Abstract
The Quantified Argument Calculus (or Quarc for short) is a novel and peculiar system of quantified logic, particularly in its treatment of non-emptiness of unary predicates, as in Quarc unary predicates are never empty, and singular terms denote. Moreover, and as a consequence of this, the universally quantified formulas entail their corresponding particular ones, similar to existential import. But at the same time, Quarc eschews talk of existence entirely by having a particular quantifier instead of an existential one. To bring it back into consideration, we explicitly introduce the existence predicate, and modify the rules to make the existence assumption obvious. This, along with some modifications, leads to a version of negative free logic. A question that arises at this point, given that we are interested in free logic, is what happens when we remove the existence assumption on singular terms; here we can quite naturally choose the negative free logic framework as well. In this paper we shall therefore investigate interrelations between Quarc and free logic (especially with its negative variant), and approach these interrelations with proof-theoretic methods.
