕ a`L ρ τ (ϕ) (ALG3)
ε ≈ δ =||=K τ ρ (ε ≈ δ ) (ALG4)
The equations E(x) that define the transformer τ are called the defining equations,
and the formulas ∆ (x, y) that define the transformer ρ are called the equivalence
formulas. The equivalent algebraic semantics of an algebraizable logic L is the
largest class K satisfying the above properties.16
Observe that, by substitution invariance, it is enough to require that conditions
(ALG3) and (ALG4) hold just for variables (instead of arbitrary formulas):
x a`L ρ τ (x) (ALG3)
x ≈ y =||=K τ ρ (x ≈ y) (ALG4)
The more direct approach to algebraizability is through (ALG1) and (ALG4): while
(ALG1) is a natural completeness theorem of the logic L relative to the class
of algebras K, the condition (ALG4) concerns the class K alone. Moreover, the
consequence x ≈ y K τ ρ (x ≈ y) is trivially equivalent to the statement that
K τ ρ (x ≈ x) . Thus, a logic is algebraizable if and only if it has a τ -algebraic se-
mantics K and a reverse transformer ρ such thatin each A ∈ K, the equations of the
set τ ρ (x ≈ x) and the entailment τ ρ (x ≈ y) A x ≈ y hold. The latter property
is a kind of “rule of thumb” for identifying algebraizability: in the candidate class of
algebras, identity should be characterized by some set of equations that collectively
has the form of the equations appearing in the algebraic completeness, applied to
a set of two-variable formulas. For instance, there is a very large class of algebras
associated with non-classical logics where the quasi-equation
(x → y ≈ 1)∧∧ (y → x ≈ 1) → x ≈ y
that we have assumed a fixed set V of variables, generalized quasivarieties as defined above are
characterized as the classes of algebras that are closed under isomorphisms, subalgebras, products,
and the operation U introduced in Blok and Jónsson (2006):
U(K) := A : If B is a subalgebra of A generated by a set of cardinality 6 |V |, then B ∈ K .
Thus, in particular, generalized quasivarieties are “SP-classes” or prevarieties: these are the classes
that are closed under just isomorphisms, subalgebras and products, and can be characterized as
18 Josep Maria Font
equations and generalized quasi-equations (infinitary formulas that are like quasi-
equations but with a possibly infinite conjunction of equations in the antecedent of
the implication). In fact, such a class is the only generalized quasivariety that sat-
isfies the algebraizability conditions for a given logic. Moreover, it is also easy to
show20 that this class is independent of the transformers. Thus, it is a uniquely de-
termined algebraic object associated with an algebraizable logic. Later on, in the
proof of Theorem 4.1, we see how to construct it explicitly, starting from the logic
and any pair of transformers that show algebraizability; see also footnote 22.
It is common to hear or read that the notion of algebraizability arises from a gener-
alization of the Lindenbaum-Tarski procedure of proving the completeness of clas-
sical logic with respect to the class of Boolean algebras, in the sense of (1) or (5),
and similar statements. In order to understand why this is so, let us review how that
original process works.
In this subsection, L denotes classical logic (or another logic with similar prop-
erties; see below), and we assume it is defined by some axiomatic system that
has modus ponens for the implication connective (MP→ ) x , x → y `L y among
its inference rules; while K denotes the class of Boolean algebras (or the corre-
sponding class for other logics). The proof of the completeness theorem (1) by the
Lindenbaum-Tarski method has two separate halves which have very different the-
oretical importance:
(⇒) This is called the Soundness Theorem, and is proved by what is commonly
called routine checking; i.e., by checking that if h ∈ Hom(Fm, A) for a Boolean
algebra A, then h(ϕ) = 1 for all axioms ϕ , and that all inference rules preserve the
property of “being evaluated to 1”. In the case of (MP→ ) this means checking that
if h(ϕ) = 1 and h(ϕ → ψ) = 1 then h(ψ) = 1. All this work is purely algebraic and
uses the properties of Boolean algebras in an essential way; for instance, checking
(MP→ ) amounts to checking that in any Boolean algebra, if 1 → a = 1, then a = 1
(and this holds simply because 1 → a = ¬1 ∨ a = 0 ∨ a = a). Then, induction on the
those defined by (a possibly proper class of) generalized quasi-equations in a language having a
proper class of variables (see for instance Hodges, 1993, § 9.2). Note that the term implicational
(or implicative) class has been used in the literature for ordinary quasivarieties, for generalized
quasivarieties, and for prevarieties.
20 This can be proved directly, just from the definition of algebraizability; but see also Corol-
lary 4.15.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 19
It may at first seem that in order to establish the algebraizability of a logic, one
must previously know of a candidate class of algebras K that satisfies one of the
two equivalent pairs of conditions in the definition (notice that K appears in three of
the four conditions). The following fundamental result, usually called the syntactic
characterization, offers a way to establish algebraizability using conditions exclu-
sively on the logic; moreover it gives a way to find the corresponding equivalent
algebraic semantics. It has been used very often in particular cases, and its proof
is particularly instructive, as it clearly shows that the five conditions it contains are
exactly those that are needed for the Lindenbaum-Tarski process to work in this
generalized way.
Theorem 4.1. A logic L is algebraizable if and only if there are sets of equations
E(x) ⊆ Eq and of formulas ∆ (x, y) ⊆ Fm such that L satisfies the following five
conditions:
`L ∆ (x, x) (R∆ )
∆ (x, y) `L ∆ (y, x) (Sym∆ )
∆ (x, y) ∪ ∆ (y, z) `L ∆ (x, z) (Trans∆ )
21 Examples of this strategy are the completeness of the basic fuzzy logic BL with respect to
linear BL-algebras (Hájek, 1998) and its generalization to the so-called implicational semilinear
logics (Cintula and Noguera, 2010), which include all the usual fuzzy logics.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 21
n
[
∆ (xi , yi ) `L ∆ (λ x1 . . . xn , λ y1 . . . yn ) for all λ ∈ L, with n = arλ (Re∆ )
i=1
x a`L ∆ E(x) (ALG3)
Then, E(x) is the set of defining equations and ∆ (x, y) is the set of equivalence
formulas; and the equivalent algebraic semantics of L is the class
ρ ) := A : τ (Γ ) A τ (ϕ) whenever Γ `L ϕ ,
K(L ,ττ ,ρ
(6)
and E ∆ (x, y) A x ≈ y .
(LT1) One starts from the assumption that Γ 0L ϕ , and one considers the theory
Γ 0 of L generated by Γ . Thus, Γ ⊆ Γ 0 while ϕ ∈ / Γ 0.
(LT2) One defines the relation α ≡ β (Ω Γ 0 ) if and only if ∆ (α , β ) ⊆ Γ 0 .
(LT3) One shows that Ω Γ 0 is a congruence of Fm; this results from mechanical
application of conditions (R∆ )–(Re∆ ). Observe that each formalizes one of
the properties required: reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity, and compatibility
with the operations, respectively.
(LT4) One shows that the quotient of the formula algebra under this congru-
ence belongs to the target class, i.e., that Fm/Ω Γ 0 ∈ K. To this end, one
has to show that Fm/Ω Γ 0 satisfies the two conditions in (6). Both are
shown by using the property in the next step (LT5) and the trick that any
h ∈ Hom(Fm, Fm/Ω Γ 0 ) has the form h = π ◦ σ for some substitution σ ,
where π : Fm → Fm/Ω Γ 0 is the canonical projection.
(LT5) One shows that for any α ∈ Fm , α ∈ Γ 0 if and only if Fm/Ω Γ 0 τ (α) [[π]].
This is easily shown by using exclusively (ALG3); as a matter of fact, this
property is equivalent to the statement that the first sentence in this point
holds for all theories Γ 0 of L .
The “process” stops here. The quotient algebra Fm/Ω Γ 0 is the desired particular
algebra in K, by (LT4), and the canonical projection π ∈ Hom(Fm, Fm/Ω Γ 0 ) is
the desired particular homomorphism. Applying (LT5) to the facts of (LT1), we can
conclude that Fm/Ω Γ 0 τ (Γ ) [[π]] while Fm/Ω Γ 0 6 τ (ϕ) [[π]]. This shows that
τ (Γ ) 6K τ (ϕ) and completes the proof of (ALG1) by contraposition.
The parallelism between this proof and the particular one given above for clas-
sical logic is clear; observe that the present (LT5) condenses steps (LT5) and (LT6)
of the case of classical logic, because the equality α/Ω Γ 0 = 1 appearing there in
step (LT6) can be rewritten as the condition Fm/Ω Γ 0 α ≈ 1 [[π]]. In the case of
an arbitrary algebraizable logic, there is no need to show that all formulas in Γ 0 are
equivalent under Ω Γ 0 , and it makes no sense to speak of the top element of the
algebras in K, as they might not have one. Among the examples of substructural
logics mentioned near the end of Section 3.4, there are many where these additional
properties do not hold.
Since every algebraizable logic satisfies the five conditions, the second part of
the proof confirms the common claim that algebraizable logics satisfy an algebraic
completeness theorem proved by a natural generalization of the Lindenbaum-Tarski
process. Moreover, the same proof clearly shows that the completeness also holds
(as does the algebraizability) for just the class of algebras
Fm/Ω Γ 0 : Γ 0 ∈ ThL .
(7)
After Theorem 4.11, we see that these algebras deserve the name Lindenbaum-
Tarski algebras of the logic L , and they are uniquely determined by it (i.e., they do
not depend on the particular set of formulas ∆ used to define Ω Γ 0 ).
The properties mentioned at the end of Section 3.4 follow immediately from
Theorem 4.1: since all the conditions (R∆ )–(Re∆ ) are formulated in terms of the
Abstract Algebraic Logic 23
Thus, once an algebraizable logic is found and its equivalent algebraic semantics
is identified, one can deal with the lattice of its extensions, in a uniform way, by
studying the lattice of sub-generalized quasivarieties of the base class of algebras.
This generalizes a number of well-known situations, where attention is restricted to
the axiomatic extensions of a particular logic and to the lattice of subvarieties of a
particular variety. For more applications of Theorem 4.2, see the end of Section 7.
After having reviewed the Lindenbaum-Tarski process for classical logic and for
algebraizable logics, it is now time to encounter its generalization to absolutely
every logic; as is to be expected, this does not rely on the existence of certain sets of
formulas or equations with particular properties, but on a more abstract construction
which requires a few basic notions of matrix semantics for sentential logics. Logical
matrices are constituted by an algebra together with a subset of its universe, and in
this sense they are clearly “algebra-based” objects.
24 Josep Maria Font
Proof. Part (⇒) is just the definition of model. Part (⇐) is proved by a radical
simplification of the Lindenbaum-Tarski process, as follows. Assume that Γ 6`L ϕ ;
just do step (LT1) and obtain the theory Γ 0 generated by Γ ; take hFm,Γ 0 i as the
required model (it is, by Lemma 4.4) and the identity function from the formula
algebra into itself as the required homomorphism; this falsifies the right-hand side
of (9).
The real generalization of the process requires, of course, a factorization step,
and the choice of the right class of algebras (actually, of matrices) so that part (⇒)
and step (LT4) work. There is a common misunderstanding, according to which the
factorization can only be performed for logics where there is some formula or set of
formulas that defines a congruence, as in the two versions of step (LT2) previously
shown, or else in those logics where the interderivability relation a`L is itself a
congruence. But this is not the case: there is always a natural, canonical way of
factorizing every model of every logic. To this end, the following notions are crucial:
23 The logical usage of the term “filter” is undoubtedly inspired by its algebraic and topological
origins. Sometimes the term “deductive filter” is used to emphasize the difference.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 25
A matrix is reduced when its Leibniz congruence is the identity relation. The class
of all reduced matrices that are models of a logic L is denoted by Mod∗L .
The largest compatible congruence always exists, because the ordinary supre-
mum of a family of compatible congruences (which exists because ConA is a com-
plete lattice) is also compatible. Notice that Ω A F is a purely algebraic object, and
does not depend on any logic. The following characterization, due independently to
Shoesmith and Smiley (1978) and to Czelakowski (1980), extends an idea that is
already present in Łoś (1949):
Theorem 4.7. For any L-matrix hA, Fi and any a, b ∈ A , a ≡ b (Ω AF) if and only
~
if for all δ (x,~z) ∈ Fm and all ~c ∈ A , δ (a,~c) ∈ F ⇔ δ A (b,~c) ∈ F .
A
Though the notion is older than its namesake, it was named after Leibniz by
Blok and Pigozzi (1989), based on their reading of this characterization24 as stating
that the Leibniz congruence is a first-order analogue of the definition of identity in
second-order logic. The Leibniz congruence has also been called the indiscernibility
relation or, in a more linguistic-oriented view and for the particular case of the
formula algebra, the synonymity relation. The main basic properties we need are:
The inclusion follows from Lemma 4.4 and points 2 and 3 of Lemma 4.8. Then:
Theorem 4.9 (Wójcicki, 1973). Every logic L is complete with respect to any class
of matrices M such that LTMod∗L ⊆ M ⊆ Mod∗L . That is, for all Γ ∪ {ϕ} ⊆ Fm,
24 Actually, of a stronger one, formulated in the framework where L-matrices are considered as
structures for a first-order language whose constants and function symbols are those in L, and
which has only one relation symbol, a unary one, interpreted as the filter of the matrix. This deeply
influential idea, due to Bloom (1975), is further explained on page 44.
26 Josep Maria Font
In particular, every logic is complete with respect to the class of its Lindenbaum-
Tarski models and with respect to the class of all its reduced models.
Proof. Part (⇒) follows from the assumption that M ⊆ Mod∗L , and part (⇐) is
proved by the real generalization of the Lindenbaum-Tarski process:
(LT1) One starts from the assumption that Γ 0L ϕ , and one considers Γ 0 , the
theory of L generated by Γ . Thus, Γ ⊆ Γ 0 while ϕ ∈ / Γ 0.
(LT2) One considers the Leibniz congruence Ω FmΓ 0 given by Definition 4.6.
(LT3) According to its own definition, Ω FmΓ 0 is a congruence of Fm.
(LT4) The quotient matrix hFm/Ω FmΓ 0 , Γ 0 /Ω FmΓ 0 i belongs to M by the as-
sumption that LTMod∗L ⊆ M.
(LT5) For any α ∈ Fm , α ∈ Γ 0 if and only if α/Ω FmΓ 0 ∈ Γ 0 /Ω FmΓ 0 , by point 1
of Lemma 4.8.
In particular, by (LT1) plus (LT5), the canonical projection π ∈ Hom(Fm, Fm/Ω FmΓ 0 )
defined by π(α) := α/Ω Γ 0 for all α ∈ Fm satisfies that π(Γ ) ⊆ π(Γ 0 ) = Γ 0 /Ω FmΓ 0
while π(ϕ) ∈ / Γ 0 /Ω FmΓ 0 . Taking (LT4) into account, this falsifies the right-hand
side of (11), and finishes the proof.
The Completeness Theorem 4.9, for M = Mod∗L , can be restated in terms of the
class of algebras as follows:
In the best behaved cases, the conditions in the last row can be formulated men-
tioning only the class of algebras; for instance, if L is classical logic, they amount
25 Sometimes the algebras in Alg∗L are called the Leibniz-reduced algebras of L .
Abstract Algebraic Logic 27
to F = {1}, so that Mod∗L = hA, {1}i : A is a Boolean algebra , and (12) be-
comes (1), our starting point. Similarly for the other logics in Table 1 on page 11.
Corollary 4.15 shows that this simplification to use just algebras is actually possible
whenever L is algebraizable, but it is not possible in general; the class Alg∗L does
not characterize the logic, and matrices cannot be dispensed with. The paradigmatic
case of the two consequences associated with any normal system S of modal logic
has already been mentioned: for them, Alg∗ (``S ) = Alg∗ (`gS ); for S4, this is the
variety of closure algebras. In Lemma 6.3, we see that there is a one-to-one nat-
ural correspondence between Mod∗L and Alg∗L for a large class of logics that
includes the algebraizable ones as well as many others.
In this section, we see how the Lindenbaum-Tarski process for algebraizable log-
ics matches the universal process, and we check what was announced before: the
algebraizable version arises from the general one by plugging two definability con-
ditions into the two crucial steps of the process. To do this, we need to consider
the general version of a property that was seen to play a key rôle in the process for
classical logic. Consider the following generalization of modus ponens:
x , ∆ (x, y) `L y (MP∆ )
Lemma 4.10. Every algebraizable logic L satisfies (MP∆ ) for any of its sets of
equivalence formulas ∆ .
Proof. By (ALG1), condition (MP∆ ) holds if and only if E(x), E ∆ (x, y) K E(y).
But by condition (ALG4), this holds if and only if E(x), x ≈ y K E(y), and this is
trivially true.
It turns out that coupling (MP∆ ) with four of the five conditions of Theorem 4.1
amounts to one of the definability conditions we are after:
Theorem 4.11 (Czelakowski, 1981). Let L be a logic and let ∆ (x, y) ⊆ Fm. The
following conditions are equivalent.
(i) L satisfies conditions (R∆ )–(Re∆ ) and (MP∆ ).
(ii) The set ∆ defines the Leibniz congruence in every model of L , in the sense
that for every hA, Fi ∈ ModL and every a, b ∈ A , a ≡ b (Ω A F) if and only if
∆ A (a, b) ⊆ F .
(iii) The set ∆ defines equality in every reduced model of L , in the sense that for
every hA, Fi ∈ Mod∗L and every a, b ∈ A , a = b if and only if ∆ A (a, b) ⊆ F .
When these conditions hold, ∆ is called a set of equivalence formulas26 for L .
26 They are also called “congruence formulas”, for obvious reasons.
28 Josep Maria Font
The logics that satisfy any of these equivalent conditions are considered in Def-
inition 6.1. It is possible to show that conditions (Sym∆ ) and (Trans∆ ) can be dis-
pensed with in point (i) of this result.
By Theorem 4.1 and Lemma 4.10, algebraizable logics satisfy point (i) of Theo-
rem 4.11; this confirms that the congruence denoted simply as Ω Γ 0 in steps (LT2)
on pages 19 and 22 coincides with Ω FmΓ 0 (thus justifying the initial choice of
notation), and that the rôle played by conditions (R∆ )–(Re∆ ) in step (LT3) of the
algebraizable case corresponds to the fact that in the general case we are factoring
out by a congruence. Thus, from this point onwards, I write Ω instead of Ω Fm ,
even in the general case. Moreover, this coincidence also shows that the congruence
Ω Γ 0 defined above does not depend on the particular set ∆ used to define it; and in
particular that the algebras in (7) are the algebraic reducts of the Lindenbaum-Tarski
models of (10).
The other definability condition concerns truth; the set F in a matrix hA, Fi is
called the truth filter because when using matrices as semantics for logics as in (8)
or (9), the truth condition is “to belong to F ”. Using Theorems 4.5 and 4.9, one
finds the following.
Theorem 4.12 (Herrmann, 1993). Let L be a logic having a set ∆ of equivalence
formulas, and let E(x) ⊆ Eq. The following conditions are equivalent.
(i) L satisfies condition (ALG3) for ∆ and E .
(ii) The set E defines truth from the Leibniz congruence in every model of L , in
the sense that for every hA, Fi ∈ ModL and every a ∈ A , a ∈ F if and only if
E A (a) ⊆ Ω A F .
(iii) The set E defines truth from equality in every reduced model of L , in the
sense that for every hA, Fi ∈ Mod∗L and every a ∈ A , a ∈ F if and only if
A E(x) [[a]].
Note that the set ∆ does not appear in conditions (ii) and (iii); actually, the equiv-
alence between these two is independent of the assumption about ∆ made in the
theorem, and the logics that satisfy either of these two conditions are considered in
Definition 6.1.
Again, comparison between steps (LT5) in the two versions of the process on
pages 22 and 26 shows that in the algebraizable case the truth condition has been
made definable by satisfaction of equations E . Thus, coupling Theorem 4.1 with the
two preceding ones we obtain:
Corollary 4.13. A logic is algebraizable if and only if, in all its reduced models,
equality is definable from the truth filter through a set ∆ (x, y) in the sense of Theo-
rem 4.11(iii) and the truth filter is definable from equality through a set E(x) in the
sense of Theorem 4.12(iii).
This view of algebraizability as mutual interdefinability of equality and the truth
filter allows us to obtain one of the few general results that characterize algebraiz-
ability for semantically defined logics (it is, however, of limited application). A finite
algebra is primal when for all n ∈ ω , all functions f : An → A are definable by a
term in n variables. Using just the definition, it is not difficult to show the following.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 29
Theorem 4.14. Let L be a logic defined by a finite matrix hA, Fi such that A is a
/ Then L is algebraizable.27
primal algebra and F 6= 0.
To obtain a more graphical rendering of the next property, it is useful to consider
the set
SolτA := a ∈ A : A E(x) [[a]] ,
that is, the set of solutions of the equations E(x) that define the transformer τ ;
thus, it is what we could call, with a geometrical analogy, an “algebraic set”. Now,
condition 4.12(iii) says that F = SolτA for each hA, Fi ∈ Mod∗L ; from this it is
easy to prove that the classes of algebras obtained by the algebraizability approach
and by the universal matrix semantics coincide for algebraizable logics.
Corollary 4.15. If L is an algebraizable logic, with transformers τ and ρ , then
Mod∗L = hA, SolτA i : A ∈ Alg∗L and Alg∗L = K(L ,ττ ,ρ
ρ ), the equivalent al-
gebraic semantics of L .
Since Mod∗L and Alg∗L are intrinsic28 to L , this is one way of showing that
the notion of the equivalent algebraic semantics and the class K(L ,ττ ,ρ ρ ) are inde-
pendent of the actual transformers. In this case, there is a one-to-one correspondence
between reduced models and algebras of the equivalent algebraic semantics of L ;
and the algebraic completeness theorem (12) can be expressed solely in terms of the
class of algebras Alg∗L .
Although the proof of Theorem 4.1 was presented as a natural generalization of the
Lindenbaum-Tarski process for classical logic and other similar logics, historically
it took a long time before this possibility was recognized and the general notion of
an algebraizable logic was isolated.
A first, much earlier generalization isolated the rôle of the implication connective
as used in Section 4.1; as a consequence, the class of logics it applies to is more
restricted than that of the algebraizable ones, but is still very large, and forms the
most popular kind of algebraizable logics.
Definition 4.16. An implicative logic is a logic L in a language L having a binary
term, represented here by x → y, such that the following conditions are satisfied.
(IL1) `L x → x.
(IL2) x → y , y → z `L x → z.
(IL3) x1 → y1 , . . . , xn → yn , y1 → x1 , . . . , yn → xn `L λ x1 . . . xn → λ y1 . . . yn , for
each λ ∈ L, of arity n > 0.
27Actually, the logic is BP-algebraizable, in the sense of Definition 5.1.
28In the sense that they are uniquely determined by L . In the reverse sense, only Mod∗L deter-
mines L , by Theorem 4.9; Alg∗L does not, as already mentioned at the end of Section 4.3.
30 Josep Maria Font
(IL4) x , x → y `L y.
(IL5) x `L y → x.
Theorem 4.17. All implicative logics are algebraizable, with defining equation
E(x) := {x ≈ x → x} and equivalence formulas ∆ (x, y) := {x → y , y → x}.
Proof. It is enough to check that the mentioned sets E and ∆ satisfy the conditions
of Theorem 4.1. For this ∆ , (Re∆ ) is exactly (IL1); (Sym∆ ) is contained in the very
definition of ∆ ; (Trans∆ ) and (Re∆ ) are straightforward consequences of (IL2) and
(IL3), respectively; and finally, in this case (ALG3) is x a`L {x → (x → x) , (x →
x) → x}, and this is easily proved using (IL1), (IL4) and (IL5).
The converse of Theorem 4.17 does not hold. The class of implicative logics is
larger than that of the logics that are algebraizable in that way: the five conditions
defining implicative logics are close, but clearly stronger than those in Theorem 4.1;
this is apparent, for instance, if we compare (IL4), which is (MP→ ), with (MP∆ )
for ∆ (x, y) = {x → y , y → x}, which is the condition x , x → y , y → x `L y. Both
sets of conditions are designed to obtain a smooth and natural generalization of
the Lindenbaum-Tarski process; but while in algebraizable logics this is done by
generalizing the properties of the equivalence connective, in implicative logics it
is based on properties of implication, expressed through the binary relation 6Γ 0
def
defined by: α 6Γ 0 β ⇐⇒ Γ 0 `L α → β . It is easy to check that:
• (IL1) is equivalent to requiring that for any Γ 0 ∈ ThL , the relation 6Γ 0 is re-
flexive.
• (IL2) is equivalent to requiring that for any Γ 0 ∈ ThL , the relation 6Γ 0 is tran-
sitive.
Under these two conditions, 6Γ 0 is a quasi-order, and it is well known that its sym-
metrization, which coincides with Ω Γ 0 for ∆ (x, y) = {x → y , y → x}, is an equiva-
lence relation compatible with 6Γ 0 ; so that in the quotient, the quasi-order induces
an order 6 defined by
def
α/Ω Γ 0 6 β /Ω Γ 0 ⇐⇒ α 6Γ 0 β ⇐⇒ Γ 0 `L α → β .
x , y `L ∆ (x, y) (G∆ )
Abstract Algebraic Logic 31
for the particular ∆ we are dealing with here; this condition is a consequence of
(IL5) but is important in its own right, and reappears in Section 6.1.
(In each step, the properties of the preceding steps are assumed to hold.)
If we review the Lindenbaum-Tarski process again, we see that steps (LT1)–
(LT3) are obtained from conditions (IL1)–(IL3); (LT5) is a consequence of (IL4),
which implies that Ω Γ 0 is compatible with Γ 0 ; and in the discussion on page 19 it
was already stressed that in the case of classical logic this step is essentially due to
(MP→ ), here (IL4). Step (LT4) depends on the wise definition of the class K with
respect to which the completeness is to be proved, and in the case of implicative
logics this is actually the class K(L ,ττ ,ρρ ) for the transformers specified in The-
orem 4.17. By the facts pointed out in the previous paragraph, these algebras are
ordered. The stronger form of (IL4) and the additional property (IL5) allow us to
obtain here, unlike in the general case of algebraizable logics, step (LT6); that is,
that the theory Γ 0 constitutes a single element in the quotient Fm/Ω Γ 0 and that
this element is the top element of its order.
Thus, in this case the algebraic completeness is totally parallel to that of classical
or intuitionistic logic. Actually, Henkin (1950) observed that, after changing only
the class of algebras, the process works for the implication fragment of intuition-
istic logic. In parallel, Rasiowa and Sikorski (1953) did the same for its positive
fragment (i.e., admitting also conjunction and disjunction into the language). The
general theory was finally refined29 by Rasiowa (1974) by isolating the conditions
of Definition 4.16, which are somehow weaker and are, as discussed before, exactly
equivalent to what is required for the process to work in this “implicative version”.
Recently, this notion has been weakened and generalized in several natural ways
by Cintula and Noguera (2010), as shown in Definition 5.2, where the logics of
Definition 4.16 are called precisely Rasiowa implicative.
The class of implicative logics is certainly large. Besides all the fragments of
classical or intuitionistic logic containing implication (writing x → x instead of 1 if
necessary), it contains Johansson’s minimal logic, the global consequences of nor-
mal modal logics, Nelson’s constructive logic with strong negation and Rousseau’s
version of Post’s finitely-valued logics. Classical predicate logic, when formalized
as a deductive system satisfying Definition 2.1, as in Appendix C of Blok and
Pigozzi (1989), is also implicative. It is clear that any extension of an implicative
logic is also implicative, and that an expansion is implicative if and only if the new
connectives satisfy condition (IL3).
29 Rasiowa’s notion assumes two inessential requirements for the language: that it contains no
connectives of arity greater than 2, and that → is a primitive connective (rather than an arbitrary
term in two variables). Moreover, she considers finitarity as part of the definition of a logic. All
these restrictions are usually removed in later studies.
32 Josep Maria Font
It may seem strange that the term “finitely” does not mean that the two transform-
ers are finite. This is due to historical reasons (see footnote 33) and to the (straight-
forward) fact that for finitary algebraizable logics, the set E(x) can always be taken
as finite; therefore, for finitary and finitely algebraizable logics both transformers
can be taken as finite, as in Blok and Pigozzi’s original definition. This explains the
name “BP-algebraizable”. Similarly, when K is finitary, the set ∆ (x, y) can always
be taken as finite.
Regularly algebraizable logics have a single defining equation, of the form x ≈ >,
where > is any theorem of the logic with at most one variable x. Since this equation
defines the truth filter SolτA of reduced models, it turns out that for these logics the
truth filter of reduced models is a one-element set.
Clearly, all implicative logics are in fact finitely regularly algebraizable. It is
instructive to review some less standard cases, which show the flexibility of these
general notions and the diversity of logics that fall under their scope.
• Łukasiewicz’s infinitely-valued logic, defined semantically from the unit real in-
terval with {1} as the truth filter, is known to be non-finitary, but it is still im-
plicative, thus falling under Theorem 4.17. Therefore, in this case, the two trans-
formers are finite; but both the logic and its associated equational consequence
(relative to the generalized quasivariety generated by the algebra on the unit real
interval, which is known not to be a quasivariety) are non-finitary.
• The so-called “Last Judgement” logic of Herrmann (1996) is a finitary modal
logic, very close to the local consequence of the minimal normal modal system
K , but without the Necessitation Rule even in its weak version (concerning only
theorems). It is algebraizable, with the single defining equation ¬x ≈ ¬(x → x)
and with the infinite set of equivalence formulas n (x → y), n (y → x) : n > 0 .
30 This phrase is also used to refer, in a more general way, to the idea of characterizing algebraiz-
ability as a relation between the consequence of a logic and the equational consequence of a class
of algebras through transformers, when compared with more distant approaches.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 33
One can show that no finite algebraization is possible, and that the equivalent
equational consequence is not finitary.
• Raftery (2010) constructed an example of a (non-finitary) logic that is finitely
algebraizable but needs an infinite set of defining equations, while its equivalent
algebraic semantics is a variety, and hence has a finitary equational consequence.
• All the substructural logics determined by a variety of residuated lattices studied
by Galatos et al. (2007) are finitely algebraizable, with (x\y) ∧ (y\x) as equiva-
lence formula, and with x ∧ 1 ≈ 1 as defining equation; therefore, the truth filter
of their reduced models has the form {a ∈ A : 1 6 a}. If the variety is integral,
then 1 (the unit of the monoid operation) is the maximum of the lattice order, and
this set reduces to {1}, which means the logic is finitely regularly algebraizable.
If the variety is not integral, then the set is not always unitary, and the logic is not
regularly algebraizable.
A related, intriguing OPEN PROBLEM is that to date, no algebraizable logic is known
whose set of defining equations can be finite but cannot consist of a single equation.
The dual situation is known to be possible: there are algebraizable logics that admit
a finite set of equivalence formulas but not a one-element set (Cintula and Noguera,
2010).
Observe that the Lindenbaum-Tarski process, when performed for a regularly al-
gebraizable logic, takes us to the first point in step (LT6) on page 19; namely, that
all formulas in Γ 0 are mutually equivalent and hence form a single point in the quo-
tient; this is an immediate consequence of condition (G∆ ). Thus, in all these cases
the algebraic models have a single designated element. It need not be, however,
the top element. Actually, in general, the algebras need not even be naturally or-
dered, although this certainly happens in implicative logics. Paradigmatic examples
of finitely regularly algebraizable logics that are not implicative are the equivalence
fragments of classical and of intuitionitic logic.
Actually, there is a qualitative break between implicative logics and algebraizable
logics in general, which you may have already noticed: in the former, the equiva-
lence set {x → y , y → x} has the special feature of being the “symmetrization” of
a simpler set of formulas, namely {x → y}, to which the notion of an implicative
logic assigns definite properties (moreover, this set is a singleton). Extending this
feature, Cintula and Noguera (2010) have introduced further modes of algebraiz-
ability31 which arise as a consequence of generalized modes of being implicative;
briefly, they are as follows.
Definition 5.2. Let ∇(x, y) ⊆ Fm be a set of formulas in two variables, and put
∇s(x, y) := ∇(x, y) ∪ ∇(y, x). Let L be a logic, and consider the following proper-
ties:
`L ∇(x, x) (R∇ )
∇(x, y) ∪ ∇(y, z) `L ∇(x, z) (Trans∇ )
31This approach gave rise to other classes of (non-algebraizable) logics, forming the so-called
implicational hierarchy, which is not described here.
34 Josep Maria Font
n
[
∇s(xi , yi ) `L ∇(λ x1 . . . xn , λ y1 . . . yn ) for all λ ∈ L , n = arλ > 0 (SRe∇ )
i=1
x , ∇(x, y) `L y (MP∇ )
x a`L ∇s E(x) for some E(x) ⊆ Eq
(ALG3)
x , y `L ∇(x, y) (G∇ )
x `L ∇(y, x) (W∇ )
It is also easy to check, using Theorem 4.1, that “algebraically implicational” is the
same as “algebraizable”, with ∆ := ∇s as the set of equivalence formulas (hence
the same holds for its subclasses), and that “Rasiowa implicative” is the same as
“implicative” (Definition 4.16), with → as the single member of ∇. Thus, in all, we
have nine classes, of which four are new; they form the poset depicted in Figure 1.
The necessary counterexamples establish that they are all different and that no other
inclusion relations hold between them (besides the ones in the diagram and the ones
implied by it). For instance, the example of the equivalence fragment of classical
logic already mentioned is regularly implicative but not Rasiowa implicational; and
so on.
Although its primary motivation is exclusively syntactical, this approach has
some semantic consequences, concerning the relation defined by the set ∇ on the
matrix models hA, Fi of the logic by putting a 6A∇ b if and only if ∇A (a, b) ⊆ F .
In the present context, this relation is a quasi-order and the set F is an up-set with
respect to it. The quasi-order turns out to be an order if and only if the matrix is
reduced. Then the regularity condition (G∇ ) corresponds to the truth filter F of re-
duced models being a singleton, while the “Rasiowa” condition (W∇ ) corresponds
to this single element being the maximum of the order.
Note, however, that some conditions in Definition 5.2 are stronger than strictly
needed in order to show that the mentioned relation 6A∇ is an order in reduced
models of the logic. A finer analysis of this issue, (Raftery, 2013a), shows that a set
Abstract Algebraic Logic 35
implicative
regularly finitely Rasiowa
implicative implicational
algebraically finitely regularly Rasiowa
implicative algebraizable implicational
finitely regularly
algebraizable algebraizable
algebraizable
Fig. 1 Nine of the ten modes of algebraizability considered so far; the “BP-algebraizable” logics,
not shown here, are the finitely algebraizable ones that are finitary. The arrow means “included
in” (for the classes) or “implies” (for the corresponding properties). Thus, the diagram is “upside
down”, with larger classes in lower position; joins in the graph are in fact class intersections.
∇(x, y) has this property if and only if it satisfies the properties (R∇ ), (Trans∇ ) and
These three conditions together with the condition (ALG3) for ∇ turn out to char-
acterize syntactically the class of order algebraizable logics. These are logics that
enjoy a tight connection between their consequence relation and a relative “inequa-
tional” consequence (i.e., one similar to K but where equality is replaced by order),
namely a connection expressed by structural transformers (between formulas and
inequations) satisfying properties completely analogous to the (ALG1)–(ALG4) of
algebraizability. Roughly speaking, these logics are “algebraized” by a class of or-
dered algebras, i.e., algebras with an independent order relation,32 which explains
the name, and seem to be one solution to Pigozzi’s problem of finding an abstract
characterization of the notion of an implication; see Raftery (2013a) for a thorough
discussion and more references.
The semantic approach is essential when one wants to find counterexamples.
While Theorem 4.1 provides a very useful tool for proving that a given logic is alge-
braizable, its existential character (“there are transformers such that . . . ”) make it in
32 Although this is clearly one kind of algebra-based semantics, it departs from the general frame-
work of this chapter, and its exposition would exceed current space constraints. Let me just add that
order algebraizable logics in general need not be algebraizable; and that they are so if and only if
the order relation in their equivalent “ordered algebraic semantics” is equationally definable. They
are, though, stronger than equivalential, a significant class in the Leibniz hierarchy that appears in
Section 6.1.
36 Josep Maria Font
general useless (like the definition itself) when one wants to prove that a logic is not
algebraizable. To do this, lattice-theoretic characterizations of a universal character
have been developed with great success. They exploit the properties of the Leibniz
operator, the function F 7→ Ω A F restricted to the family FiL A of the L -filters of
an algebra A; i.e.,
Ω A : FiL A → Con Alg∗L A
(13)
F 7−→ Ω A F
where Con Alg∗L A := {θ ∈ ConA : A/θ ∈ Alg∗L }. Recall that by Corollary 4.15,
the equivalent algebraic semantics of an algebraizable logic L coincides with the
class Alg∗L of the Leibniz-reduced algebras of L .
It turns out that it is possible to characterize the very fact that a logic is algebraiz-
able by the behaviour of this operator. To reduce the burden of definitions and aux-
iliary properties, only the characterization concerning BP-algebraizability, which
is particularly simple, is reproduced here; other isomorphism theorems appear in
Table 2 on page 41 and in Theorem 8.2.
Theorem 5.3. Let L be a finitary logic and let K be a quasivariety. The logic L
is BP-algebraizable and K is its equivalent algebraic semantics if and only if for
each algebra A the Leibniz operator Ω A is an isomorphism between the lattice
FiL A of L -filters of A and the lattice Con K A of congruences of A relative to the
quasivariety K.
In general, for any class K of algebras and any algebra A , Con K A is the complete
lattice of congruences θ of A such that A/θ ∈ K; if K is a variety and A ∈ K, then
simply Con K A = ConA. The isomorphism and its inverse are definable as suggested
by Theorems 4.11 and 4.12:
This result generalizes the well-known isomorphism between filters and congru-
ences in Boolean algebras or in Heyting algebras, as well as that between normal
subgroups and congruences in groups, or between ideals and congruences in rings.
Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this result is that the isomorphism holds
for every algebra, and not just for algebras in K. This means that there is a lot of
freedom when constructing counterexamples that show the non-algebraizability of
certain logics by contradicting this isomorphism; that is, when constructing (finite,
small) algebras A such that Ω A is for instance non-monotonic, or non-injective, on
the L -filters of A; by Theorem 5.3, this would signify a failure of algebraizability,
no matter which class K one may have in mind. This is how the non-algebraizability
of ``S5 was first proved (Blok and Pigozzi, 1989, § 5.2.1).
From the consequences of Theorem 4.1 stated on page 17, it follows that a non-
algebraizability result entails the non-algebraizability of a number of other logics
related to the initial one; for instance, from the S5 case, the non-algebraizability of
virtually all local consequences of modal logics follows as well.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 37
This result can also be used to show that a given class of algebras cannot be logi-
fied by the paradigm of algebraizability; that is, that the class is not the equivalent
algebraic semantics of any BP-algebraizable logic. This is usually trickier, but is
based on the same idea, though in dual perspective: no matter which logic one has
in mind, if it should be algebraizable then the lattice structure of the family of its
filters on a given algebra would have to be isomorphic, through the Leibniz operator,
to that of its relative congruences (if the class is a variety and the chosen algebra be-
longs to it, this is just its congruence lattice); meanwhile, since the Leibniz operator
(and its inverse) is a purely algebraic object independent of the logic, knowledge
of the particular algebra and of its congruences may imply that such a situation is
impossible. This was done for the first time by Blok for the variety of distributive
lattices (see Font and Verdú 1991, page 397).
6 Beyond algebraizability
As explained in the Introduction, abstract algebraic logic goes far beyond alge-
braizability, and develops a richer framework. Within that framework, several larger
classes of logics have been identified and characterized in several ways, and have
been seen to be relevant for the study of the correspondences between logical prop-
erties and algebraic properties. In some sense, this study is the ultimate goal of
the subject. This very sketchy (but not short) section concentrates on the first is-
sue (description of the hierarchies), while the second (consequences, for a logic, of
belonging to a certain class) is touched upon in Section 7.
Theorem 4.11(ii). If the set is finite, then the logic is called finitely equivalential.
A logic is truth-equational when there is a set of equations E(x) ⊆ Eq that defines
truth in every model of the logic in the sense of Theorem 4.12(ii).
Lemma 6.3. Let L be a truth-equational logic, and let τ be the transformer defined
by the set of equations E(x) of Definition 6.1. Then:
1. hA, Fi ∈ Mod∗L if and only if A ∈ Alg∗L and F = SolτA .
2. A ∈ Alg∗L if and only if hA, Sol A i ∈ Mod∗L .
τ
Note that we are moving from more restricted classes of logics to larger, weaker
ones. Truth-equational logics form one of the very large classes of the hierarchy; in
fact, this class includes all assertional logics, but it does not include all equivalential
logics.
33 Finitely equivalential logics appeared earlier than finitely algebraizable ones. Thus, “finitely”
applied to algebraizable logics was adopted to indicate the finiteness only of ∆ , in order to obtain
the mentioned equivalence. A dual notion of a “finitely truth-equational logic” is not considered in
the literature.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 39
Assertional logics are defined at the beginning of Section 3 (page 10). Using
Proposition 39 of Raftery (2006b), it is easy to show that a logic L is assertional
if and only if its reduced models are unital; that is, the truth filter of the matrices
in Mod∗L is a one-element set. From this it follows that they are truth-equational,
with a truth definition of the form x ≈ >, where > is any theorem of L with at
most the variable x, and that if L is an assertional logic (i.e., the assertional logic
of some class K), then it is the assertional logic of the class Alg∗L .
The other very large class in the hierarchy is that of protoalgebraic logics, intro-
duced by Blok and Pigozzi (1986). This class can be described in so many ways that
it is difficult to choose one to begin with; here is the first, original definition.
Definition 6.4. A logic L is protoalgebraic when for each theory Γ ∈ ThL , in-
discernibility modulo Γ implies interderivability modulo Γ ; that is, when for any
α , β ∈ Fm, if α ≡ β (Ω Γ ), then Γ , α `L β and Γ , β `L α .
All the other classes of logics considered up to now, except assertional and truth-
equational logics, are contained in the class of protoalgebraic logics. The importance
of this class is due to its many different characterizations from quite different points
of view, and to the pleasant algebraic properties of their matrix models. One of the
key points is a matrix version of the correspondence theorem of universal algebra,
which means that the filters of the logic present, in a certain sense, nice behaviour
similar to that of the congruences of algebras.
Only two classes of logics in the Leibniz hierarchy remain to be introduced.
They were defined in a different framework, but thanks to the discovery of truth-
equational logics, they are now easy to describe.
Weakly algebraizable logics were introduced34 in Font and Jansana (1996), and
studied thoroughly in Czelakowski and Jansana (2000), and also in Czelakowski
(2001), where regularly weakly algebraizable logics appeared. There are few proper
(i.e., non-algebraizable) examples of logics in these classes in the literature. The
best known, the logic of ortholattices described in Czelakowski and Jansana (2000),
belongs to the latter class, as do all orthologics that are not orthomodular; while the
“logic of Andréka and Németi” that appears in Blok and Pigozzi (1989, Appendix
B) belongs to the former but not to the latter. Neither of those logics is algebraizable.
Figure 2 depicts the organization of the eleven main classes in the hierarchy;35
most of the relations between them follow easily from the definitions given, and
34 They were first considered by Czelakowski, in unpublished lectures in 1993, under the name
“algebraizable in the weak sense”; a term also used in Czelakowski (2001).
35 Other classes might be considered in the hierarchy, though in a looser sense. These include
those obtained by restricting all the classes to their finitary members (among them is the class of
BP-algebraizable logics), and some of the classes of Definition 5.2, for instance the “Rasiowa”
classes.
40 Josep Maria Font
finitely regularly
algebraizable
finitely regularly
algebraizable algebraizable
finitely regularly weakly
algebraizable
equivalential algebraizable
weakly
equivalential assertional
algebraizable
protoalgebraic truth-equational
Fig. 2 The main classes in the Leibniz hierarchy and their relations. The arrow means “included
in” or “implies”. Intersections of classes correspond to joins in the graph.
there are counterexamples showing that all inclusions are proper and that there are
no inclusions other than those shown in the figure and those implicit in it (by tran-
sitivity of inclusion). Moreover, the graphical joins correspond to intersections of
classes; for instance, we see that an assertional logic is equivalential if and only if it
is algebraizable, and if and only if it is regularly algebraizable,36 and so on.
Now it is time to describe the characterizations that give unity to the hierarchy,
and best explain both its structure and the relations between the classes. They are
displayed in several tables, in a rather informal and compact way.
Order-theoretic characterizations
These are the properties that give the core of the hierarchy its distinctive ab-
stract character, and concern properties of the Leibniz operator Ω A as a function,
mostly relating the order structure of its domain FiL A with that of its codomain
Con Alg∗L A. These sets are ordered under set inclusion, and one must take into ac-
count that for any algebra A, the function Ω A is always onto Con Alg∗L A. Table 2
summarizes the relevant results.
The properties in the table with a not-so-obvious meaning are defined as follows:
• Ω A commutes with endomorphisms when for any h ∈ End(A) and any F ∈
FiL A , Ω A h−1 F = h−1 Ω A F . The name of the property is shorthand for “com-
mutes with inverse images under endomorphisms”, which is certainly more ac-
36 And also if and only if it is order algebraizable (see page 35).
Abstract Algebraic Logic 41
curate; besides being more practical, there is a technical reason for using this
shorter name (by analogy with the result in Lemma 8.1).
• Ω A is continuous when, for any family {Fi : i ∈ I} ⊆ Fi A that is upwards-
L
directed and such that i∈I Fi ∈ FiL A, it holds that Ω A i∈I Fi = i∈I Ω A F i .
S S S
Notice that when L is finitary, the condition that the union of the family is a
filter is automatically satisfied. Clearly, continuity implies monotonicity.
• Ω A is completely order-reflecting when, for any family {Fi : i ∈ I} ∪ {G} ⊆
FiL A, if i∈I Ω A F i ⊆ Ω A G, then i∈I Fi ⊆ G.
T T
One important feature of the sets of properties of the Leibniz operator in each
row of Table 2 is that each set holds as stated (i.e., for all algebras) if and only
if it holds for just the operator as considered on the formula algebra Ω : ThL →
Con Alg∗L Fm; in this case, the endomorphisms are the substitutions. Results of this
kind (i.e., asserting that some property holds in the formula algebra if and only if
it holds, mutatis mutandis, in all algebras) are called transfer theorems in abstract
algebraic logic. They are often far from trivial, and they have an important impact
in the theory. Other examples of transfer theorems appear in Section 7.
Actually, Theorem 5.3 is a specialized version of the result in the last row of
Table 2: observe that by the result in the last row of Table 5, when the class Alg∗L
is a quasivariety, if the Leibniz operator is an isomorphism, then it is automatically
continuous.
The four classes not present in Table 2 are characterized by adding another prop-
erty of the Leibniz operator, of a different character. It is easy to see that37 a logic
L is assertional if and only if it has theorems and x ≡ y (Ω Γ ) for every Γ ∈ ThL
such that x, y ∈ Γ . By adding to this condition those for being protoalgebraic, equiv-
alential or finitely equivalential, we obtain characterizations, all in terms of the
Leibniz operator, for the three classes with “regularly” in their name; moreover,
once protoalgebracity is assumed, the condition can be simplified by writing just
x ≡ y Ω CL {x, y} , where CL {x, y} is the theory of L generated by the set {x, y}.
37 According to Czelakowski (1981), this fact was first stated, essentially, by Suszko in unpublished
∼
lectures (here it is expressed in modern terms). Using the Suszko operator ΩL , to be
defined in (17)
∼
on page 47, the condition can be more compactly written as x ≡ y ΩL CL {x, y} .
42 Josep Maria Font
Definability characterizations
L is . . . if and only if . . .
Protoalgebraic Ω A F is definable from F ∈ FiL A by some ∆ (x, y,~z) with pa-
rameters, for every A
Equivalential Ω A F is definable from F ∈ FiL A by some ∆ (x, y) without pa-
rameters, for every A
Truth-equational The truth filter is definable in Mod∗L by some E(x) ⊆ Eq
Assertional The truth filter is definable in Mod∗L by x ≈ >, where > is an
algebraic constant of Alg∗L (38 )
Table 3 The main definability characterizations.
It should be understood that in each case, the definability condition has a common
form in all the relevant algebras or matrices (i.e., this is about uniform definability).
By putting several of these conditions together, we obtain characterizations of four
more classes; while by requiring the non-parameterized set ∆ (x, y) to be finite, we
obtain the three remaining classes (those with “finitely” in their name). The only
new notion here appears in the first row (the parameterized case):
• If ∆ (x, y,~z) ⊆ Fm is a set of formulas in two variables x, y and possibly other
variables ~z, called parameters, then Ω A F is definable from S F ∈ FiL A by
∆ (x, y,~
z) when, for any a, b ∈ A, a ≡ b (Ω A F) if and only if ∆ A (a, b,~c) :
~
~c ∈ A ⊆ F . When parameters are absent, this property reduces to that of Theo-
rem 4.11.
Syntactic characterizations
Theorems 4.11 and 4.12 show that under certain assumptions the definability condi-
tions are equivalent to the logic satisfying certain properties for the sets of formulas
or equations involved. The simplest to state are summarized in Table 4; their main
interest is that they concern just the consequence relation of the logic.
By demanding that the set ∆ be finite, we obtain parallel characterizations for the
classes obtained by prepending “finitely” to the three39 last ones. The second and
38 This condition is equivalent to saying that the truth filter in Mod∗L is a singleton; but as a
“definability” property this formulation looks weaker.
39 There is no class of “finitely protoalgebraic” logics in the literature. One partial reason may be
that for finitary logics, the set ∆ (x, y) of Table 4 can always be chosen as finite in the protoalge-
braic case, but not necessarily in the other cases. There is also the technical issue mentioned in
footnote 40.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 43
third row correspond to Theorems 4.11 and 4.1, respectively; I already commented
that the conditions (Sym∆ ) and (Trans∆ ) can be dispensed with in these results.
More surprising is the fact that (ALG3) can also be dispensed with in the presence
of (G∆ ), as shown in the table.
The first row of the table deserves comment. It says that a logic L is protoal-
gebraic if and only if there is a set ∆ (x, y) of formulas in at most two variables
such that the logic satisfies the “law of identity” or “reflexivity” `L ∆ (x, x) and
the rule of “modus ponens” x, ∆ (x, y) `L y. In particular, any logic L in a lan-
guage containing a binary connective → such that `L x → x and x, x → y `L y is
protoalgebraic; this explains why the class of protoalgebraic logics is so huge!
In fact, most of the examples of non-protoalgebraic logics in the literature are
implication-less, such as the implication-less fragment of intuitionistic logic (Blok
and Pigozzi, 1989), the fragment of classical logic with just conjunction and dis-
junction (Font and Verdú, 1991), Dunn-Belnap’s four-valued logic (Font, 1997), or
positive modal logics (Jansana, 2002). Other examples of non-protoalgebraic log-
ics have a very weak implication, such as some weak subintuitionistic logics (Suzuki
et al., 1998; Celani and Jansana, 2001), Wójcicki’s “weak relevance” logic WR (Font
and Rodrı́guez, 1994) or a large number of logics that preserve degrees of truth with
respect to certain classes of residuated lattices (Bou et al., 2009).
Notice that there is nothing in conditions (R∆ ) and (MP∆ ) that is specific to
implication. In fact, the equivalence fragments of classical logic and of intuitionistic
logic are finitely regularly algebraizable, hence protoalgebraic, and satisfy these
conditions with ∆ (x, y) = {x ↔ y}.
There are some relations between the sets ∆ satisfying the conditions in Table 3
and those satisfying the conditions in Table 4. By Theorem 4.11, any set ∆ (x, y)
satisfying the conditions in the second row of Table 3 itself satisfies the second row
of Table 4, and conversely. As for the first row of each (the protoalgebraic case),
the relations are more complicated. If ∆ (x, y,~z) defines the Leibniz congruence as
in the first row of Table 3, then the set ∆ 0 (x, y) := ∆ (x, y,~x) satisfies the first row of
Table 4, i.e., (R∆ ) and (MP∆ ). The converse process requires a more complicated40
p
transformation:
S y) satisfies the first row of Table 4, then the set ∆ (x, y,~z) :=
if ∆ (x,
∆ δ (x,~z), δ (y,~z) : δ (x,~z) ∈ Fm satisfies the first row of Table 3. For a related,
simpler relation, under stronger assumptions, see Lemma 6.17.
40 Observe that the set ∆ p is always infinite, irrespective of whether ∆ is finite or not. Even if a
protoalgebraic logic is finitary, the existence of a finite set defining the Leibniz congruence with
parameters cannot be guaranteed. Compare this with the fact mentioned in footnote 39.
44 Josep Maria Font
Model-theoretic characterizations
L is . . . if and only if . . .
Protoalgebraic Mod∗L is closed under PSD
Equivalential Mod∗L is closed under S and P
Finitely equivalential Mod∗L is closed under S, P and PU , i.e., it is a “quasivariety”
and finitary of matrices
Table 5 Two groups of model-theoretic characterizations. The classes Mod∗L and Alg∗L always
contain the trivial matrices (resp., algebras) and are closed under isomorphisms.
This is a good place to observe that matrices are just relational structures hA, Fi,
where besides the algebraic reduct A there is only one relation, a unary one, inter-
preted by the subset F ; thus, they are structures for a very simple first-order lan-
guage, and it is all the more natural that many tools and results of model theory can
be successfully used. This observation was first made by Bloom (1975) and besides
its application to the study of matrices for sentential logics, has also prompted a
certain amount of work on the model theory of equality-free sentences, which has
generalized techniques and benefited from intuitions coming from algebraic logic.
A recent contribution to this programme is Nurakunov and Stronkowski (2013); for
more details and older references see Font et al. (2003, Section 4.3).
The operators S, P, PU and PSD appearing in Table 5 are those of taking sub-
matrices/subalgebras, products, ultraproducts and subdirect products, respectively,
of a given class of matrices/algebras. The characterizations in the second group
may seem slightly unsatisfactory, as they need an extra assumption with no model-
theoretic character (that the logic is truth-equational); but they highlight precisely
the fact that for truth-equational logics the characterizations need not involve matri-
ces, but just plain algebras, and this is also an interesting feature. Note the presence
of finitarity in the last row of the upper half of the table, and its absence in the last
row of the lower half.
The results summarized in the tables in this section are, in fact, the outcome
of several important and technically involved theorems that belong to the estab-
lished core of abstract algebraic logic. It is clear that they cover interesting cases
not falling under the algebraizability paradigm. In the case of algebraizability, the
order-theoretic and the syntactic characterizations (Tables 2 and 4) are sometimes
called intrinsic (see Blok and Pigozzi, 1989, Chapter 4), meaning that they establish
Abstract Algebraic Logic 45
Research on the Leibniz hierarchy has fully confirmed that the theory of matrices is
an adequate tool for the algebraic study of logics in this hierarchy. Recall that this
theory defines (page 26) the class
as the algebraic counterpart of the logic L . This fits particularly well with the the-
ory of algebraizable logics, where it produces the equivalent algebraic semantics
(Corollary 4.15). However, it is not clear that Alg∗L is always the class of algebras
most naturally associated with an arbitrary logic L ; particularly when it is non-
protoalgebraic. This was first noticed by Font et al. (1991), in the study of CPC∧∨ ,
the fragment of classical logic with only conjunction and disjunction. Those authors
proved that Alg∗CPC∧∨ is neither the class of distributive lattices, nor that of its
bounded members, as one might expect, but a strange subclass with no other logical
or algebraic significance (and which is not even a quasivariety). Soon, other exam-
ples of a similar situation arose.41 This prompted the introduction of a more general
definition of the algebraic counterpart of a logic, which was achieved by consider-
ing a more general kind of algebra-based models, already introduced by Wójcicki
(1969) in essence.
A generalized matrix is a pair hA, C i where A is an algebra and C is a clo-
sure system42 of subsets of A, the universe of A. Observe that ordinary matrices
hA, Fi can be viewed as generalized matrices of the form hA, {F, A}i, and that a
logic L can also be viewed as the generalized matrix hFm, ThL i. This suggests
that generalized matrices may be a very flexible, convenient tool. In particular, they
41 This includes almost all the non-protoalgebraic logics mentioned on page 43. A strikingly simple
example is that of CPC∧ , the fragment of classical logic with only conjunction: while this logic
is naturally associated with the variety of semilattices, it is not difficult to show that Alg∗CPC∧
contains just the one- and two-element semilattices (Font and Moraschini, 2014, Corollary 5.3).
42 A closure system on a set A is a family C of subsets of A that contains A and is closed under in-
tersections of arbitrary non-empty families. The sets FiL A and ThL are always closure systems.
Originally, the C in a generalized matrix was not assumed to be a closure system, but an arbitrary
(non-empty) family of subsets; in this form they were rediscovered by Dunn and Hardegree (2001),
who called them “atlases”. There is no essential difference between the two alternatives as far as
their rôle as models of logics is concerned.
46 Josep Maria Font
Thus, g-models incorporate a semantics for the consequence relation of a logic. This
notion of a model appears as strikingly natural if one wants to privilege the view of
logics as consequence relations. Moreover, it is more neutral as to the meaning of the
objects in the model, since it does not depend on the designation of some particular
subset of the algebra as representing “the truth”.
The comparison with matrix semantics is straightforward, because trivially hA, C i
is a g-model of L if and only if C ⊆ FiL A. Thus, the finest g-model of L on a
given algebra A is the generalized matrix hA, FiL Ai; g-models of this form (there
is exactly one on each algebra) are called basic full g-models. Recall (Lemma 4.4)
that FiL Fm = ThL ; therefore, each logic L , when viewed as the generalized
matrix hFm, ThL i, is its own basic full g-model on the formula algebra. The basic
full g-models hA, FiL Ai can be viewed as an “algebraic image” of the logic, and
a good deal of the research in this branch of abstract algebraic logic is concerned
with the study of which properties of the logic (expressible as properties of a gen-
eralized matrix) also hold for its basic full g-models; see the discussion on “transfer
theorems” and the sample of results in Section 7.
The technical tools needed to speak about the use of generalized matrices in
abstract algebraic logic start with associating a congruence with each of them in a
natural way. The Tarski congruence of a generalized matrix hA, C i is:
∼
Ω A C := Ω AG : G ∈ C .
\
(16)
It is easy to see that this is the largest congruence of A that is compatible with all the
G ∈ C . A generalized matrix is reduced when its Tarski congruence is the identity
∼ ∼
relation. The reduction of hA, C i is the generalized matrix hA/Ω A C , C /Ω A C i,
∼A ∼A
where C /Ω C := {F/Ω C : F ∈ C }; as is to be expected, it is always reduced
(compare with Lemma 4.8). A generalized matrix is a full g-model of a logic L
when its reduction is a basic full g-model of L .
The corresponding completeness theorems, parallel to Theorems 4.5 and 4.9,
are formulated by putting an “ ⇐⇒ ” in (15) and requiring its right-hand side to
hold for all generalized matrices in a certain class. It is easy to see that every logic
is complete with respect to the following classes: all its g-models; all its reduced
43 A closure operator on a set A is a function C : P(A) → P(A) that satisfies, for all X ,Y ⊆ A,
that X ⊆ C(X) = C C(X) ⊆ C(X ∪ Y ). Several notational shortcuts are popular, such as writing
C(a) for C {a} , or C(X , a) for C X ∪ {a} , and so on; recalling that the argument of C should
always be a subset of A helps to avoid misunderstandings. The closure operator associated with the
closure system FiL A is denoted by FgL A ; thus, for any X ⊆ A , FgA (X) is the smallest L -filter of
L
A containing X . The closure operator associated with ThL is denoted by CL . A closure operator
C is finitary when for any X ⊆ A , C(X) = {C(Y ) : Y ⊆ X , Y finite}.
S
Abstract Algebraic Logic 47
g-models; all its basic full g-models; all its full g-models; and all its reduced full
g-models, which coincide with the reduced basic full g-models (it is easy to see that
a reduced full g-model must be basic).
Here I am concerned only with the use of g-models to define the algebraic coun-
terpart of a logic in the most general case, and to set up another hierarchy of logics,
the so-called Frege hierarchy.
The Tarski operator can be used to define another operator on filters of a logic
∼
on each algebra A, the Suszko operator: the function ΩLA : FiL A → ConA that
assigns to each F ∈ FiL A the congruence
∼ ∼
ΩLA F := Ω A {G ∈ FiL A : F ⊆ G} = {Ω A G : G ∈ FiL A , F ⊆ G}.
\
(17)
This operator can also be considered on the formula algebra, i.e., defined on the
theories Γ of the logic; in this case, the superscript indicating the algebra is omitted,
∼
and we write simply ΩL Γ .
In contrast with the Tarski and the Leibniz operators, which are purely algebraic
objects, the Suszko operator is strictly relative to the logic L , as reflected in the
∼
notation. A matrix hA, Fi is Suszko-reduced when ΩLA F is the identity relation.
The Suszko operator makes sense because in some contexts (particularly when
working in parallel with the Leibniz operator) it seems desirable to have operators
on L -filters rather than on closure systems of L -filters. It was thoroughly studied
in general by Czelakowski (2003)44 and it was one of the main tools in the study of
truth-equational logics by Raftery (2006b).
The more general notion of the algebraic counterpart of a logic can be defined
with either the Tarski operator or the Suszko operator. It is the class of L -algebras,
defined (among others) in any of the following equivalent ways:
There are at least three groups of reasons why this more general notion is more
relevant for arbitrary logics than that of Alg∗L .
I The first is that in the cases where the old definition works, the two coincide:
Theorem 6.6.
1. A logic L is protoalgebraic if and only if the Leibniz and the Suszko operators
∼
coincide on its filters, i.e., ΩLA F = Ω A F for all F ∈ FiL A and all A.
2. If L is protoalgebraic, then Alg∗L = AlgL .
3. If L is algebraizable, then AlgL is the equivalent algebraic semantics of L .
44That author attributes the definition and first characterization of this operator to Suszko, in
unpublished lectures.
48 Josep Maria Font
In particular, for implicative logics, the class AlgL coincides with the class
Alg∗L as originally defined by Rasiowa; in fact, the name “L -algebras” was coined
by her, and we now see that it can be used in general without risking confusion.
Notice that the converses of the implications in points 2 and 3 of Theorem 6.6 do
not hold: there are many non-protoalgebraic (hence non-algebraizable) logics L for
which Alg∗L and AlgL coincide; among them are all those where the former is a
quasivariety, in particular a variety.45 This fact follows from the most basic relations
between the two classes, which are summarized in the following result.
riety. The best-known example of a BP-algebraizable logic whose equivalent algebraic semantics
is not a variety is BCK logic (Wroński, 1983).
Abstract Algebraic Logic 49
I The third group of reasons is that the approach based on generalized matrices,
and in particular the study, begun by Font and Jansana (1996), of the notion of a full
g-model and of the structure of the set of full g-models of a logic on a given algebra
has generated a deep and rich theory. Moreover, that theory establishes connections
between areas of abstract algebraic logic that are in principle unrelated. The first
important result in this area is yet another “isomorphism theorem”:
Theorem 6.9. For any logic L and any algebra A, the Tarski operator, that is, the
∼
function C 7→ Ω A C , establishes a dual isomorphism between the complete lattice
of all full g-models of L on A and that of all congruences of A relative to the class
AlgL (both ordered under set inclusion).
One of the remarkable things about this result is its generality (it holds for all
logics whatsoever), which contrasts with the algebraizability assumptions needed
for Theorem 5.3 and for the isomorphisms in Table 2. There is not enough space
here to enter into this general theory; some of the results in Sections 6.3 and 7
actually belong to it.
This hierarchy is organized around several replacement properties that a logic and
its basic full g-models may have. These properties can be formulated in general for
an arbitrary generalized matrix; however, here it is better to go directly from the first
general definitions to the relevant particular cases (but see also Definition 7.3). The
Frege relation ΛA C of a generalized matrix hA, C i is defined, for any a, b ∈ A, as
def
a ≡ b ΛA C ⇐⇒ C(a) = C(b).
ΛAC F := ΛA {G ∈ C : F ⊆ G}.
Thus, ΛAL identifies the elements of the algebra that generate the same L -filter.
In general, all these relations are equivalence relations, but need not be congru-
∼ ∼
ences; Ω L is the largest congruence below Λ L , ΩL Γ is the largest congruence
∼A ∼
below ΛL Γ , Ω FiL A is the largest congruence below ΛAL , and ΩLA F is the
largest congruence below ΛL A F.
Now, the four classes in the hierarchy can be introduced in the following compact
way.
A logic L is Fregean if and only if for all Γ ∈ ThL and all α , β ∈ Fm,
strong relations with classes of algebras also called “Fregean” in the literature (see
Theorem 6.18) has consolidated this choice.
The other two kinds of logics are defined by requiring that these replacement
properties transfer to all basic full g-models.49 Fully selfextensional logics have also
been called congruential in a few recent papers; but be aware that the latter term has
also been used in the past, either for Fregean logics, or for finitely equivalential
logics. As a matter of fact, the four classes in this hierarchy deserve to be consid-
ered as “congruential” or “Fregean” in different degrees; these considerations justify
naming the hierarchy after Frege. The obvious relations between the four classes of
logics are those displayed in Figure 3.
fully Fregean
fully Fregean
selfextensional
selfextensional
Fig. 3 The poset of the classes in the Frege hierarchy. The arrow means “included in” or “implies”.
In this case, the graphical join is not class intersection (but see Corollary 6.20).
The following examples show that the four classes are distinct and no relations
other than those shown hold in general:
• All two-valued logics are Fregean. Classical and intuitionistic logics, as well
as many of their fragments (for instance, all those with either implication or
equivalence, but also the one with only conjunction and disjunction), are fully
Fregean.
• Logics that are fully selfextensional (hence selfextensional) but not Fregean
(hence, not fully Fregean either): Among the protoalgebraic logics, the local con-
sequences of normal modal logics; among the non-protoalgebraic ones, Dunn-
Belnap’s four-valued logic (Font, 1997); Wójcicki’s “weak relevance” logic WR
(Font and Rodrı́guez, 1994); the positive modal logics (Jansana, 2002); and the
local consequence of the weakest subintuitionistic logic (Celani and Jansana,
2001).
• A logic that is Fregean (hence selfextensional) but not fully selfextensional
(hence not fully Fregean either) was constructed by Babyonyshev (2003).
• Two ad hoc examples of logics that are selfextensional but neither Fregean nor
fully selfextensional were constructed by Albuquerque et al. (2016a). Interest-
ingly, one of these logics is implicative.
49 Equivalently, to all full g-models; hence the “fully” in the names.
52 Josep Maria Font
• Logics that are not selfextensional, and hence are totally outside the Frege hi-
erarchy: There are lots of them, even among algebraizable logics, for instance
the global consequences of normal modal logics, and the Łukasiewicz-style
many-valued logics. At the other end of the spectrum, the paraconsistent weak
Kleene logic (Bonzio et al., 2016) and Priest’s logic of paradox (Albuquerque
et al., 2016b) are non-protoalgebraic (but truth-equational) examples of non-
selfextensional logics.
• Logics that are neither selfextensional nor protoalgebraic and are not truth-
equational either (hence, logics outside the two hierarchies) are harder to find.
One example is the “logic of distributive bilattices” studied by Bou and Riviec-
cio (2011).
Thus, the two hierarchies are, in some sense, orthogonal, as these examples show:
there are logics located in a very high position in one of them and totally outside the
other. Some relations have been found, however, as can be seen below.
The replacement property of selfextensional logics, though weak, is still useful
when one is interested in the intrinsic variety of the logic; for in this case, this class
does have a clear logical meaning:
Theorem 6.13 (Font and Jansana, 1996). Let L be a finitary logic that has either a
conjunction, or a uniterm deduction-detachment theorem (DDT). If L is selfexten-
sional, then it is fully selfextensional. Moreover, in this situation, the class AlgL is
a variety, namely AlgL = VL .
Lemma 6.14. For any logic L , the following conditions are equivalent.
(i) L is fully selfextensional.
(ii) For each A ∈ AlgL , the relation ΛAL is the identity relation.
(iii) For each A ∈ AlgL , the relation 6AL , defined as a 6AL b if and only if b ∈
A {a}, for any a, b ∈ A, is an order relation.
FgL
This “logically defined” ordering relation in the algebras of AlgL has been ex-
ploited to develop an abstract version of duality theory (Esteban, 2013; Gehrke et al.,
2010). Examples of the nice behaviour of these logics are the following results.
Theorem 6.15 (Font and Jansana, 1996). Let L be a finitary and fully selfexten-
sional logic. Then:
1. AlgL is a quasivariety.
2. L is weakly algebraizable if and only if it is BP-algebraizable.
Lemma 6.17. Let L be a protoalgebraic logic, and let ∆ (x, y) satisfy properties
(R∆ ) and (MP∆ ) (as in Table 4 on page 43). If L is Fregean, then it is equivalen-
tial, with the symmetrized set ∆ s(x, y) := ∆ (x, y) ∪ ∆ (y, x) as a set of equivalence
formulas.
But the strength of Fregeanity for protoalgebraic logics goes farther: it places
them significantly higher up in the Leibniz hierarchy, and at the absolute top of the
Frege hierarchy.
Different points in this result are proved using quite different techniques. In-
terestingly, the proof of point 2 is obtained by expressing the strong replacement
property as an infinite set of Gentzen-style rules and working with generalized ma-
trices as models53 of rules of this kind. Point 3 involves the notion of a Fregean
quasivariety, a quasivariety K that is pointed (there is a term, represented as >,
that is constant in K), relatively point-regular (for all A ∈ K and all θ , θ 0 ∈ Con K A,
if >A/θ = >A/θ 0 then θ = θ 0 ) and congruence-orderable (for all A ∈ K and all
a, b ∈ A, if ΘAK (a, >A ) = ΘAK (b, >A ), then a = b); here ΘAK (c, d) denotes the small-
est congruence of Con K A that identifies c and d . One can also prove the following
converse: if K is a Fregean quasivariety, then K = AlgL for a finitary, protoalge-
braic and Fregean logic L with theorems; namely, the assertional logic of K. So the
study of this class of logics amounts to the study of Fregean quasivarieties. Fregean
varieties have been extensively studied in universal algebra with logical motiva-
tions (Idziak, Słomczyńska, and Wroński, 2009); they were first incorporated into
the abstract algebraic logic landscape by Pigozzi (1991).
To close the section, let me mention a recent result on the location of truth-
equational logics in the Frege hierarchy, and three corollaries that follow by com-
bining this result with some previous ones; the second contains alternative charac-
terizations of the logics in Theorem 6.18.3.
Corollary 6.20. If L is a logic with theorems, then L is fully Fregean if and only
if it is both Fregean and fully selfextensional.
Corollary 6.21. If L is a finitary logic, then the following conditions are equiva-
lent.
(i) L is protoalgebraic and Fregean and has theorems.
(ii) L is algebraizable and fully selfextensional.
(iii) L is weakly algebraizable and fully selfextensional.
(iv) L is regularly algebraizable and fully Fregean.
Thus, for logics with theorems, the graphical join in Figure 3 on page 51 is in-
deed a class intersection. Moreover, in significant parts of the Leibniz hierarchy, the
53 This dual character of generalized matrices, as g-models of sentential logics and as models of
Gentzen-style rules or systems, is one of the features that give generalized matrices their special
interest.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 55
The term “bridge theorem” was coined by Andréka, Németi, and Sain long ago (see
2001, pages 135–136 and 186–188); according to them, results of this kind establish
a bridge between two different lands, Logic and Algebra, and allow us to transform
56 Josep Maria Font
problems about a logic into problems about a class of algebras, so that we can use
the powerful tools of algebra, a much more intensively studied discipline, to solve
the problem, and then go back (crossing the bridge again) and obtain a solution to
the original logical problem. In particular, they emphasize that this methodology
allows us to cope with an ever-increasing forest of new logics using a more uniform
and better known toolbox, that of Algebra.
In the first, paradigmatic bridge theorems, P is a typically logical property (such
as interpolation) and P 0 is typically algebraic, i.e., it is a global property of a class of
algebras (such as amalgamation). In other bridge theorems, the property P 0 has the
form “every algebra in K satisfies property Q”, where Q is a property concerning a
single algebra (such as having a distributive congruence lattice); in yet other cases,
it is the property Q that refers to the class K, while the restriction “in K” in the
theorem can be deleted, and a stronger result is obtained.
A particular class of bridge theorems are those where both P and P 0 (or P and
Q) are essentially the same property, suitably interpreted on each side (such as “to
be finitely axiomatizable”). These results have been called transfer theorems, as
they can be phrased as “the property P transfers from L to K” (respectively, “to all
algebras in K”, or even “to all algebras”, in the stronger cases).
An important subclass of transfer theorems, where Q is just “P interpreted in
an algebra”, are those where P is a property of a closure system (or of a closure
operator), so that it applies to a logic L when we view it as a generalized matrix,
through the closure system ThL of its theories or its associated closure operator
CL 54 ; and it applies to an algebra A through the closure system FiL A of all the
L -filters of A or its associated closure operator FgL A . Thus, transfer theorems of
and, as already said, in many cases the limitation “∈ K” can be removed, so that the
property on the algebraic side is asserted to hold for all algebras, unconditionally.
Bridge and transfer theorems are not limited to frameworks where a class of
algebras is associated with a logic. Results with a larger scope refer to properties
of classes of matrices (the class of all models of the logic or, more often, the class
Mod∗L of its reduced models) or classes of g-matrices; for instance, observe that
a result like (19) in its strong version (i.e., without the “∈ K”) would be a transfer
theorem to all basic full g-models of the logic.
One is even tempted to say that bridge theorems and transfer theorems are the
ultimate justification of abstract algebraic logic. There are bridge theorems and
54 The operator CL is defined as ϕ ∈ CL (Γ ) if and only if Γ `L ϕ for any Γ ∪ {ϕ} ⊆ Fm.
Thus, essentially, the closure operator associated with a logic is just another way of expressing the
consequence relation. The properties formulated in its terms, such as those in Definition 7.3, are
more naturally stated in terms of the relation; but the general definition uses a closure operator to
facilitate application to both the logic and the algebras.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 57
transfer theorems of a wide range of degrees of difficulty, and some of them need
extensive development of the general theory, or complicated algebraic technicalities
(or both). Only a few are reproduced here, as each of them would need several
definitions, both on the logical and on the algebraic side, and space is limited. We
find results of all the different kinds described above.
A large group of bridge theorems are unconditional, that is, they hold for all
logics and all algebras. The following result is considered one of the oldest folk-
lore55 results of its kind, and contains both a bridge theorem and a transfer theorem,
concerning the property of being finitary.
The characterizations in Table 2 (page 41) and in Table 5 (page 44) can be viewed
as bridge theorems, because they establish that certain properties of an arbitrary
logic (namely, the property of belonging to a certain class of the Leibniz hierarchy)
is equivalent to an algebraic or lattice-theoretic property of a class of matrices or of
algebras (the property may or may not involve the Leibniz operator). Moreover, as
already said there, some of these characterizations still hold when the properties are
required to hold just in the formula algebra, so that in fact they also involve transfer
theorems.
Theorem 7.2. For arbitrary logics, the following properties, if stated for the for-
mula algebra, transfer to all algebras.
• The order-theoretic properties of the Leibniz operator in Table 2 (page 41).
• The definability properties56 of the Leibniz operator in Table 3 (page 42).
Note that the transfer only holds for the properties when grouped as in the tables;
for instance, while injectivity does transfer when coupled with monotonicity, injec-
tivity alone is known to transfer when the language is countable, but not in general
(Moraschini, 2016).
Other (almost) universal transfer properties concern properties linking logical
connectives with the closure operator. Properties of this kind have been called
Tarski-style conditions by Wójcicki (1988); for simplicity I mention just a few of
them, and, for some, not the most general conceivable version.
55 This qualification certainly applies to the (easy) equivalence between (i) and (iii); the equiva-
lence between (i) and (ii) seems to have first been published by Zygmunt (1974).
56 It does not make sense to say, literally, that the definability of the truth filter in reduced models
of the logic (which appears in the third and fourth rows of Table 3) holds in the formula algebra,
because in general there are no reduced models on the formula algebra itself. But it can be refor-
mulated so that there is a transfer result for it: by Theorem 25 of Raftery (2006a), it holds in all
models that are reductions of arbitrary models of the logic (that is, in all its reduced models) if and
only if it holds in the models that are reductions of models on the formula algebra.
58 Josep Maria Font
It is trivial to see that the property of having a conjunction transfers to all algebras
for arbitrary logics. Among more interesting results we have the following.
Theorem 7.4.
1. The property of satisfying a DDT transfers to all algebras, for all logics. (Czela-
kowski, 1985; Raftery, 2011a; see footnote 61)
2. The property of having a disjunction transfers to all algebras, for finitary logics.
(Czelakowski, 1983)
The classical proofs, for the finitary case, are based on a common underlying
technique, arising from Hilbert-Bernays’ “Præmissentheorem” (1939), and which
can be generalized60 as follows.
57 Other, weaker versions of a DDT have been considered in the literature: The parameterized
one, which allows the terms of the set I to have parameters; the local one, which deals with a
(possibly infinite) family of sets of terms in such a way that only one set is used in each particular
application of the theorem; and obviously, the one that is both local and parameterized, which
turns out to characterize protoalgebraic logics. A fortiori, this implies that any logic satisfying a
DDT is protoalgebraic. The newest kinds of DDT are the graded ones (Font et al., 2001) and the
contextual ones (Raftery, 2011a); they have either local or parameterized variants as well.
58 An obvious generalization of this property is obtained when the single binary term is replaced
by a set of binary terms (as in the formulation given for the DDT); even more general is the
parameterized version, where a finite number of parameters are allowed in the set of terms. In both
cases the property is basically the same.
59 A set X is C-inconsistent when C(X) = A. The inconsistency lemma is a generalization of the
theoretic level, by Pogorzelski (1981); see also Pogorzelski and Wojtylak (2008).
Abstract Algebraic Logic 59
Lemma 7.5. Consider the following property of a closure operator C on some al-
gebra A:
There is a finite Γ (x,~y) ⊆ Fm such that for all ~a ∈ ~A and all n ∈ ω , if an ∈
C(a0 , . . . , an−1 ) then for all ~b ∈ ~A , Γ A (an ,~b) ∈ C Γ A (a0 ,~b) ∪ · · · ∪ Γ A (an−1 ,~b) .
The restriction to finitary logics is very common in this area;61 other properties
have more restrictions, either on the logics they apply to, or on the algebras the
property is transferred to. For instance:
Meanwhile, the transfer of the congruence properties is not universal, not even
for finitary logics. Observe that a logic L is selfextensional if and only if it has the
congruence property; and it is Fregean if and only if it has the strong congruence
property. Some results in the previous section can now be rephrased as follows.
• The congruence property transfers to all algebras for finitary logics that have
either a conjunction or a uniterm DDT (Theorem 6.13).
• The strong congruence property transfers to all algebras for finitary and protoal-
gebraic logics (Theorem 6.18.2), and for fully selfextensional logics with theo-
rems (Corollary 6.20).
The two congruence properties have been known not to transfer in general since Baby-
onyshev (2003). Recently (Albuquerque et al., 2016a) the congruence property has
been shown not to transfer in any class of the Leibniz hierarchy, as it fails for a
finitely regularly algebraizable logic. The two OPEN PROBLEMS mentioned at the
end of Section 6.3 can also be rephrased as transfer problems:
• Does the strong congruence property transfer for theorem-less fully selfexten-
sional logics ?
• Does the strong congruence property transfer for non-finitary protoalgebraic log-
ics ?
The following bridge theorems concern, for an arbitrary algebra A, the family of
the finitely generated L -filters of A:
of the finitely generated theories of L . When L is finitary, by Theorem 7.1 the lat-
tice FiL A is algebraic, and the join-semilattice FiLω A has more algebraic content,
The equivalence between (i) and (ii) is a bridge theorem; while the implication
from (iii) to (ii) can be viewed as a transfer theorem. The bridge theorem has, as is to
be expected, more algebraic consequences, which in turn have logical applications
(crossing back over the bridge). For instance, since any algebraic lattice is isomor-
phic to the lattice of ideals of the join-semilattice of its compact elements, and taking
into account that satisfying a DDT implies protoalgebraicity (see footnote 57) we
obtain:
Corollary 7.8. If L is a finitary logic satisfying a DDT, then for every algebra A
the lattice FiL A is distributive.
Filter distributive logics (logics satisfying the conclusion of the corollary) have
been extensively studied63 in abstract algebraic logic. They enjoy some really in-
teresting features, resulting from the generalization of some well-known universal
algebraic properties to their matrix models. It turns out that protoalgebraicity greatly
enhances the possibilities for such generalizations. Just as a sample of what can be
achieved in this line of research, here is one:
Theorem 7.9 (Pigozzi, 1988; Czelakowski and Dziobiak, 1992). Let L be a finitary
logic, in a finite language, that is weakly complete64 with respect to a finite matrix.
If L is protoalgebraic and filter distributive, then L is finitely axiomatizable, and
it is so with a finite number of axioms and a single proper inference rule.
In parallel to Theorem 7.7, and with the same twofold character of a bridge and
a transfer theorem, we also have:
Theorem 7.10 (Raftery, 2013b). Let L be a finitary and protoalgebraic logic. The
following conditions are equivalent:
(i) L satisfies an inconsistency lemma.
(ii) For all A, the join-semilattice FiL
ω A is dually pseudo-complemented.
Up to now, each transfer theorem concerns a single, particular property. The fol-
lowing result brings together two of the few existing general transfer theorems; that
is, theorems regarding a potentially large group of properties, characterized in some
definite way:
Theorem 7.11. Let L be a finitary and protoalgebraic logic. The following groups
of properties transfer from L to all its full g-models on arbitrary algebras:65
1. All properties of the corresponding lattices of theories or of closed sets express-
ible as a universal sentence of the (first-order) language of lattices.
2. All properties that can be expressed as a set of accumulative66 Gentzen-style
rules.
Thus, when limited to basic full g-models, point 1 says that for a finitary and
protoalgebraic L , the lattice ThL satisfies a universal (first-order) property if and
only if for every algebra A, the lattice FiL A satisfies it. This includes some prop-
erties whose transfer had previously been shown by particular arguments, such as
distributivity (Corollary 7.8).
In some sense, the “best” bridge and transfer theorems are obtained for algebraiz-
able logics. In this case, the links between the logic and its equivalent algebraic se-
mantics are expressed syntactically, by means of two transformers, so that it is to be
expected that “metalogical” properties that can be expressed solely in terms of `L
can be easily “translated” into parallel properties of K . For instance, the following
should be immediately obvious:
Lemma 7.12. Let L be an algebraizable logic with finitary transformers, and let
K be its equivalent algebraic semantics. Then:
1. L is finitary if and only if K is a quasivariety.
If L is BP-algebraizable (thus, the conditions in point 1 hold), then:
2. L is finitely axiomatizable if and only if K is finitely based.
3. Theoremhood in L is decidable if and only if the equational theory of K is
decidable.
4. Finite consequences in L are decidable if and only if the quasi-equational theory
of K is decidable.
tions” occurs (the same set) in the antecedent (left-hand side) of all the sequents in the rule.
62 Josep Maria Font
isomorphic to the lattice of congruences of the algebra relative to the equivalent al-
gebraic semantics of the logic, thus entering a more typically algebraic field. This
isomorphism can be restricted to the compact67 elements of the two lattices, and
so it maps FiL
ω A to Con ω A, the join-semilattice of compact relative congruences.
K
Then, Theorem 7.10 yields:
The equivalence between (i) and (ii) is just the equivalence between the analo-
gous properties in Theorem 7.10, after considering the isomorphism of Theorem 5.3
(recall that every algebraizable logic is protoalgebraic). That the property in (ii) is
still equivalent if limited to algebras in K as in (iii) is a relevant fact; each of the two
properties has its strength in different applications, as commented on in footnote 72.
The most interesting results arise when the algebraic property is one that has been
studied due to independent interest in it within algebra. One of the most famous
theorems of this kind is the following.
Theorem 7.14 (Blok and Pigozzi, 2001, but originally proved before 1983). Let L
be a BP-algebraizable logic, whose equivalent algebraic semantics is a quasivariety
K. The following conditions are equivalent.
(i) L satisfies a DDT.
(ii) For all A, the join-semilattice Con ω
K A is dually residuated.
(iii) For all A ∈ K, the join-semilattice Con ωK A is dually residuated.
(iv) K has equationally definable principal relative congruences (EDPRC).68
The equivalence between (i) and (ii) follows from Theorems 7.7 and 5.3. Blok
and Pigozzi directly proved the equivalence between (i) and (iv) by showing that by
algebraizability the DDT for L is transferred to an analogous property for K , and
that this property is equivalent to (iv).
The equivalence between (iii) and (iv) seems a purely algebraic result, and in
fact it is: it holds for every quasivariety, regardless of whether it is the equivalent
algebraic semantics of an algebraizable logic or not. However, it is stimulating to
know that the first version of this equivalence, for the variety case, was obtained by
67 In this situation, the two lattices are lattices of closed sets of certain finitary closure operators,
therefore their compact elements are the finitely generated closed sets.
68 EDPRC is the analogue, for quasivarieties and relative congruences, of the property of hav-
ing equationally definable principal congruences (EDPC) for varieties, defined in Section 8 of
Raftery’s chapter in this volume. The property EDPC has been extensively studied in universal
algebra.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 63
Köhler and Pigozzi (1980) thanks to the intuitions that the link between the DDT and
EDPC suggests; with these intuitions, they also obtained an algebraic analogue of
Corollary 7.8, showing that EDPC implies congruence distributivity, which solved
a problem in universal algebra that had been open for some time. Actually, the very
notion of algebraizability was originally developed in order to build a framework
where the equivalence between the DDT and EDP(R)C could be rigorously formu-
lated and proved (Pigozzi, 1998). The work on the logical side made it apparent
that most of these purely algebraic investigations can be generalized from varieties
to quasivarieties if relative congruences enter into the picture (because relative con-
gruences are the algebraic analogue of the logical notions of a theory and a filter;
recall Theorem 5.3).
The other two most famous bridge theorems, proved under the same assumptions
as Theorems 7.13 and 7.14, can be roughly described as follows.
• L satisfies Craig’s interpolation property if and only if K satisfies the amalga-
mation property (Czelakowski and Pigozzi, 1999).
• L satisfies Beth’s definability property if and only if epimorphisms in K are
surjective (Blok and Hoogland, 2006).
I say “roughly” because each of the properties involved in the two results can be
formulated in several forms, of different strength; as a consequence, a plethora of
important theorems have been obtained. The cited references concern the exact for-
mulation of the results in the present framework, but the connections between these
pairs of properties had been observed and studied much earlier by several schol-
ars, and continue to be much extended, either restricted to classes of modal or su-
perintuitionistic logics (Maksimova), many-valued and fuzzy logics (Montagna) or
substructural logics (Wroński, Ono, Galatos, Kihara) or in more general contexts69
(Ono, Wroński, Németi, Sain, Madárasz). Accurate historical surveys are found in
the papers cited, as well as in Andréka, Németi, and Sain (2001, Section 6), but new
papers continue to appear.
The study of these connections under the perspective of abstract algebraic logic
has revealed that more general versions of these bridge theorems hold for equivalen-
tial logics (and hence apply to many more particular logics), provided that one deals
with matrices instead of plain algebras; in this case, the class of reduced models of
the logic plays the rôle of the equivalent algebraic semantics. Even more abstract
versions of the logical properties have been studied in later papers,70 where it turns
out that the categorial aspects of the algebraic properties play a prominent rôle;
69 The relations between (the different forms of) interpolation and amalgamation have also been
studied in other frameworks, such as equational logic, abstract model theory, and the theory of
institutions. The computational applications of interpolation seem to be partly responsible for such
interest in this property.
70 For instance: in the traditional versions of interpolation, the relation to be interpolated is either
this makes it possible to study them not just in a category naturally associated with
algebras in K, but in equivalent categories.71
Besides their theoretical interest, bridge theorems are particularly useful when
applied to particular logics. Most often, they can be used to disprove that a certain
logic has a certain property by looking at the corresponding algebraic property, ei-
ther in general or inside the particular class of algebras or of matrices associated
with the logic. In some cases the task is to construct a particular counterexample; in
others, to search for known global properties of the class of algebras or matrices.72
These strategies have been successfully applied to several families of sentential log-
ics; the best known concern several versions of the DDT, of the interpolation prop-
erty, and of the Beth definability property, in fragments of classical or intuitionistic
logic, modal logics, many-valued logics, relevance logics, linear logics and sub-
structural logics, several versions of first-order logic (presented as a sentential-like
logic), etc. The reverse application is also possible; for instance, syntactic proofs of
the interpolation property have been used to infer amalgamation properties in the
associated classes of algebras.
Let me end this section by emphasizing that applications of algebraizability are
not limited to those of bridge theorems. There are logical problems for which there
are no precise, general bridge theorems available (yet) but which have been suc-
cessfully treated by algebraic means, i.e., after crossing the bridge on a less general
vehicle. One example of this kind of research, in the area of substructural logics,
is contained in the book by Galatos et al. (2007); while the general setting of the
book is explicitly the algebraizability paradigm, it takes advantage of several par-
ticular properties of the varieties of residuated lattices it deals with (for instance,
cut-elimination is proved thanks to several completion results, and in the reverse di-
rection semisimplicity of some free algebras is proved by proof-theoretic methods).
While the definition of algebraizability establishes a bridge between a single
logic and its algebraic counterpart, by Theorem 4.2 the bridge can be extended to
cover a large class of logics (its extensions) and their associated classes of algebras.
Its applications are often grounded on the following specialization.
This fact allows us to cross the bridge and place the study of some properties of a
logic in the land of universal algebra, where the study of lattices of (quasi)varieties
71 This idea was first pursued in Galatos and Raftery (2012), where, thanks to a category equiva-
lence between a class of integral residuated lattices and its non-integral counterpart, some metalog-
ical properties of certain logics having both a fuzzy and a substructural character were indirectly
obtained.
72 Observe that properties concerning the class of all algebras, such as those in points (ii) in The-
orems 7.13 and 7.14, offer more flexibility when it comes to attaining the first goal, while those
restricted to the class K , such as points (iii), may better support the second.
Abstract Algebraic Logic 65
It is, however, in the application to particular lattices of logics that this method-
ology has proved its strength.73 Of course, often the isomorphism can be (and has
been) established without appealing to the theory of algebraizability (but, in fact, by
using just a particular case of the general proof). However, knowing that the general
version holds whenever algebraizability is present should pave the way, and save
some work, for similar studies in other areas.
Soon after its invention, the idea of the algebraizability of a logic, in the sense of
its “equivalence” with the equational consequence relative to a class of algebras by
means of structural transformers, was extended to finite-dimensional deductive sys-
tems, to Gentzen systems, to logical systems based on hypersequents, etc. It was
clear that the whole framework would function wherever one could consider trans-
formers between the syntactic objects involved (formulas, m-formulas, sequents,
etc.) and equations, and back again, so that conditions parallel to (ALG1)–(ALG4)
would make sense; this would produce the parallel notions of algebraizable Gentzen
system (Rebagliato and Verdú, 1993), etc.
Moreover, it also became clear that this was an instance of a more general idea
of equivalence between two consequence relations, and that the fact that one of
them is a relative equational consequence was not essential: equivalence between
any of the kinds of consequences involved could be considered. This was done by
Raftery (2006a) for Gentzen systems, treating algebraizability as a special case of
the equivalence between two Gentzen systems of the most general kind. As a bonus,
the equivalence between two sentential logics,74 and that between a sentential logic
and a Gentzen system, were also studied; he applied this to shed new light on the
relations between different formalizations of some substructural logics.
73 The work done by Blok in the 1970s on several lattices of modal logics (see Rautenberg, Za-
kharyaschev, and Wolter, 2006, for a survey) is noteworthy, besides its intrinsic interest, for two
reasons: he was the first to develop this kind of application, and it was one of his main sources of
inspiration for the general theory of algebraizability.
74 In the literature, a relation between two sentential logics expressed by means of a transformer
in a way similar to (ALG1) has been named in a variety of ways; the term translation is popular,
sometimes with either conservative or faithful prepended to it, but these are not used in a uniform
way. Notice that the equivalence to which I refer here is stronger than this (the transformer is
“invertible”), and that some translations considered in the literature are not structural.
66 Josep Maria Font
rephrased by saying that L is algebraizable if and only if, for each algebra A, Ω A
is an isomorphism between these expanded lattices.
But there is much more. The mere existence of an isomorphism of this kind is
enough to guarantee algebraizability:
Theorem 8.2 (essentially, Blok and Pigozzi, 1989, 2001). Let L be a logic and let
K be a generalized quasivariety. The following conditions are equivalent:
(i) L is algebraizable with equivalent algebraic semantics K.
(ii) For
every algebra A there is an isomorphism between the expanded lattices
FiL A, hhL : h ∈ End(A)i and Con K A, hhK : h ∈ End(A)i .
(iii) There is an
isomorphism
between the expanded lattices ThL , hσL : σ ∈
End(Fm)i and Con K Fm, hσ K : σ ∈ End(Fm)i .
Observe that in condition (iii) “points” (formulas and equations) have almost dis-
appeared; the condition concerns the expanded lattices of closed sets77 of the two
closure operators (corresponding to the closure relations `L and K ) whose equiv-
alence through structural transformers constitutes the definition of algebraizability.
Another equally essential component should be highlighted before going on: the
two closure operators involved are structural, which is also a property that relates
them to the endomorphisms of the formula algebra, and which can equivalently be
formulated in terms of the closed sets. For instance, it is easy to see that property (S)
in Definition 2.1 is equivalent to the condition that σ −1Γ ∈ ThL for all Γ ∈ ThL
and all σ ∈ End(Fm); this property is then propagated to the L -filters of arbitrary
algebras: if F ∈ FiL A then h−1 F ∈ FiL A for all h ∈ End(A).
A result parallel to Theorem 8.2 for the notion of equivalence between two
Gentzen systems was obtained by Raftery (2006a, Theorem 6.8). It seems clear
that a similar result can be obtained if one develops a theory of equivalence between
hypersequent systems, or between finitely-sided sequents, and so on. However, for
this, a parallel theory of matrix models, filters, Leibniz operator, etc., has to be devel-
oped in each case, with a formalism heavily dependent on the grammatical structure
of the languages involved. The subject naturally called for a more abstract setting
that would free it from this dependence on the languages on which the deductive
systems are defined.
This move was made by Blok and Jónsson (2006), who considered this kind of
isomorphism theorem as capturing the abstract essence of algebraizability. They
jumped one abstraction level up, and placed the study in the landscape of structural
closure operators on M-sets, that is, sets endowed with the action of a monoid M
(the abstraction of the monoid of substitutions of the formula algebra, which acts on
the sets of formulas, of equations, of sequents, etc.). The structurality of a closure
operator on the universe of an M-set is defined in terms of these actions, and the
lattice of closed sets is also expanded by these actions.
The next level of abstraction was introduced by Galatos and Tsinakis (2009). It
consists in “getting rid of points” completely, by observing that most of the work
77 The relative congruences of the formula algebra, Con Fm, are the closed sets (the “theories”)
K
of the equational consequence K .
68 Josep Maria Font
is already done at the level of subsets (the consequences, the filters, etc.), and that
the endomorphisms and the transformers, which originally act on points, can be ex-
tended to sets by taking unions, so that all the relevant definitions (e.g., structurality,
or the four algebraizability conditions) can be equivalently formulated by referring
only to subsets. Since complementation plays no rôle here, the abstract structures
corresponding to power sets are complete lattices, and the abstract correlate of point
functions extended to sets by taking unions are residuated functions; some of these
functions (those corresponding to the substitutions) act on the elements of the lat-
tice, giving it the structure of a module. Thus, the theory is placed in the framework
of modules over complete residuated lattices and closure operators78 over them.
In the two abstract approaches just mentioned, the notion of equivalence between
structural closure operators appears naturally, and is defined in terms of the exis-
tence of an isomorphism between the associated expanded lattices of closed sets
or, in the second case, the associated modules of fixed points. A new problem thus
arises: that of identifying conditions under which any such isomorphism, assum-
ing it exists, is induced by transformers, as the Leibniz operator is in the original
setting. This leads to the problem of identifying the abstract correlate of the proper-
ties of the algebra of formulas that make the equivalence in Theorem 8.2 possible,
and has come to be known as THE ISOMORPHISM PROBLEM. Some sufficient, but
not necessary, conditions had already been found by Blok and Jónsson (2006); the
solutions obtained at different levels by Galatos and Tsinakis (2009), and by Font
and Moraschini (2015) are formulated in categorial terms, involving the notion of
projectivity.
These lines of research seem to be expanding further in several directions. Both
the idea of equivalence between deductive systems and the isomorphism problem
can be studied in other contexts. Let me just mention that Galatos and Gil-Férez
(2016) jump up again, to the categories of modules over quantaloids, which allows
them to merge this line of research with the already very fruitful one of categorical
abstract algebraic logic pursued by Voutsadakis (see 2003, and many others), cover-
ing many-sorted logics. Meanwhile, Russo (2013) addresses the issue of considering
the equivalence between deductive systems over different languages at these more
abstract levels. Furthermore, Moraschini (2016) develops a new concept of transla-
tion between equational consequences relative to generalized quasivarieties (again,
possibly over different languages) which characterizes the adjunctions between the
associated categories, and uses this to prove that every generalized quasivariety is
categorially equivalent to the equivalent algebraic semantics of a finitely algebraiz-
able logic (possibly over a different language); in particular, every quasivariety is
categorially equivalent in this sense to the equivalent algebraic semantics of a fini-
tary and finitely algebraizable (i.e., BP-algebraizable) logic.
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