Equational definitions of logical filters

Abstract

A finitary propositional logic can be given an algebraic reading in two different ways: by translating formulas into equations and logical rules into quasi-equations, or by translating logical rules directly into equations. The former type of algebraic interpretation has been extensively studied and underlies the theory of algebraization, whereas little systematic attention has been paid to the latter type. We investigate a semantic form of the latter type of algebraic interpretation, which we call the equational definability of compact filters (EDCF). Paralleling the well-studied hierarchy of variants of the deduction–detachment theorem (DDT), this property also comes in local, parametrized, and parametrized local variants. The main results of this paper characterize of each of these variants of the EDCF in a spirit similar to the existing characterizations of the DDT. While the EDCF hierarchy and the DDT hierarchy coincide for algebraizable logics, part of the interest of the EDCF stems from the fact it is often enjoyed even by logics which are not well-behaved in terms of other existing classifications in algebraic logic.