The Modal Logic of Aristotelian Diagrams

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce and study AD-logic, i.e., a system of (hybrid) modal logic that can be used to reason about Aristotelian diagrams. The language of AD-logic, LAD, is interpreted on a kind of birelational Kripke frames, which we call “AD-frames”. We establish a sound and strongly complete axiomatization for AD-logic, and prove that there exists a bijection between finite Aristotelian diagrams (up to Aristotelian isomorphism) and finite AD-frames (up to modal isomorphism). We then show how AD-logic can express several major insights about Aristotelian diagrams; for example, for every well-known Aristotelian family A, we exhibit a formula χA∈LAD and show that an Aristotelian diagram D belongs to the family A iff χA is validated by D (when the latter is viewed as an AD-frame). Finally, we show that AD-logic itself gives rise to new and interesting Aristotelian diagrams, and we reflect on their profoundly peculiar status.