Institute for Logic, Language and Computation
University of Amsterdam
Plantage Muidergracht 24
1018 TV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
carlos@wins.uva.nl,
http://www.illc.uva.nl/~carlos
christof@wins.uva.nl,
http://www.illc.uva.nl/~christof
nivelle@wins.uva.nl,
http://www.illc.uva.nl/~nivelle
mdr@wins.uva.nl,
http://www.illc.uva.nl/~mdr
In this short note we discuss several perspectives on the notion of Guarded Fragments (GFs) of first-order logic first introduced by Andréka, van Benthem and Németi. We focus on computational aspects, discussing some applications of GFs together with issues like the design of effective decision methods for specific reasoning tasks and the role of GFs in explaining the general good behavior of modal logics.
Dedicated to Johan van Benthem on his Fiftieth Birthday.