PHILOSOPHY: people
City University of New York Graduate Center
Melvin Fitting
Ph.D. Yeshiva University
melvin [put-a-dot-here] fitting [at-sign-here] lehman [put-a-dot-here] cuny [put-a-dot-here] edu
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Research Interests
- Applications of logic to computer science and to philosophy
- Modal logics
- Theory of truth
I have developed tableau methods for many modal logics, which have been successfully implemented on computers. My work on Kripke-like theories of truth has also been applied to provide semantics for certain programming languages. Some of this work has also found application in non-monotonic reasoning. Recently I have been interested in first- and higher-order modal logics. Applications here range from an explication of Goedel's ontological argument, to semantics for databases of a rather complex sort. My current research involves adding or removing various features from quantified modal logics, to see what the formal consequences are.
Courses Recently Taught
- Modal Logic; co-taught with Richard Mendelsohn (Spring 2007, Spring 2005)
- Advanced Logic (Fall 2006)
- Incompleteness and Undecidability (Spring 2003)
- Set Theory (Fall 2002)
- Also see past courses in the Computer Science program.
Representative Publications
- "First order alethic modal logic," Blackwell Companion to Philosophical Logic, Edited by Dale Jacquette, 2000.
- First-Order Modal Logic, coauthored with Richard Mendelsohn, Kluwer, 1998.
- Set Theory and the Continuum Problem, coauthored with Raymond M. Smullyan, 1996, Oxford University Press.
- "Bertrand Russell, Herbrand's Theorem, and the assignment statement," Artificial Intelligence and Symbolic Computation, Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1476, pp 14--28, 1998.
- "A theory of truth that prefers falsehood," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 26:477-500, 1997.