Declarations of Dependence

" Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another. " Thomas Hobbes 1 It all depends, doesn't it? Dependence is one of these subtle concepts with so many connotations and usages, that any analysis of its meaning is predestined to fall short of some of its aspects. In the first paragraph of the book Dependence Logic [9], Väänänen states: 'Dependence is a common phenomenon, wherever one looks: ecological systems, astronomy, human history, stock markets. With global warming, the dependence of life on earth on the actions of mankind has become a burning issue. But what is the logic of dependence?' The book promises a systematic study of the concept, and to show that there is a mathematical theory of dependence. The paper in this volume [10] goes even further. It presents a logic of 'possible dependence', where the intended sense of 'dependence' is specified a bit further as follows: By dependence we mean dependence as it occurs in the following contexts: Dependence of • a move of a player in a game on previous moves • an attribute of a database on other attributes • an event in history on other events • a variable of an expression on other variables • a choice of an agent on choices by other agents. In this short comment, we will not discuss the technical properties of Dependence Modal Logic. An excellent analysis of the proposed logic is