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On a Second-Order Version of Russellian Theory of Definite Descriptions

Published: August 19, 2025 | arXiv ID: 2508.13928v1

By: Yaroslav Petrukhin

Potential Business Impact:

Lets computers talk about relationships between things.

Business Areas:
Semantic Web Internet Services

Definite descriptions are first-order expressions that denote unique objects. In this paper, we propose a second-order counterpart, designed to refer to unique relations between objects. We investigate this notion within the framework of Russell's theory of definite descriptions. While full second-order logic is incomplete, its fragment defined by Henkin's general models admits completeness. We develop our theory within this fragment and formalize it using a cut-free sequent calculus.

Page Count
14 pages

Category
Computer Science:
Logic in Computer Science