On the isomorphism problem of concept algebras

Abstract

Weakly dicomplemented lattices are bounded lattices equipped with two unary operations to encode a negation on concepts. They have been introduced to capture the equational theory of concept algebras (Wille 2000; Kwuida 2004). They generalize Boolean algebras. Concept algebras are concept lattices, thus complete lattices, with a weak negation and a weak opposition. A special case of the representation problem for weakly dicomplemented lattices, posed in Kwuida (2004), is whether complete weakly dicomplemented lattices are isomorphic to concept algebras. In this contribution we give a negative answer to this question (Theorem4). We also provide a new proof of a well known result due to M.H. Stone(Trans Am Math Soc 40:37-111, 1936), saying that each Boolean algebra is a field of sets (Corollary4). Before these, we prove that the boundedness condition on the initial definition of weakly dicomplemented lattices (Definition1) is superfluous (Theorem1, see also Kwuida (2009)