This talk is on recent work with Joel Hamkins and Benedikt Loewe on ways in which finite-frame properties of specific modal logics can be combined with assertions in ZFC to show that these modal logics are related to those which arise from interpreting Gamma-forcing extensions of a model of ZFC as possible worlds of a Kripke model, where Gamma can be any of several classes of notions of forcing.

The modal logic of forcing arises when one considers a model of set theory in the context of all its forcing extensions, with “true in all forcing extensions” and“true in some forcing extension” as the accompanying modal operators. In this modal language one may easily express sweeping general forcing principles, such as the assertion that every possibly necessary statement is necessarily possible, which is valid for forcing, or the assertion that every possibly necessary statement is true, which is the maximality principle, a forcing axiom independent of but equiconsistent with ZFC. Similarly, the dual modal logic of grounds concerns the modalities “true in all ground models” and “true in some ground model”. In this talk, I shall survey the recent progress on the modal logic of forcing and the modal logic of grounds. This is joint work with Benedikt Loewe and George Leibman.