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Room P3.10, Mathematics Building
The Beth property in Algebraic Logic
Many of the familiar logical systems have an algebraic counterpart. A logic S is said to be algebraizable if there exists a quasivariety Alg(S) such that the consequence relation |- over S and the equational consequence relation |= over Alg(S) are interpretable in one another in a certain strong sense. For algebraizable logics S many metalogical properties of the logic S are known to transfer into natural algebraic properties of the associated class of structures Alg(S), and vice versa. For example, it is well-known that interpolation properties of an algebraizable logic S relate to amalgamation properties of Alg(S). A logical system has the Beth (definability) property if every “implicitly” definable notion has an explicit definition relative to the logic. Andreka, Németi and Sain first, and Hoogland later, explored the connection between the Beth property and the algebraic property EP of “epimorphisms being surjective”'. I will discuss the properties and their connection, and show how it carries over to a class of logics wider than the algebraizable ones. The results will be illustrated by applying them to various familiar non-classical logics.