How to construct a logic for your application

Abstract

The purpose of this note is to present and evaluate the options available to a researcher wishing to use logic for representation, reasoning and computation in his application area. We examine two case studies, modal logic and resurce logics and show that in both cases neither classical logic nor its alternatives modal logic or substructural logic are completely satisfactory. We argue that there is a need for a new discipline and introduce and discuss the discipline of Labelled Deductive Systems (LDS). The approach is to see what is needed from the application area upward into the theory, without imposing any pre-determined concepts.

I am grateful to H.-J. Ohlbach for stimulating discussions and for going through an earlier version of the paper.