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Arthur Prior and Hybrid Logic

Article in Synthese June 2006
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-005-5512-y Source: DBLP

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Arthur Prior and Hybrid Logic

Patrick Blackburn
Abstract
Contemporary hybrid logic is based on the idea of using formulas as
terms, an idea invented and explored by Arthur Prior in the mid 1960s.
But Priors own work on hybrid logic remains largely undiscussed. This is
unfortunate, since hybridisation played a role that was both central to and
problematic for his philosophical views on tense. In this paper I introduce
hybrid logic from a contemporary perspective, and then examine the role
it played in Priors work.

Introduction

Over the last few years the basic ideas of hybrid logic have become increasingly
familiar to modal logicians. Nowadays most researchers in modal logic (and most
researchers in the neighbouring field of description logic) know how to name
worlds using nominals, and are aware that this use of formulas as terms can
be traced back to work of Arthur Prior from the 1960s.
But Priors own work on hybrid logic remains largely undiscussed. This is
unfortunate, for hybridisation plays a role in Priors work that is both central
and problematic. Hybridisation isnt an optional extra in Priorean tense logic:
its the fundamental idea used in his reduction of B series talk to A series talk.
But hybridisation solves Priors reduction problem rather too well: as he came
to realise, hybridisation can be applied to any domain, casting doubt on his
claim that tensed talk is privileged.
The aim of this paper is to discuss what Priors contributions to hybrid
logic were and why he made them. I want to evaluate his work in the light of
contemporary approaches, and to examine the role hybridization played in his
philosophy. Accordingly, in the first half of the paper (Sections 2 through 4) I
introduce hybrid logic from a contemporary perspective, mentioning Prior only
in passing. In the second half (Sections 5 through 7) I focus on Priors approach
to hybrid logic. I discuss the strong hybrid language that Prior invented and
employed, and explain why hybridization is both central to and problematic for
his views on tensed talk. I conclude (Section 8) by contrasting the Priorean
perspective on hybrid logic with the (model-theoretic) perspective underlying
most contemporary work.

Orthodox modal logic

In this part of the paper I will introduce hybrid logic from a contemporary
perspective. However, as will soon become clear, hybrid logic is very much part
of modal logic, so it is important that readers know what the contemporary
perspective on modal logic (outside pure philosophy) actually is.
The perspective shared by most contemporary modal logicians (a perspective
also held, if not always articulated, by many researchers in theoretical computer
science, computational logic, and description logic) is sometimes called the Amsterdam perspective (a tribute to Johan van Benthem and his students and
colleagues who have been largely responsible for disseminating it). Roughly
speaking, the Amsterdam perspective stresses modal model theory. It lays particular emphasis on the branch of modal model theory called correspondence
theory which deals with the semantic links between modal logic and other forms
of logic, such as first- and second-order classical logic. Here is an attempt, taken
from an (Amsterdam-style) textbook on propositional modal logic, to encapsulate the main ideas in three slogans:
Slogan 1 Modal languages are simple yet expressive languages for talking
about relational structures.
Slogan 2 Modal languages provide an internal, local perspective on relational structures.
Slogan 3 Modal languages are not isolated formal systems.
[From the Preface to Blackburn, de Rijke and Venema [6]].

Lets develop propositional modal logic Amsterdam-style, keeping an eye

on these slogans as we proceed. First, given propositional symbols PROP =
{p, q, r, . . .}, and modality symbols MOD = {m, m0 , m00 , . . .} we define the basic
modal language (over PROP and MOD) as follows:
WFF := p | | | | | hmi | [m].
The hmi symbols are called diamonds, and the [m] symbols are called boxes.
If theres just one modality symbol in the language, we usually write 3 and 2 for
its diamond and box forms. Sometimes we use other symbols instead of diamond
and box notation. For example, when discussing Priorean tense logic, we shall
follow Priors example and write F and P for the diamond forms, and G and
H for the corresponding box forms, and when we meet the universal modality
in Section 6 we shall write E for its diamond form and A for its box form. But
no matter which notational choices we fix on, it should be clear that at least
part of Slogan 1 is correct: propositional modal languages are indeed simple.
Syntactically, we are working with languages of propositional logic augmented
with additional unary operators.
Now for the semantics. A Kripke model M is a triple (W, R, V ), where W is
a non-empty set, and R is a collection of binary relations on W (formally, R =
{Rm | m MOD}, so there is a one-to-one correspondence between relations

and modalities). The pair (W, R) is called a frame. The third component V
(the valuation) is a function assigning subsets of W to propositional symbols:
the set of points assigned to a particular symbol (say, p) is the set of points
where that symbol is true. The frame provides us with a relational skeleton,
and the valuation fleshes it with atomic information.
But what do frames represent? The contemporary answer is: just about
anything. Here are some examples. A traditional interpretation is to think of
W as a set of possible worlds, in which case there is usually just one relation
R, and Rww0 is taken to mean that world w0 is a possible alternative world
relative to world w. Another well known interpretation is to take W to be a
set of times. In this case the relation R is often written as <, and w < w0 is
taken to mean that time w precedes time w0 . In this interpretation we would
usually place additional restrictions on <; for example we might demand that
it be transitive and linear, thereby ensuring that our models respect some basic
intuitions about temporal structure.
But these traditional interpretations are merely the tip of the iceberg. A
currently influential perspective is to think of W as the set of states in some
computational system, and the collection of relations in R as processes. Under
this interpretation R ww0 means that state w can be transformed into state w0
by an application of process . If the relations in R are arbitrary relations, then
we have a non-deterministic model of processes, and if we restrict attention to
partial functions, we have a deterministic model.
As a final example, the interpretation of Kripke models that lies at the
heart of contemporary description logic is that the elements of W are ordinary
individuals, and the relations in R are any relations on these individuals of
interest for our application. For example, we might want to reason about a
group of people sharing a house and how they get on with one another (so
we might be interested in such binary relations as likes, loves, respects,
loathes, and so on). As this example shows, in contemporary modal logic the
technical machinery of Kripke models is not always interpreted intensionally.
Incidentally, given this diversity of interpretations, in this paper (when we are
not focusing on one particular interpretation of Kripke models) we shall use the
relatively neutral term point to refer to the elements of W .
We shall shortly examine two of the examples just mentioned in more detail,
but before doing so we must give the satisfaction definition, which links modal
syntax with Kripke models. The satisfaction definition will bring us face-to-face
with the internal perspective characteristic of modal logic (recall Slogan 2).
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w
M, w

|= p
|=
|=
|=
|=
|= hmi
|= [m]

iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff

w V (p), where p PROP

not M, w |=
M, w |= and M, w |=
M, w |= or M, w |=
not M, w |= or M, w |=
for some w0 W , wRm w0 and M, w0 |=
for all w0 W , if wRm w0 then M, w0 |= .

These clauses are probably familiar to the reader. Propositional symbols are
3

evaluated with the help of the information contained in the valuation (clause
one) and boolean connectives are evaluated in the familiar classical manner
(clauses two through four). Diamond formulas are evaluated with the aid of
the relevant relation: hmi is true at a point w if there is an Rm -accessible
point satisfying (clause six). Formulas of the form [m] dually demand the
satisfaction of at all Rm accessible points (clause seven).
But familiar as all this may be, one feature must be explicitly noted: modal
formulas talk about Kripke models from the inside. In first-order classical logic,
when we talk about a model, we do so from the outside. A sentence of first-order
logic does not depend on the contextual information contained in assignments
of values to variables: sentences take a Gods-eye-view of structure, and, irrespective of the variable assignment we use, are simply true or false of a given
model.
Modal logic works differently: we evaluate formulas inside models at some
particular point. So to speak, a modal formula is like a creature (or an automaton) placed inside a structure at some point w, and forced to explore by
making transitions to accessible points. The occurrences of diamonds and boxes
it contains force it to do this. The entire form of such a creature is adapted to
searching models from the inside: each layer of diamonds and boxes forces it to
tunnel deeper into the model.
This is a picturesque (indeed zoological!) way of thinking about the satisfaction definition, but (as Slogan 2 insists) it is important. Indeed, when we
isolate the mathematical content of this intuition, we are led, fairly directly, to
the notion of bisimulation, the key to modal model theory.
But this is jumping ahead. Lets briefly return to two of the interpretations of modal logic mentioned above: the tense logical interpretation, and the
description logic interpretation.
The tense logical interpretation, which is due to Arthur Prior, is the clearest
example of modal logic being appreciated for the internal perspective. It was
Prior who introduced the F and P diamonds (meaning at some F uture time,
and at some P ast time respectively) and their respective duals G and H
(it is always Going to be the case, and it always H as been the case).
Why? Because he viewed tensed talk as fundamental: we exist in time, and
deal with temporal information from the inside. The internal perspective offered
by modal languages makes it an ideal tool for capturing the situated nature of
our experience and the context-dependent way we talk about it. Suppose we
represent the meaning of the present-tensed English sentence Caliban falls by
the propositional symbol caliban-fall. If we prefix this with the P operator we
obtain P caliban-fall, and this is true at a time w if and only if Caliban does
indeed fall at some past time w0 . This captures at least part of the meaning
of the past-tensed English sentence Caliban fell. Moreover, the syntactic
relationship between Caliban falls and Caliban fell (which differ only in their
tense inflection) is reminiscent of the syntactic relationship between caliban-fall
and P caliban-fall.
As a second example of modal logic in action, lets look more closely at description logic. This is an interesting example in several respects. For a start,
4

it provides a clear example of Kripke semantics being applied in extensional

settings. But it also provides interesting evidence that modal logic is in some
sense special. Many modal logicians (certainly most of those raised in the Amsterdam tradition) would argue that modal logic occupies an interesting niche in
the expressivity hierarchy, and would point to results such as the van Benthem
Characterisation Theorem (discussed below) as evidence. Description logic offers evidence of a more empirical kind. Description logic was independently
invented within the knowledge representation community, and (at least in its
formative period) was not influenced by modal logic. Nonetheless, substantial
parts of description logic and modal logic are simply notational variants. This
was first noted by Schild [26], and his paper took the description logic community by surprise. Its certainly a telling example of two distinct research
communities, in pursuit of different goals, converging on much the same logical
systems. Lets see what is involved.
Consider the following terms from the description logic ALC (for an authoritative introduction to ALC, and many other topics in description logic,
consult [3]):
secretary u boss.manager.
This term, which might be used as part of a system for talking about a
companys administrative structure (the term is satisfied by any individual who
is a secretary and whose boss is a manager) means the same thing as the modal
formula
secretary hbossimanager.
The syntactic correspondences involved are clear. But the semantic correspondence is exact too. The modal formula is true in a model M at a individual w
if and only if that individual is a secretary (information that would be supplied
by the valuation on M) and moreover it is possible to make a transition from
individual w, via the boss relation, to an individual w0 who is a manager. The
description logic term is evaluated on the same kinds of models as the modal
formula, and it is evaluated in exactly the same way.
We have now reached an important turning point in our discussion (a turning
point that will have a mirror image in the second part of the paper when we
discuss the work of Prior). We have taken pains to emphasise that Kripke
models can be interpreted in many ways: after all, frames are simply directed
multigraphs and valuations decorate the points of such graphs with properties.
So we are merely working with a particular class of relational structures in the
usual sense of classical model theory. But this means that we are not forced to
talk about Kripke models using modal languages: we are free to talk about them
with any type of language that can be interpreted over relational structures, such
as first-order languages, second-order languages, infinitary languages, and fixedpoint languages. Moreover (with the help of free variables) we can do this in
a way that captures something of the internal perspective that Slogan 2 alleges
is characteristic of modal logic. For example, earlier we gave the tense logical
representation
P caliban-fall
5

which captures part of the meaning of Caliban fell in a context-dependent

fashion. But we could have used instead the following first-order formula:
t(t < t0 CALIBAN-FALL(t)).
Note that this formula is not a sentence. It contains the free variable t0 ,
and so is a contextualised representation. It requires additional information
(namely, the information contained in an assignment of values to variables) to
make it complete. But when t0 is anchored to a point inside a model by such
a variable assignment, then we have a representation that works in much the
same way as the earlier tense logical representation.
Or consider the description logic formula given above (written in modal
notation):
secretary hbossimanager.
We could use instead the first-order representation
SECRETARY(x) y(BOSS(x, y) MANAGER(y)).
Once again, it is clear that this first-order representation captures something of
the internal perspective offered by the modal representation, and again the key
point is that we used a free variable (here x) to enable first-order evaluation to
be contextualised to specific individuals. Although the form of the first-order
formula is not designed for internal exploration in the way the form of modal
formula so obviously is, it cannot be denied that it works.
Moreover, these examples reflect a general fact about the relationship between modal and first-order representations: any modal representation can by
converted into an equisatisfiable first-order representation via what is known as
the standard translation:
stx (p)
stx ()
stx ( )
stx ( )
stx ( )
stx (hmi)
stx ([m])

=
=
=
=
=
=
=

P(x)
stx ()
stx () stx ()
stx () stx ()
stx () stx ()
y(Rm (x, y) sty ())
y(Rm (x, y) sty ()).

This translation maps propositional symbols to unary predicates, commutes

with booleans, and handles boxes and diamonds by explicit first-order quantification over Rm -accessible points.1
1 The first-order language we translate into has a special name: the first-order correspondence language. To be more precise, if we are working with a modal language with propositional symbols PROP, and modality symbols MOD, then we translate into a first-order
language with a unary relation symbol P for each proposition symbol in PROP, and a binary
relation symbol Rm for each modality symbol in MOD. In some cases it is usual to use a special notation for the correspondence language. For example, it is common to translate tense
logical formulas into a first-order language with < as its binary relation symbol, just as we
did above. For an elegant introduction to correspondence theory (and much else besides) in
the setting of temporal logic, see [29]. For a wide-ranging overview, see [30]. For a systematic
introduction, see Chapters 2 and 3 of [6].

The variable y used in the clauses for diamonds and boxes is chosen to be a
new variable (that is, one that has not been used so far in the translation). Note
that stx () always contains exactly one free variable (namely x) so the translation produces contextualised first-order formulas. Moreover, the translation
gets it right in the following sense: it preserves satisfiability.
Proposition 1 For any modal formula , any Kripke model M, and any
point w in M we have M, w |= iff M |= stx ()[x w] (where [x w]
means assign point w to the free variable x occurring in stx ()).
Proof There is practically nothing to prove. The clauses of the standard
translation mirror the clauses of the satisfaction definition. Hence the
result follows by an (easy) induction on the structure of modal formulas.

Summing up, weve just seen that any modal formula can be systematically
converted into an equisatisfiable first-order formula in one free variable. And as
well soon see, the reverse is not possible: first-order logic can describe models
in more detail than orthodox modal logic can. Some first-order formulas (in one
free variable) have no modal equivalent. That is, orthodox modal languages are
strictly weaker than their corresponding first-order languages. So it is natural
to ask, why bother with modal logic at all?
Most contemporary modal logicians would relish the chance to answer this
question. The consensus is that (for many purposes) there are excellent reasons
for favouring modal logic over first-order logic. One reason is this: simplicity.
The standard translation shows that modalities are essentially macros that encode quantification over accessible points without explicitly binding variables.
That is, modal notation is a compact easy-to-read notation that packs quantificational punch. For many applications, simple yet expressive formalisms are
desirable, hence modal logic is often a good choice.
A related point concerns computability. First-order logic is undecidable over
arbitrary models, whereas modal logic is decidable (indeed, the basic modal
languages discussed here are even decidable in PSPACE). Description logicians
strongly emphasise the importance of decidability. They argue that for many
purposes first-order logic offers too much expressivity, and that for many applications it makes far more sense to work with restricted fragments of first-order
logic with better computational properties. This has lead to a highly successful
research program: the description logic community has developed many useful
description logics (most of which are, in essence, decidable fragments of firstorder logic) and implemented optimised theorem provers that deal with them
with impressive efficiency (again, for further discussion, consult [3]).
But the defence of modal logic that I will develop here centres on the internal
perspective. If we carefully think about what the internal perspective says, we
are lead to an elegant characterisation of modal logic as a genuinely internal
fragment of first-order logic.
Recall that I invited the reader to think of modal formulas as small creatures,
or automata, placed inside a model and forced to explore it by making transitions

to accessible points. Now for the key question: when does such a creature view
two models as the same?2 To put it more precisely: suppose we defined a
relation Z between the points of two models. What conditions would such a
relation Z have to satisfy to guarantee that whenever we plucked a creature
from a point w in one model, and placed it at a Z-related point w0 in the other,
then the creature could not tell which of the two models it was exploring?
A little experiment will convince the reader that the following conditions on
Z are necessary. First, any Z-related points in the two models should satisfy
the same proposition symbols (otherwise the simplest creature of all, namely
a propositional symbol, could distinguish the models). Second, any transition
to an accessible point in one model, should be matched by a transition to a
Z-related point in the other. So every step forward the creature takes in one
model is matched by a step to a similar point in the other; no matter how many
steps the creature takes, it can never distinguish one model from another.
These are precisely the conditions required of bisimulations:
Definition 2 (Bisimulations) Let M be the model (W, R, V ) and M0
be the model (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ), both for the same basic modal language. A
relation Z W W 0 is a bisimulation between M and M0 if the following
conditions are met:
1. Atomic equivalence: if wZw0 then w V (p) iff w0 V 0 (p), for all
propositional symbols p.
2. Forth: if wZw0 and wRv then there is a v 0 such that w0 R0 v 0 and
vZv 0 .
3. Back: if wZw0 and w0 R0 v 0 then there is a v such that wRv and vZv 0 .
If w is a point in M and w0 a point in M0 such that wZw0 then we say
that w is bisimilar to w0 .

Bisimulations are an elegant measure of the similarity of two models. They

are used in a number of fields. For example, computer scientists independently
developed the notion as a way of saying when two (perhaps very different looking) process graphs could be regarded as defining the same process: the backand-forth structure of the definition abstracts away from inessential differences
to tell us whether or not we are dealing with interchangeable black boxes.
But for present purposes bisimulations are important because they tell us a
lot about modal logic. First a simple observation:
Proposition 3 If Z is a bisimulation between M = (W, R, V) and M0 =
(W 0 , R0 , V 0 ), and wZw0 , then w and w0 satisfy the same modal formulas.
2 This is the key question, as characterising the powers of logical languages to distinguish relational structures is the starting point of serious model theory. For example, the L
owenheimSkolem theorems show that first-order languages cannot distinguish infinite relational structures of different cardinality. In fact, no (set-based) logical language can distinguish all relational structures, for relational structures form a proper class. So any logical language is going
to regard some non-isomorphic structures as identical (in the sense of making the same formulas true). Hence the interest of the present question: which structures do modal languages
view as identical? And do they have a natural logico-mathematical characterisation?

Proof An easy induction on the construction of modal formulas. The

base case follows immediately from Clause 1 of the previous definition.
The inductive steps for the booleans are straightforward. And the back
and forth clauses are exactly what is required to drive through the steps
for diamond and box formulas.

In short, we have a fundamental invariance result: no modal formula can

distinguish bisimilar points. This immediately sets limits on modal expressivity. For example, we might ask: is there any modal formula that expresses
irreflexivity on models? That is, is there any modal formula that is satisfied at
all irreflexive points in all models, and only at such points? Note that there is
such a first-order formula (in one free variable) namely (x < x).
But there is no modal formula with this property. Why not? Let M be
the model based on the frame (N, <), the natural numbers in their usual order,
in which all propositional symbols are false at all points. Let M0 be a frame
consisting of a single reflexive point w, with all propositional symbols false at w.
As the reader can easily check, the relation Z which links every point in M to
the single point in M0 is a bisimulation. Hence (by Proposition 3) every point
in these two models satisfies exactly the same modal formulas. It follows that
there can be no modal formula that is true only at irreflexive points (or only at
reflexive points, for that matter) for any such formula would have to be true at
all the points in M and false at the unique point in M0 , which is impossible.
Now, we have already seen (Proposition 1) that the standard translation
allows us to transform every modal formula into an equisatisfiable first-order
formula in one free variable. Our observation concerning irreflexivity shows
that the reverse is not the case: first-order logic is strictly more expressive than
the modal logic. To put it another way, a modal language can be viewed as a
(proper) fragment of the first-order language to which it corresponds. And this
leads to a key question: exactly which fragment is it? That is, is it possible to
precisely characterise modal logic as a proper sublogic of first-order logic?
As we promised earlier, it is possible, and the characterisation is elegant.
First a preliminary concept:
Definition 4 A first-order formula (x) is invariant for bisimulation if
for all models M and M0 , and all points w in M and w0 in M0 , and
all bisimulations Z between M and M0 such that wZw0 , we have that
M |= (x)[x w] iff M0 |= (x)[x w0 ].

And now the key result:

Theorem 5 (van Benthem Characterization Theorem) Given a firstorder formula containing exactly one free variable, then is equivalent
to the standard translation of a modal formula if and only if is invariant
for bisimulation.
Proof The left to right direction is easy. Suppose a first-order formula
is equivalent to the standard translation of a modal formula. Then is

equivalent to STx (), for some modal formula . By Proposition 3, is

invariant for bisimulation, hence by Proposition 1, STx () must be too,
hence (by equivalence) so is .
The right to left direction is deeper. The original proof (see Theorem 3.9
of [28]) uses a union of chains argument. For an alternative proof (which
appeals to the existence of saturated models) see Chapter 2 of Blackburn,
de Rijke and Venema [6].

So modal logic is a simple way of capturing exactly the bisimulation-invariant

fragment of first-order logic. If bisimulation-invariant is taken as synonymous
with internal (and given our earlier discussion, this seems a legitimate identification) then modal notation is not some ad-hoc invention: its a way of isolating
that part of first-order logic that is genuinely internal.
Lets summarise what we have learned. First, as Slogan 3 insists, modal languages are not isolated formal systems: interpreted over models they are essentially simple fragments of first-order logic with a number of attractive properties
(such as decidability in PSPACE). Traditional modal notation is essentially an
elegant, variable free, macro notation for working with this fragment. Moreover,
as Slogan 2 insists, modal languages do indeed provide an internal perspective
on relational structures: the notion of bisimulation, and the results associated
with it, show that this is the key model-theoretic fact at work. Finally, as Slogan 1 puts is, modal languages are simple yet expressive languages for talking
about relational structures. You can use modal logic for just about anything.
Whenever you see an interesting graph, you can use a modal language to talk
about it.

Problems with orthodox modal logic

For all their attractive properties, orthodox modal languages have an obvious
expressive weakness: they cannot name points. We cannot say this happened
then, or that some particular individual has some property, or that two distinct
sequences of processes take us from the current state to identical states. Firstorder logic can do all this. We simply use constants to name individuals of
interest, and the equality symbol for reasoning about their identity. But no
analogous mechanisms exist in propositional modal logic.
This expressive shortcoming is a problem for some of the most interesting
applications of modal logic. For a start, it means that orthodox tense logic is not
strong enough to handle the temporal semantics of natural language properly.
Why not? Because temporal reference (that is, reference to specific times) plays
an important role here.
Consider again the sentence Caliban fell. This does not mean that at some
completely unspecified past time Caliban did in fact fall (which is the meaning
the tense logical representation P caliban-fall, assigns it). Rather, it means that
at some particular, contextually determined, past time Caliban did in fact fall.
Orthodox tense logic offers us no mechanism for labelling this time.

10

Table 1: Reichenbachs referential analysis of tense

Structure
ERS
E,RS
RES
RS,E
RSE
ES,R
S,R,E
S,RE
SER
S,ER
ESR
SR,E
SRE

Name
Pluperfect
Past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Perfect
Present
Prospective
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future
Future-in-the-future

English example
I had seen
I saw
I would see
I would see
I would see
I have seen
I see
I am going to see
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will see
(Latin: abiturus ero)

This example only scratches the surface of an important topic. According

to Hans Reichenbach (see [25]) temporal reference is central to the semantics
of tense in natural language. Reichenbach distinguished tenses in terms of the
reference they make to three times, the point of speech (S), the point of event
(E), and the point of reference (R). Much of what he says is compatible with
Priors views.3
For a start, the point of speech is the time at which the sentence is uttered,
and this concept is fundamental to the internal perspective of tense logic: its
simply the time at which we evaluate a formula. The point of event is the time
at which the eventuality the sentence is talking about takes place. This might
be the same time as the point of speech, or to its past, or in its future. This
concept also fits naturally with orthodox tense logic. If is the representation
of some eventuality, then evaluating at some point amounts to identifying
the point of event with the point of speech. Prefixing P to form P locates
the point of event to the past of the point of speech. Prefixing F to form F
locates the point of event to the future of the point of speech.
So far so good. But Reichenbachs key innovation was the point of reference,
and here we encounter something that orthodox tense logic cannot handle. Table 1 (which is taken from [10]) tabulates Reichenbachs analyses of the tense
forms of English. What do these analyses say?
Consider Reichenbachs account of the pluperfect. When we utter I had
seen, there is a clear intuition that we refer to some past time (this is the point
of reference) and assert that the seeing event took place before that. Accordingly,
Reichenbach analyses the pluperfect form as ERS, which means that the point
of event lies to the past of the point of reference, which in turn lies to the past
of the point of speech.
What about the simple past? When we discussed Caliban fell we said that
function of the simple past in English was to locate an event at some particular (contextually determined) past time. In effect, this is what Reichenbachs
3 For a comparison of Prior and Reichenbachs views, which also takes into account the
work of Jespersen (an important source of inspiration for Reichenbach) see [12].

11

treatment of the simple past gives us. He analyses this tense as E,RS. That
is, the point of event and the point of reference coincide and lie to the past of
the point of speech. The point of reference is the contextually determined past
time, and by co-locating it with the point of event, we account for the way the
simple past works.
Reichenbachs analyses are open to criticism. Some linguists have objected
to the use of three distinct diagrams (namely RES, RE,S, and RSE) to account for the future-in-the-past tense (and indeed, the future perfect): as there is
only a single natural language form, they demand a single representation. Moreover, many linguists would feel that his analysis of the present perfect (which
amounts to saying that point of reference corresponds to point of speech) does
not get to grips with the subtleties of this construction. Nonetheless, whatever
their shortcomings, Reichenbachs views on temporal semantics are highly influential in contemporary natural language semantics, and Reichenbach-inspired
ideas lie at the heart of much recent work. This is because temporal reference in
natural language is ubiquitous, and without some way of capturing its effects,
we cannot adequately analyse many temporal constructions. Tense logic has
fallen into disuse in natural language semantics largely because it offers no such
mechanism.
The lack of mechanisms for referring to points also means that orthodox
modal logic and description logic, though closely related, are not the same. We
have seen that there is a transparent correspondence between ALC terms and
modal formulas. For example, the term
secretary u boss.manager
is a notational variant of
secretary hbossimanager.
But this correspondence, though systematic, only covers what description logicians call the concept language. The concept language is used to define generalisations of interest in the application domain, and it is accurate to say that the
core of the most commonly used concept languages are notational variants of
orthodox modal logic. But description logic was designed to be used in computational applications. So stating generalisations is not enough: it must also be
possible to apply them to concrete situations. Description logicians represent
concrete situations using what they call the ABox (Assertional Box). Here they
write things like
kai : secretary
(that is, Kai is a secretary) and
(kai, edwin) : boss
(that is, Edwin is Kais boss). In short, via the ABox, description logic offers
a way of representing facts about particular individuals, and the relationships
that exist between them. And this part of description logic has no analog in
orthodox modal logic.
12

Basic hybrid logic

We can now state the goal that will lead us to basic hybrid logic. We want to extend orthodox modal logic with a mechanism for referring to points. Moreover,
we want to do this without destroying the simplicity and elegance of propositional modal logic. Propositional modal logic is not some ad-hoc fragment of
classical logic: it is its bisimulation-invariant fragment, and possesses a number
of attractive properties. If we extend it, we should respect such features as best
we can.
How should we proceed? This is not obvious, for propositional modal logic
has few moving parts. But there is an elegant solution, and the first person to
see it was Arthur Prior: sort the propositional symbols, and use formulas as
terms.
Lets do this right away. Take a language of basic modal logic (with propositional symbols p, q, r, and so on) and add a second sort of propositional symbol.
The new symbols are called nominals, and are typically written i, j, k, and l.
Both types of propositional symbol can be freely combined to form more complex formulas in the usual way. And now for the key change: insist that each
nominal be true at exactly one point in any model. A nominal names a point
by being true there and nowhere else.
This is a simple change, but it is far from negligible. Already we have a
richer logic. Consider the following (orthodox) modal formula:
3(r p) 3(r q) 3(p q).
This can be falsified. The first conjunct in the antecedent says that it is possible
to make a transition to an accessible point where both r and p are true together,
and the second asserts that it is possible to make a transition to a point where
r and q are true together. The conclusion then asserts that it possible to make
a transition to a point where p and q are true together. But this is clearly
unjustified: the p-witnessing and q-witnessing successors may be distinct.
But now consider the following hybrid formula:
3(i p) 3(i q) 3(p q).
This is identical to the preceding formula, save that we have replaced the propositional symbol r by the nominal i. But the resulting formula is valid (that is,
impossible to falsify) because we now have extra information: the p-witnessing
and q-witnessing successors both make i truebut there is only one point where
i is true, for i is a nominal. Hence these successors cannot be distinct and the
conclusion follows.
Moreover, as was pointed out in [4], it is now possible to merge Prior and
Reichenbachs views on tense, for nominals are the missing ingredient needed
to handle points of reference. Table 2 is the same as the one given earlier, but
with hybrid representations added in the final column.
Consider the hybrid representation P (i P ) of the pluperfect. This says
that there is some point in the past labelled i and that the event happened
13

Table 2: Reichenbachs referential analysis of tense in hybrid logic

Structure
ERS
E,RS
RES
RS,E
RSE
ES,R
S,R,E
S,RE
SER
S,ER
ESR
SR,E
SRE

Name
Pluperfect
Past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Future-in-the-past
Perfect
Present
Prospective
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future perfect
Future
Future-in-the-future

English example
I had seen
I saw
I would see
I would see
I would see
I have seen
I see
I am going to see
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will have seen
I will see
(Latin: abiturus ero)

Representation
P (i P )
P (i )
P (i F )
P (i F )
P (i F )
i P
i
i F
F (i P )
F (i P )
F (i P )
F (i )
F (i F )

before that. This representation combines Reichenbachs insights on the importance temporal reference with Priors insistence on the privileged role of tensed
talk.
Note that in some cases the hybrid representations improve on Reichenbach.
In particular, note that the future-in-the-past (and the future perfect) now has
a single representation. The formula P (i F ) asserts that there is a reference
point i in the past, and that the point of event occurs to the future of i, which
is what is wanted. Were not forced (as Reichenbach was) to spell out the
irrelevant relationships that can hold between the point of event and the point
of speech.
The addition of nominals is the crucial step towards what is nowadays called
the basic hybrid language, but we also need a second ingredient, namely satisfaction operators. These are operators of the form @i , where i is a nominal.
The formula @i asserts that is satisfied at the (unique) point named by the
nominal i. We pronounce this formula at i, .
Syntactically, satisfaction operators are simply modalities. Viewed semantically, they turn out to be very well-behaved modalities indeed. For a start, it is
easy to check that all instances of the modal distribution schema are valid:
@i ( ) (@i @i ).
Moreover, satisfaction operators also admit the modal generalisation law : if is
valid, then so is @i (for any choice of i). As satisfaction operators have these
properties, they are what modal logicians call normal modal operators. Indeed,
they are even self-dual modalities, for all instances of the following schema are
valid:
@i @i .
To put it another way, satisfaction operators are both boxes and diamonds.
But for present purposes, the most important point is that satisfaction operators give us a modal perspective on the equality relation. To see this, note

14

that formulas such as

@i j
are well formed. What does such a formula assert? It says that at the point
named i, the nominal j is satisfied, or to put it another way, the point named
i is identical to the point named j. Thus it should come as no surprise that
the following schemas are valid:
@i i
@i j @j i
@i j @j k @i k
@i @i j @j

Reflexivity of equality
Symmetry of equality
Transitivity of equality
Replacement.

In short, satisfaction operators embody a modal theory of equality.

Well soon return to this point, but lets first consider satisfaction operators
from a description logic perspective. They let capture the part of description
logic that lies beyond the scope of orthodox modal logic, namely the ability to
make ABox statements. To capture the effect of the ABox assertion
kai : secretary
we can write
@kai secretary.
This says that at the individual named kai, the property secretary holds, or
Kai is a secretary.
Similarly, to capture the effect of the (relational) ABox assertion
(kai, edwin) : boss
we write
@kai hbossiedwin.
This says that if we make a boss transition at the individual kai, then we find
the individual edwin, or Edwin is Kais boss.
The basic hybrid language looks promising, but have we really succeeded in
respecting those properties that made orthodox modal logic attractive? As we
shall see, we have. For a start, we have the following:
Theorem 6 The satisfiability problem for the basic hybrid language over
arbitrary models is decidable in PSPACE.
Proof See [2].

That is, basic hybrid logic is decidable, and (up to a polynomial) the complexity of the decision problem is no worse than for the orthodox modal language
we started with.
But more is at hand. We are only a few steps away from a characterisation
result which makes it clear that we have not extended orthodox modal logic
haphazardly. Lets work our way towards this.
15

First we must extend the standard translation so that it covers nominals

and satisfaction operators. How should we do this? First we must enrich the
first-order correspondence language with constants and the equality symbol (to
keep the notation uncluttered, well simply re-use the nominals as first-order
constants). We then add the following two clauses to the standard translation:
stx (i)
= (x = i)
stx (@i ) = sti ().
That is, each nominal i is translated as the first-order constant i (and note
the use of the first-order equality symbol in this clause) while satisfaction operators are translated by substituting the relevant first-order constant for the
free-variable x.4 The resulting translation is correct, as the following analog of
Proposition 1 assures us:
Proposition 7 For any hybrid formula , any Kripke model M, and any
point w in M we have that M, w |= iff M |= stx ()[x w].
Proof Simply extend the inductive proof of Proposition 1 with the cases
for nominals and satisfaction operators.

So once again we are working with a fragment of the (constant and equality
enriched) correspondence language. But which fragment? Once again, bisimulations provide the answer. The following definition extends the notion of
bisimulation given in Definition 2 to cover nominals and first-order constant
symbols:
Definition 8 (Bisimulation-with-names) Let M = (W, R, V ) and M0
= (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ) be models for the same basic hybrid language. A relation
Z W W 0 is a bisimulation-with-names between M and M0 if the
following conditions are met:
1. Atomic equivalence: if wZw0 then w V (p) iff w0 V 0 (p), for all
propositional symbols p, and furthermore w V (i) iff w0 V 0 (i),
for all nominals i.
2. Forth: if wZw0 and wRv then there is a v 0 such that w0 R0 v 0 and
vZv 0 .
3. Back: if wZw0 and w0 R0 v 0 then there is a v such that wRv and vZv 0 .
4. Coverage: For all w W and w0 W 0 , if w and w0 are named by
the same nominal then wZw0 .
4 Note that this translation yields first-order formulas with at most one free variable x, not
with exactly one. This is because a constant may be substituted for the free occurrence of
x. The simplest example of this is the formula @i i, a validity which asserts that the point
named i is self identical. Now consider its standard translation: stx (@i i) = sti (i) = (i = i).
Obviously i = i is the translation we want, and it contains no free occurrence of x.

16

So weve extended the notion of bisimulation in the obvious way.5 And the
extension does everything we would hope. First the easy observation (the analog
of Proposition 3):
Proposition 9 If Z is a bisimulation-with-names between the models M
= (W, R, V ) and M0 = (W 0 , R0 , V 0 ), and wZw0 , then w and w0 satisfy the
same basic hybrid formulas.
Proof An easy extension of the inductive proof of Proposition 3; there
are merely two new cases to check.

And now for the key result:

Theorem 10 (Hybrid Characterization Theorem) A first-order formula (in a correspondence language with constants and the equality
symbol) containing at most one free variable is equivalent to the standard translation of a basic hybrid formula if and only if is invariant for
bisimulation-with-names.
Proof As with Theorem 5, the left to right direction is easy. Suppose a
first-order formula is equivalent to the standard translation of a basic
hybrid formula. Then is equivalent to STx (), for some basic hybrid
formula . By Proposition 9, is invariant for bisimulation, hence by
Proposition 7, STx () must be too, hence (by equivalence) so is .
Again, the right to left direction is deeper; see [2] for details.

In short, basic hybrid logic is a simple notation for capturing exactly the
bisimulation-invariant fragment of first-order logic with constants and equality.
Basic hybrid logic does precisely what we hoped it would: it gives us a genuinely
modal approach to naming and equality.
This concludes our introduction to contemporary hybrid logic, and the first
half of the paper. The introduction has only scratched the surface of an active
area of research. For an introduction to hybrid logic that focuses on their
completeness theory, see Chapter 7 of Blackburn, de Rijke and Venema [6]. For
an introduction to hybrid proof theory (via tableaux systems) see [5]. For more
on the links between hybrid logic and description logic, see [1], and for a detailed
model-theoretic exploration of hybrid logic, see [27]. But it is time to turn from
contemporary developments to the pioneering work of Arthur Prior.
5 In fact, viewed from a first-order perspective, the change is not merely obvious, it is
standard. For we have simply demanded that bisimulation should respect the denotations
of constants, and take all constants into account. Such requirements are typical in firstorder logic when model-theoretic constructions are extended from constant-free languages to
languages with constants.

17

A neglected body of work

Nowadays Arthur Prior is best known for his invention of tense logic. The basic
ideas of the subject were created by him, and many of its most challenging
problems (for example, in the logic of branching time) trace back to his work.
But Prior also invented hybrid logic, and this work is little known. An exception
to this neglect is the writing of Per Hasle and Peter hrstrm. Their joint book
([19] 1995) discusses Priors treatment of instants of time as propositions (as does
their paper [18] 1993). There are also short discussions of instant propositions
and related topics on pages 56 and 125 of hrstrms habilitation (see [17] 1988,
which is written in Danish) and [11] discusses the relevance of the idea to natural
language processing. But other than this, references are few, and there has been
no systematic discussion of Priors system of hybrid logic and the role it played
in his philosophy.
Why is Priors work on hybrid logic so overlooked? It is puzzling. Prior wrote
a lot on the subject, and it is crucial to his philosophical position. Moreover,
Priors writing on hybrid logic is not buried away in obscure publications: the
bulk of it can be found in his two best known books, Past, Present and Future
([21]), and Papers on Time and Tense ([22], [23]).
To be fair, if your only acquaintance with Priors original work on tense logic
is Past, Present and Future (henceforth PPF) it would be understandable if you
overlooked the parts on hybrid logic or did not appreciate their significance. His
remarks on the topic are confined to Chapter 5, Section 6, entitled Development of the U-calculus within the theory of world-states (pages 8892) and
Appendix B, Section 3, entitled On the range of world-variables, and the interpretation of U-calculi in world-calculi (pages 187197). His discussion is
technically detailed, and Priors later writings often refer back to this material.
But it is easily overlooked in a cursory reading.
But no such excuse is possible when it comes to Papers on Time and Tense
(henceforth PTT). Over a third of the original edition is devoted to hybrid logic.
Indeed, four of the five technical papers it contains deal with or make use of
hybrid logic:
The Logic of Ending Time, pages 139158.
Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later, pages 117138.
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, pages 213221.
Tense Logic for Non-Permanent Existents, pages 257274.

(Here and elsewhere, page references in PTT are for the 2003 edition.) One of
these papers, Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later, is particularly
useful for understanding why hybrid logic was important to Prior. Another,
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, which introduces egocentric logic,
is the key text for understanding why it is problematic. We examine these
papers in Section 7.
It is clear that the problem raised by hybrid logic (or to be more accurate,
the dilemma posed by the existence of both hybrid logic and egocentric logic)
18

occupied Priors thoughts till the end of his life. The book Worlds, Times and
Selves ([24]) was to have dealt with the underlying issues. Kit Fine describes
the goal of Worlds, Times and Selves (henceforth WTS) as follows:
This book was to deal, in one way or another, with the interplay between
modal or tense logic, on the one hand, and quantification theory on the
other. One of its main concerns was to show that modal and tense logic
could stand on their own, that talk of possible worlds or instants was to
be reduced to them rather than the other way around.
[From Fines Preface to WTS]

Posthumously published, consisting of draft material followed by a collection

of papers and fragments (together with an appendix by Kit Fine) WTS is the
great might-have-been of hybrid logic.
Further evidence of Priors preoccupation with the problem comes from the
plan he made for the revised edition of PTT (which was published in 2003).
Prior listed seven papers which were to be added to the second edition. Of
these, four dealt with hybrid logic, or egocentric logic, or both, namely:
Now , pages 171193.
Tensed Propositions as Predicates, pages 195211.
Egocentric Logic, pages 223240.
Worlds, Times and Selves, pages 241256.

Indeed, Egocentric Logic and Worlds, Times and Selves explicitly deal with
the problem, first raised in Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals, concerning the co-existence of hybrid and egocentric logic, and in his instructions
for the second edition, Prior specified that they should appear directly after this
paper (as you can see from the page numbers, the editors of the 2003 edition
have followed his advice here). Incidentally, the new edition of PTT contains
most of the material by Prior which made up WTS. Thus PTT is now the single
most important source of information on Priors work on hybrid logic.
So Priors writings on hybrid logic are hardly inaccessible. And this makes
the lack of serious discussion harder to understand. For hybrid logic was not an
optional extra for Prior: understanding the role it played in his work is crucial
to evaluating his philosophy of tensed talk. And (as Prior himself admitted)
its role in his philosophy is problematic. Arthur Prior invented hybrid logic
to solve a philosophical difficulty. He then discovered that it had given him a
deeper difficulty. Nothing in his published writing solves the new problem, and
resolving it was one of the major preoccupations of the last years of his life.
So why are Priors writings on the subject so little discussed? A few answers
can be given. For a start, Priors use of Polish notation didnt help. When
this notational choice is coupled with Priors writing style, the difficulty is compounded. Prior doesnt carefully demarcate the various logical languages he
discusses. He is happy to flow from (various kinds of) tense logic, into (different variants of) classical logic, and liked to freely add operators, predicate
19

symbols, and quantifiers. This style makes Prior deceptively easy to read. Moreover, it may have masked the fact that several of the languages and notations
he introduced en passant were really important contributions in their own right.
Still, while this may partly explain the neglect it cant explain it all: in the earlier mentioned Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and Later there is a fairly
clear demarcation between the four logical languages he considers (the third and
fourth are different versions of hybrid logic) and indeed the entire point of the
paper is to motivate the shifts from one language to another. Incidentally, the
editors of the new edition of PTT have done an immense service by converting
all the papers to orthodox notation. Priors beloved Polish notation is a barrier
that has blocked a proper appreciation of his work.
Another reason may be this. Prior doesnt really use hybrid logic for much
apart from solving his philosophical difficulty. Ordinary tense logic in PPF
is fun. The subject is deliciously motivated and presented. Prior is forever
presenting neat examples of how to capture various aspects of temporal structure. (Indeed, Prior even gives examples of temporal structure that cannot be
captured. For example, though he does not give a proof, Prior saw that the
irreflexivity of time was not something that could be defined in orthodox tense
logic.) It is hard to read PPF with any degree of sensitivity and fail to be
captivated by the vivid way Prior motivated and used his best known invention.
But Priors treatment of hybrid logic in the original edition of PTT is rather
different. He fairly single-mindedly goes about showing that hybridization can
solve his philosophical difficulty (and then goes on, less successfully, to discuss
the difficulties that hybridization in turn raises). But in the original edition
there is little to show that he regarded the ingredients of hybrid logic as of
much independent logical or linguistic interest. For example, in Section 4 we
saw that nominals make it possible to combine Priors insights on tense with
those of Reichenbach. Prior never seems to have seen the connection. His brief
remarks on Reichenbach in PPF (see pages 1215) are rather dismissive; you get
the impression that he thought of Reichenbachs work as fundamentally opposed
to his logical conception of tense. It is ironic that later in the same book he
introduces the nominal, the basic tool needed to give a tense logical analysis of
Reichenbachs ideas.
To put it another way, in the original edition of PTT, there is relatively
little to indicate that Prior played with hybrid logic in the way he played so
brilliantly with tense logic (the only exception is The Logic of Ending Time).
His playfulness in PTT is largely reserved for egocentric logic, which he clearly
found enormous fun. In comparison, hybrid logic comes across as a means to an
end, and it was the end that interested him. Happily, the new edition of PTT
rectifies this impression somewhat. The paper Now , for example, in which
Prior attempts to capture the logic of this word using ideas from hybrid logic,
shows that Prior was aware that his new tool might be of broader interest.

20

Priors strong hybrid language

In this section I will develop Priors strong hybrid language from a modern
perspective using modern notation.6 As the name suggests, Priors hybrid languages were highly expressive, and the basic hybrid languages considered in the
first half of this paper are highly restricted fragments of the ones he worked
with.
So what was Priors strong hybrid language? In fact, Prior explored a number of options, but the usual setup was as follows: Prior took his best known
creation (tense logic) and added nominals, the universal modality, and quantifiers and for binding nominals. Lets discuss each of these ingredients in
turn. At first my discussion will be informal, but once the elements are in place
I shall give a precise definition of the strong hybrid language and its semantics,
extend the standard translation to cover it, and then reduce the first-order correspondence language to the strong hybrid language via what is now known as
the hybrid translation.
Nominals are the first ingredient on the list. We know a lot about them
already, but some additional comments are in order. First some terminology.
Prior had a number of names for what are now called nominals, such as world
propositions, or world-state propositions or world variables, or instant
propositions. Moreover, Prior sometimes wanted to view nominals as embodying content: he would sometimes think of them as the (infinite) conjunction of all
the information at a world. This is different from the modern conception, which
essentially treats nominals as tags for identifying worlds. Philosophically, the
modern approach has more in common with a Kripke/Kaplan approach to possible worlds (create worlds by naming them) than with Priors tendency to view
them as complete descriptions. 7
Finally, Prior sometimes works with an alternative to nominals, the Q op6 The first rigorous formulation of Priors strong hybrid language is due to Robert Bull (see
[9]). In this early classic of hybrid logic, Bull axiomatises Priors language, points out how easy
it is to get extended completeness results using what are nowadays known as pure formulas
(that is, formulas whose only atomic symbols are nominals) and makes some interesting connections with Robinsons non-standard models of set-theory. The paper (which appeared in
the Prior memorial issue of Theoria) is strongly recommended to the reader. Chronologically,
the next examination of Priors strong language (in the more technically demanding setting of
Propositional Dynamic Logic rather than tense logic) that I know of is due to Solomon Passy
and Tinko Tinchev (see [20]). As the dates of these two papers correctly suggests, hybrid logic
pretty much fell off the intellectual map for about 15 years after Priors death. The Passy
and Tinchev paper, by the way, is highly recommended; it fairly bubbles over with energy
and ideas.
7 As Kripke puts it in Naming and Necessity, possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered
by powerful telescopes; see [16], page 44. Under the stipulation view, to assert @i p is to assert
that p holds at some world and that this world is called i (that is, you name the world i and
stipulate that p holds there). Under the powerful telescope view, to assert @i p is to assert
that p is true at the world named i because i implicitly embodies the information that p.
Priors tendency to think of nominals as powerful telescopes may have been a reason for his
overlooking the link with Reichenbach. If nominals are abstract tags, serving only to uniquely
label a time, then it is natural to use them to denote reference times. But if nominals are
conceived of as infinite conjunctions of all the information at some time, it does not seem
plausible to use them in this way.

21

erator. A formula of the form Q is true at any point in a model iff there is a
unique point in the model where is true. So if we write Qp we have in effect
turned the propositional symbol p into a nominal.
The second ingredient on the list, the universal modality (or the global
modality, as it is sometimes called) has not been discussed so far in this paper,
but it is a standard tool in contemporary hybrid logic. The diamond form of
the universal modality is written E, the box form is written A, and they have
the following semantics: E means is true at some point in the model, and
A means is true at all points in the model.
Prior used the universal modality to define the @ operator. For note that
E(i )
says that somewhere in the model there is a point where i is true, and at that
point is true too, and this is exactly what @i means. To put it another
way, we can define
@i =def E(i ).
Alternatively, we can define
@i =def A(i ).
This says at all points in the model where i is true, is true too, and this
has the same effect.
Thus the first two ingredients of Priors strong language are close to those
discussed in the first half of the paper. The third ingredient, however, brings a
new degree of complexity to the language: Prior added the quantifiers and
and allowed them to bind nominals. That is, Prior worked with a language in
which formulas like
x@x P >
and
xy(@x F y @x y @y F x)
are well formed (as these examples show, I prefer to use symbols such as x and
y, rather than i and j, when binding nominals).
The first of these formulas says there is a time called x, and at x it is
not possible to move into the past, or there is a point in the model with no
predecessors. The second says given any two times x and y in the model,
either y is to the future of x, or x and y name the same time, or x is to the
future of y. To put it another way, it says that any two points of time are
identical, or one precedes the other, or the temporal flow is linear.
As these examples suggest, the addition of and has greatly increased the
expressive power at our disposal. But how much power do we now have? Lets
examine the matter.
First, lets be precise about the syntax and semantics of Priors strong hybrid
language. Choose a denumerably infinite set PVAR = {x, y, z. . . .}, the set of

22

point variables, disjoint from PROP, NOM and MOD. Then the strong hybrid
language (over PROP, NOM, MOD and PVAR) is defined as follows:
WFF

:=

x | i | p | | | | | hmi | E | x.

Note that we have dropped @ from the language (we dont need it now that
we have the universal modality E at our disposal) and weve dropped all the
[m] forms too. Strictly speaking we dont need the point variables either, as we
could directly bind ordinary nominals; nonetheless, I think it is cleaner to draw a
notational distinction between bindable and non-bindable symbols. Define @i
to be E(i ), define [m] to be hmi, define A to be E, and define
x to be x. Other syntactic concepts (such as the distinction between
free and bound point variables) are defined in the expected way.
Now for the semantics. As before, we interpret the language on Kripke models. However, as we now have a distinction between bound and free variables,
we need a mechanism for coping with this. But this is standard: we merely introduce assignments of values to (point) variables, and relativise the evaluation
of formulas to a variable assignment. So, given a Kripke model M = (W, R, V ),
an assignment of values to variables g on M is a function from PVAR to W .
Furthermore, if g and g 0 are assignments of values to variables on M, and g 0
differs from g, if at all, only in what it assigns to x, then we say that g 0 is
x
an x-variant of g, and in such a case we write g 0 g. We can now give the
satisfaction definition:
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w
M, g, w

|= x
|= i
|= p
|=
|=
|=
|=
|= hmi
|= E
|= x

iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff
iff

w = g(x) where x PVAR

w V (i), where i NOM
w V (p), where p PROP
not M, g, w |=
M, g, w |= and M, g, w |=
M, g, w |= or M, g, w |=
not M, g, w |= or M, g, w |=
for some w0 W , wRm w0 and M, g, w0 |=
for some w0 W , M, g, w0 |=
x
for some g 0 g, M, g 0 , w |= .

Most of these clauses are those we have seen before, save that evaluation
has been relativised to an assignment of values to variables g. As promised, the
universal modality really does have access to every point in the model. And the
final clause gives the obvious Tarski-style definition to the existential quantifier.
So now for the key question: just how strong is this language? First a simple
observation: it is certainly not stronger than the correspondence language, for
we can extend the standard translation to cover the three new ingredients in
the language:
stx (y)
= (x = y)
stx (E) = xstx ()
stx (y) = ystx ().
23

It is easy to check that these clauses preserve satisfaction. We leave this

task to the reader, for a more interesting observation is at hand: we now have
everything we need to capture the correspondence language. That is, it is now
possible to change direction and translate first-order formulas into hybrid formulas. Here is the required hybrid translation:
ht(Rm xy)
ht(Px)
ht(x = y)
ht()
ht( )
ht( )
ht( )
ht(v)
ht(v)

@x hmiy
@x p
@x y
ht()
ht() ht()
ht() ht()
ht() ht()
vht()
vht().

=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
=

Note the role of the @ operator. The non-trivial clauses are those that
handle atomic formulas. Consider, for example, the hybrid translation of Rm xy.
This is @x hmiy, which says that at the point x it is possible to make an Rm
transition to the point named y. The use of @ is crucial. In fact, if we dont
have @ in the language (either as a primitive, or defined using some stronger
modality, such as the universal modality) then it is not possible to reduce the
correspondence language to the hybrid language. To put it another way, in
the absence of @, the ability to bind nominals with and does not give rise
to full first-order expressive power! This (at first sight counterintuitive) result
is proved in [7]. Roughly speaking, in the strong hybrid language, classical
quantification is factored into a binding step (the task of and ) and a
carry out the evaluation step there step (which is ultimately based on @).
These two functions, which are conflated in first-order logic, are teased apart in
the hybrid world.
This ideas underlying the hybrid translation (and in particular the important
role of @) were known to Prior when he wrote PPF. Indeed, as we shall now
see, it was the possibility of reducing the correspondence language to the strong
hybrid language that attracted him to hybrid logic in the first place.

Hybrid logic and the philosophy of Arthur

Prior

So why did Arthur Prior explore hybrid logic, and where did his explorations
lead him? A simple answer can be given to the first part of this question: Priors
work on hybrid logic was strongly influenced by natural language. Prior was
not interested in natural language semantics in the way that a modern (postMontague) formal semanticist would be. That is, natural language semantics
doesnt seem to have been primarily of interest to him for its own sake. Rather,
natural language acted as a springboard into philosophical issues. And the

24

development of hybrid logic was fuelled by his most fundamental convictions

concerning time and tense, namely that the modal perspective, and in particular
the internal view offered by the modal logic, was the way to capture a genuinely
temporal logic.
Prior (most notably in the opening chapter of PPF) lays his philosophical
cards on the table. There are two ways of conceptualising time: the A series and
B series conceptions. (This distinction was first drawn by the Scottish idealist
philosopher McTaggart as part of his argument that time does not exists; Prior
discusses McTaggarts argument in PPF.) The A series is the flow of time from
past, through present, to future. It is an internal, situated, conception of time,
one that reflects our experience of temporality. Tense logic, being a species of
modal logic, takes an intrinsically internal perspective on temporal information,
and thus can claim privileged status as a logic of time.
Under the B series conception, time is a collection of instants ordered by <,
the relation of temporal precedence. It is an external perspective, and (being, so
to speak, a Gods-eye-view of temporal information) is not the way we experience
time. First-order logic (and in particular, the correspondence language for tense
logic with its explicit use of the < relation) is the appropriate tool for this
perspective.
Why did Prior favour A series talk over B series talk? There were two main
reasons. The first should be clear from our previous remarks: Prior thought the
external perspective underlying the B series did not reflect the way we experience
time. Hence temporal logics based on first-order logic, while they might be
useful technical tools for some purposes, could claim no privileged status. But
there was a second reason for his dislike of B series talk. Prior believed that
they committed us to the existence of instants (after all, the quantifiers in the
correspondence language range over instants of time) and Prior found instants
ontologically dubious.
It is important to realise that Priors willingness, so clearly in evidence here,
to base the core of a philosophical position at least partly on the differing properties of formal logical systems, contrasts sharply with the attitude of many,
perhaps most, contemporary modal logicians. Nowadays logicians are rather
more guarded about the direct relevance of the properties of particular formal
systems to philosophy. Modern modal logicians, for example, share Priors appreciation of the internal perspective, but their interest tends to centre on technical issues (for example, on how the concept of bisimulation clarifies the link
between the internal view of modal logic and the external view of the first-order
correspondence language). Much of this contemporary attitude stems from the
model-theoretic perspective which underlies current practice. If the fundamental unit of logical modeling is a formal language together with a set-theoretical
interpretation, then it makes little sense to claim, for example, that first-order
logic automatically brings greater ontological commitment than (say) propositional modal logic. Under the model-theoretic conception, both make use of
the same set-theoretic structures, so their ontological commitments are at least
prima facie identical. Perhaps arguments could be mounted (based, perhaps, on
the fact that modal logic is decidable and has the finite model property) that
25

modal logic commits us to less. But such arguments would have to be carefully
constructed. In the light of modern correspondence theory, simple knockdown
arguments based on the presence or absence of explicit quantifiers in the object
language are unconvincing.
This does not mean that the model-theoretic conception rules out the possibility of drawing philosophical conclusions based on logical analysis. For example, a contemporary modal logician might take exception to Priors belief
that the B series commits us to an ontology of temporal instants. Given the
existence of interval-based models of time, and given that in some interval based
models instants can be viewed not as primitives but as maximal collections of
nested intervals, is Priors second objection to the B series conception really so
persuasive? As this example also shows, the philosophical role played by modeltheoretically oriented logic tends to be critical. The most direct way that model
theory helps philosophy is by demonstrating that there are more ontological
possibilities than is apparent at first sight, or that certain possibilities cant be
made to fit together coherently. The model-theoretic perspective helps induce
philosophical modesty.
But Prior did not accord logic such a modest role, for Prior did not regard
logic as a model-theoretic enterprise. It is crucial to grasp this. Priors conception of logic belongs to an older tradition: logic as foundational enterprise.
This attitude towards logic can be found in many writers, ranging from Frege to
contemporary Martin-L
of type theorists. Under the model-theoretic conception,
logic is an interpretational game played in the confines of (some version of) set
theory. Under the foundational conception, logic itself provides the foundation.8
So when Prior insists that tense logic is the correct way of thinking about temporal logic, he does not simply mean that it is a useful tool for capturing this or
that aspect of natural language semantics, or that it correctly mirrors certain
aspects of our conception of time. He means something stronger: tense logic is
the correct foundational basis for all temporal reasoning. It is, itself, the starting point. All other conceptions of time must ultimately be reducible to the A
series conception underlying tense logic, for there is nothing more fundamental
to appeal to.
This conviction led to Priors development of hybrid logic. For Prior faced
an obvious difficulty. Given his position, he had to show that B series talk could
be reduced to A series talk. And if all there is to A series talk is orthodox tense
logic, this cant be done. As Prior was well aware, tense logic (the A series
language) is weaker that the B series language (the first-order correspondence
language).
So Prior hybridized. He took his tense logic and added nominals, the universal modality, and allowed quantification across nominals, creating the strong
hybrid language we discussed in the previous section. He then reduced B series talk to A series talk. The earliest such reduction seems to be that given
in Appendix B Section 3 of PPF, which is entitled On the range of world8 The distinction between the model-theoretic and foundational traditions is broadly in
line with the distinction Hintikka draws between Language as calculus (the model-theoretic
tradition) and Language as the universal medium (the foundational tradition). See [13].

26

variables, and the interpretation of U-calculi in world-calculi. (Recall that

world-variable is one of Priors terms for nominal. And world-calculi are
what we called strong hybrid languages. The U-calculi are Priors version
of first-order correspondence languages). It may take the reader a little patience
to work through the details (Prior considers a number of alternative approaches,
and its all in Polish notation) but the key ideas underlying the hybrid translation given in the previous section (for example, reducing i < j to @i F j) are
clearly visible.
But the most lucid exposition of the role hybridisation played in his work
comes not from PPF but from PTT. In Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier
and Later, a key text in the development of hybrid logic, Prior guides the
reader through what he calls (mirroring Quines grades of modal involvement)
the four grades of tense logical involvement. As he puts it, the purpose of the
paper is to tabulate:
The stages of our progress from what could be regarded as a pure earlierand-later logic to what can be regarded as a pure tense-logic . . . [PTT,
page 133]

The first two grades of tense logical involvement are captured using two
variant forms of the correspondence language (or in Priors terminology, two
variant forms of U -calculi). According to Prior, philosophers uneasy about
tense logic can find little to object to in these systems. In essence, Prior appeals
to the standard translation to show that tense logic can be viewed as a simple
first-order theory of time.
But when he reaches the third level of tense logical involvement, he turns
the tables. For his third level language is what we have been calling the strong
hybrid language, and Prior shows (by making use of ideas familiar from the
hybrid translation) that it has the resources to capture the U-calculi. He does
not give full proof details, but refers the reader to the earlier reduction made in
PPF.
Prior isnt fully satisfied with this step however. Why not? Because of the
presence of the universal modality. The fourth (and highest) grade of tense
logical involvement is achieved by moving to a system where it is possible to
give a tense logical definition of the universal modality (or some device that
plays a similar role). Prior notes two ways of doing this. The first is to work
with (as he puts it) a richer logic. By this he means making more assumptions
about the structure of time so that the universal modality becomes definable
in orthodox tense logic. For example, if we assume that time stretches out in a
single unbroken line, then the formula p Hp GP asserts that p is true at all
points, or to put it in more Priorean terms, it asserts that it is, always has been,
and always will be the case that p. Hence on linear models of time there is a
purely temporal formula that has the same effect as application of the universal
modality.9
9 Incidentally, in [8] the following necessary and sufficient condition for the definability of
the universal modality is proved: for some natural number n, any two times are linked by a
path of length less than or equal to n.

27

The second option he considers is to define a transitive closure operator (here

called C) via the following inductive definition:
C 0 p = p,
C n+1 p = HC n p GC n p, and
Cp = nC n p.
Note that Priors definition makes use of explicit quantification over the natural
numbers in the object language. It is unclear to me why he regarded such
quantification as legitimate in what purports to be a purely temporal system.
Prior does not comment on this, though he does (see page 133 of PTT) make a
brief remark to the effect that the resulting system is conservative over orthodox
tense logic. That is, he notes that no new orthodox tense logical formulas (tense
logical formulas not containing occurrences of the symbols n, and so on) are
provable. This may have been intended as formal justification for the move.
But perhaps it is overly picky to criticise Prior for his use of quantification
over natural numbers here. He may have intended it simply as a way of being
precise about what transitive closure was, and it might be argued that forming
the transitive closure of temporal relations is a perfectly legitimate temporal
operation.10
All in all, Priors case is solid: third and fourth grade languages (with varying
degrees of tense logical purity, and perhaps assisted by extra assumptions on
the structure of time) capture the entirety of B series talk. As Prior puts it, he
can now tabulate:
. . . the stages by which tense-logic so swells as to encompass the earlierlater logic . . . [PTT, page 134]

Moreover, hybridisation offered a second advantage, one that Prior found

irresistible. This advantage is forcefully noted in PPF:
A world-state proposition in the tense-logical sense is simply an index of
an instant; indeed, I would like to say that it is an instant, in the only
sense in which instants are not highly fictitious entities [PPF, pages 188
189].

The temporal ontology of instants has been banished: only propositions remain.
In many respects, his is an attractive and curiously modern view.11
10 One argument might run as follows: the C operator can be defined in the modal -calculus,
one of the most interesting modal logics to have emerged in the last 20 years (see [15]). The
modal -calculus makes it possible to modally define fixed-points of various relation, transitive
closures being one of the simplest examples. What is interesting for present purposes is that
the fixed-point mechanism offered by modal -calculus does not work by adding the kind
of global reach to modal logic that the universal modality does, rather it works by chasing
internally through the paths inside a model, rather as Priors inductive definition of C does. In
fact, a beautiful result due to [14] tells us that the modal -calculus is actually the bisimulation
invariant fragment of monadic second-order logic! Thus Priors use of quantification over the
natural numbers could be replaced by a definition in a modal language which offers the kind
of internal expressivity that Prior thought appropriate for grade four languages.
11 The distinction that Prior draws in passing here between being the index of an instant,

28

We are now on the brink of witnessing the reversal in Priors philosophical

fortunes regarding hybridisation. The reversal is particularly dramatic in the
original edition of PTT. As we have just seen, in the paper Tense Logic and
the Logic of Earlier and Later, Prior gave his most methodical explanation
of the role of hybridisation. Moreover, reading this paper it is clear that Prior
regarded hybridisation as a successful solution to the problem of showing that A
series talk can encompass B series talk. But (in the original edition) this paper
is immediately followed by Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals. In this
paper Prior suffers a reverse. He comes to realise that his hybridisation program
is too successful: hybrid logics can be used in any domain. In the space of four
pages we pass from the triumphal conclusion of Tense Logic and the Logic of
Earlier and Later to the somewhat quizzical tone of Quasi-Propositions and
Quasi-Individuals.12
Prior was fully aware of the reverse. As he remarks in his preface to the
second edition (when talking about Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals
and the two papers that follow it):
In this group of papers, I concede that there is a way of treating not only
predicates attachable to instants but any predicate at all as if they were
complete propositions. [PTT, page 4]

Lets examine Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals a little more closely.

The paper starts ebulliently:
Practitioners of tense logic are often asked the question, If you admit
as genuine propositions ones whose truth-value depends on when they are
propounded, why not also admit ones whose truth value depends on where
they are propounded, or by whom, etc.?
Why not, indeed? There are many sentences of ordinary speech which
have precisely these peculiarities. The truth of It is raining here does
depend on where it is uttered, and so does the truth of It is raining five
miles away (and more generally of It is raining there); and the truth of
I am sitting down does depend on who says it, and so perhaps does that
of Eating bacon and bananas is nice (= I like it) and Jones is very tall
(= He is much taller than I am). Nor is it at all difficult to concoct a
rigorously formalised language with similar features. [PTT, page 213]
and being an instant, is intriguing. It is reminiscent of the distinction between the modern
conception of nominals (where nominals are tags identifying times, or to use Priors terminology, where they are the index of an instant) and the view that Prior often seemed tempted
to take of them, namely as embodying content (for example, by being the infinite conjunction
of all the information true at that time). As this quotation shows, Prior wanted to identify
nominals-with-content with the instants themselves.
12 In the new edition of PTT the drama is more muted. The editors did not follow Priors
instructions for ordering the papers: they moved Tense Logic and the Logic of Earlier and
Later to an earlier place in the volume. As they remark (in the footnote on page three) they
did so because they felt that this paper provides the clearest exposition of the idea of instants
as propositions. They are certainly correct in this, but the alteration rather dampens the
dramatic effect.

29

So Prior begins to discuss what he call egocentric logic. What is egocentric

logic? Description logic. Prior says that the egocentric representation Sometall sitting is true at a particular individual (or when uttered by a particular
individual) precisely if someone taller than him is sitting. But this is precisely
what we would nowadays write as
htaller-thanisitting.
Similarly, Prior says that All-tall sitting is true at a particular individual (or
when uttered by a particular individual) if every person taller than him is sitting.
But this is what we would nowadays write as
[taller-than]sitting.
Theres no getting around it: Prior was doing hard-core description logic over
a decade before it was officially invented!
Moreover, as Prior pointed out, the taller-than application is merely an
example. You can do this sort of thing with any first-order theory, and Prior
tells us how:
There is, in short, a pretty detailed formal parallel between tense logic
and this rather simple type of egocentric logic. In fact, we can obtain
something more or less like tense logic if we take any first-order theory
whatsoever, treat its one place predicates as if they were propositions, and
treat an (n + 1)-place function with n predicate-arguments and one individual argument as an n-place function of propositions. [PTT, page 215]

Now, it is quite clear that Prior regarded egocentric logic as important. For
example, in his plan for the enlarged second edition of PTT he stipulated that
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals should be followed by Egocentric
Logic and Worlds, Times and Selves, both of which deal with the topic.
Moreover, Kit Fine used these two papers as chapters two and four of the unfinished WTS, which was to have been devoted to exploring the inter-relationships
between modal logic and first-order logic. Egocentric logic was important in
Priors later work.
However, as Prior was well aware, the existence of egocentric logic posed a
challenge to his claim that hybridisation had satisfactorily solved his B series
to A series reduction problem. After all, as we have just seen, he knew exactly
how the ideas of modal logic could be applied to any domain. But once this
has been done, the apparatus of his strong hybrid logic would allow him to turn
around and swallow the first-order theory of that domain. As he puts it in
Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals:
Does not the possibility of this reversal mark off tense logic from other
calculi that may be presented as by-products of first-order theories? Or
can this reversal be equally performed in these other cases too? I am
afraid the answer is that it can. Consider again our egocentric version
of the theory of the Tall and the Short. Not only can it be explicated as

30

a by-product of the normal version of this theory, but the latter can also
be explicated as a by-product of the former. [PTT, page 216]

Prior is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Egocentric logic is clearly interesting and important, but its existence undercuts the fundamental distinction
he thought he had drawn between A series and B series talk. If hybridisation
can be applied to any domain, what remains of the privileged status of tensed
talk?
I know of nothing in his published work that satisfactorily resolves this
quandary. In Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals he first responds as
follows:
Philosophically, where do we go from here? We could turn the tables
on the objectors to tense logic by saying that not only are instants not
genuine individuals, but there are no genuine individuals, only certain
propositions that can be formally treated as if they were individuals.
[PTT, page 219]

This is an interesting and rhetorically attractive response (embrace the

nightmare). But Prior remarks that most people would probably find this
unpalatable. Moreover, attractive as it might be, viewing everything as a proposition doesnt draw a distinction between tensed and untensed talk; rather, it
obliterates the distinction in an unexpected way.
Two paragraphs later he has this to say:
So far as I can see, there is nothing philosophically disreputable in saying
that (i) persons just are genuine individuals, so that their figuring as
individual variables in a first-order theory needs no explaining (this firstorder theory being, on the contrary, the only way of giving sense to its
modal counterpart), whereas (ii) instants are not genuine individuals, so
that their figuring as values of individual variables does need explaining,
and it is the related modal logic (tense logic) which gives the first-order
logic what sense it has. [PTT, pages 219220]

But this is not so much a justification as a restatement of his position.

As Prior himself has so carefully demonstrated, we now have two formalisms
capable of handling quantification in arbitrary problem domains using very different tools. But we are still none the wiser as to why one is better for one
task than the other. Blunt assertions that persons are genuine individuals and
hence require first-order logic, whereas instants arent genuine and so require
a modal treatment, are hardly illuminating. Indeed, given Priors earlier comments about people propositions (which show he was willing to entertain the
idea that a modal approach to quantification over ordinary individuals could
be interesting) his assertions here are unconvincing. The key question is: how
should we go about choosing between these two styles of logic? And far from
having been answered, the issues involved have been presented anew, in sharper
form.
31

In the paper World, Times and Selves, Prior hints at a different solution.
It seems to mark a partial retreat from his insistence that B series talk must
be reducible to A series talk, but it is interesting in that it is reminiscent of
contemporary views on the relation between modal and first-order logic. As we
saw in the first part of the paper, modal and hybrid logic are nowadays viewed
as interesting precisely because they are well-behaved fragments of first-order
logic, and the point of logical modeling is to find the tools which best fit the
requirements of the task at hand. This often means looking for less expressive
sublogics, rather than working with full first-order logic. Bearing this in mind,
first consider the following passage:
Logicians have tended to welcome the presentation of modal logic as an
artificially truncated bit of predicate calculus because we know all about
predicate calculus, or at all events know an enormous lot about it, whereas
modality is a comparatively obscure and unfamiliar field. And even philosophically, it might be said, it is in general pretty clear what is going on
in predicate calculus, but not very clear what is going on in modal logic
or even in tense logic. [PTT, page 245]

And now comes the contemporary sounding switch:

It is not as simple as this. What we can do with first-order predicate logic
in toto is indeed plain enough; but its uniform monadic fragment? Formally, this fragment is no doubt of some interest; for example, unlike the
full first-order predicate calculus it is decidable. But what is its philosophical interest? The question, I think partly boils down to this one: What
would a philosophically privileged individual be? And to this question,
modal and tense logic possibly provide an answer. It is not that modal
logic or tense logic is an artificially truncated uniform monadic first-order
predicate calculus; the latter, rather, is an artificially expanded modal or
tense logic. [PTT, pages 245246]

It is not clear to me how seriously Prior took this idea, or how he might
have developed it. Nonetheless describing first-order logic as an artificially
expanded modal or tense logic strikes a distinctly contemporary note.
As I said earlier, I know of nothing in Priors published work that satisfactorily resolves the issues raised in Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals.
What is clear is that in his last working years he was actively struggling to
reconcile his belief in the suitability of modal and hybrid formalisms for certain
tasks, with the realisation that the expressivity of his strong hybrid languages
undercut his attempt to capture his cherished distinction between tensed and
untensed talk. Perhaps his unpublished writings will reveal more that bears on
the issue. And it should now be clear why I view the unfinished WTS as the
great might-have-been of hybrid logic.

32

Concluding remarks

We have examined two approaches to hybrid logic, the contemporary approach

and Priors original. There are a number of differences between them (for example, the focus in contemporary work is on small fragments of Priors language)
but by far the biggest one is that contemporary approaches are resolutely modeltheoretic, whereas Priors is not. On the contrary, Prior believed that hybrid
logic was the A series logic underpinning everyday tensed talk.
A crucial issue for both approaches is their relationship with classical logic,
and in particular first-order logic. Both face the challenge: why go modal?
Contemporary modal and description logicians embrace the challenge. Firstorder logic, they argue, is far too expressive for many purposes. And why work
with an undecidable logic if everything of importance can be modelled more
simply? Moreover, the realization that many modal and description logics can
be viewed as genuinely internal fragments of first-order (and indeed secondorder) logic, that is, fragments invariant under (various forms of) bisimulation,
adds extra weight to these views.
Matters are more problematic for Prior. Tensed talk was meant to be privileged, and in most of his writings he takes this to mean that his task was to
develop an A series logic powerful enough to capture B series logic. Strong hybrid logic, which is founded on the idea of formulas as terms, was intended to be
this logic, and by the time PPF was published he knew it was capable of doing
this. However, by the time PTT appeared, he had came to realise that his reduction of B series talk had unexpected consequences: any domain of discourse
could be so reduced, hence any domain of discourse could be handled from an
A series perspective. This undercut his claim that tensed talk is privileged. In
his later writings there are tantalising passages which seem to reinterpret the
claim that tensed talk is privileged in a manner reminiscent of contemporary
work: in these passages privileged seems to mean something like capable of
being modelled in a well-behaved logical fragment. But how seriously he took
this idea, and whether he would have pursued it further, is unclear.
Is there anything of philosophical interest at stake in the contrast between
the two approaches? In my view, yes. It may be tempting to dismiss the comparison as uninteresting. For example, it might be argued that many contemporary
logicians, if they have any philosophical position at all, are essentially instrumentalist (if not downright agnostic) about the role of logic in philosophy, and
that nothing of interest can come of comparing such a position with Priors.
Tempting though this might be, I think it is mistaken.
For a start, it is simply false that the contemporary model-theoretic approach lacks philosophical import, or that the philosophical interest it has can be
summed up in the word instrumentalist. With the growth of cross-disciplinary
competence in such subjects as cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and
linguistics we are in a world where philosophy goes hand in hand with scientific
and technical developments. Contemporary philosophy of mind is a clear example of this: it is profoundly influenced by developments in neuroscience and
other cognitive sciences. Much current work in logic can be viewed in the same
33

way. The issues it addresses often arise because of developments in knowledge

representation, natural language semantics, or computer science, and contemporary applied logic is serious about modeling phenomena in these domains,
and modeling them in detail. Current work in natural language semantics, for
example, is carried out at a level of detail unheard of 20 years ago. Often, to
be sure, the detailed nature of these investigations means that traditional philosophical themes are not raised. But is it really possible to address such issues
adequately before the necessary spade-work has been done? The game played
in contemporary applied logic is complex and interdisciplinaryand may ultimately be far more philosophically rewarding than ideas based on a shallower
empirical base.
Indeed, it might be argued that the dangers of philosophical investigations
stemming from a relatively narrow empirical base, and coupled with a dominating philosophical theme, can be detected in Priors own work. Priors dominant
theme (the importance of the internal perspective) was coupled with what is
(by contemporary standards) a narrow view of the role of tense in natural language. On the one hand, he took a rather selective view of tense: he seems to
have been unaware of just how important Reichenbachs insights into the role of
temporal reference were. Moreover, though he cheerfully lists a number of ways
in which natural language exhibits context-sensitive phenomena (recall the list
he reels off at the start of Quasi-Propositions and Quasi-Individuals) these
dont seem to have led him to ask whether the real division was not tensed
versus untensed, but indexical versus non-indexical. Viewed with the luxury of
40 years hindsight, some of the ideas that guided Prior seem dated.
So what was Priors contribution? In my view, it is best summed up in his
remark about people propositions. For one tantalising moment Prior grasped
the nettle and (if I have read him right) found the sensation interesting. For the
blunt fact is that you can describe the same things in many different ways using
many different logical tools, and Prior with his invention of tense, hybrid, and
egocentric logic, saw this clearer than most other logicians before or since. One
of Priors insights (the one that led him to hybrid logic) was that formulas could
be used as terms: we do not need to stick to the traditional logical categories
when doing applied logic. Another insight (the one that led him to egocentric
logic) was his realisation that talk of everyday individuals could be modalised.
His writings show us how to cut the cake of expressivity along different, and
often fascinating, lines. There are more interesting options for talking about
relational structures than the straitjacket offered by first-order logic, and Prior
was one of the first to chart the possibilities. Mores the pity that so few people
are aware of these achievements.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kit Fine and Per Hasle for discussing earlier versions of
this work with me during the Logic of Time and Modality Conference, Roskilde
University, November 2003. Thanks also to Per Hasle and Peter hrstrm for

34

comments on the first version of the paper, and to Torben Brauner for exhibiting
that finest of editorial virtues: detailed feedback. Finally, special thanks to
Carlos Areces for helpful discussions of Prior and editorial advice.

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