First-order Nilpotent Minimum Logics: first steps

Following the lines of the analysis done in [BPZ07, BCF07] for first-order G\"odel logics, we present an analogous investigation for Nilpotent Minimum logic NM. We study decidability and reciprocal inclusion of various sets of first-order tautologies of some subalgebras of the standard Nilpotent Minimum algebra. We establish a connection between the validity in an NM-chain of certain first-order formulas and its order type. Furthermore, we analyze axiomatizability, undecidability and the monadic fragments.Comment: In this version of the paper the presentation has been improved. The introduction section has been rewritten, and many modifications have been done to improve the readability; moreover, numerous references have been added. Concerning the technical side, some proofs has been shortened or made more clear, but the mathematical content is substantially the same of the previous versio

G\"odel's Notre Dame Course

This is a companion to a paper by the authors entitled "G\"odel's natural deduction", which presented and made comments about the natural deduction system in G\"odel's unpublished notes for the elementary logic course he gave at the University of Notre Dame in 1939. In that earlier paper, which was itself a companion to a paper that examined the links between some philosophical views ascribed to G\"odel and general proof theory, one can find a brief summary of G\"odel's notes for the Notre Dame course. In order to put the earlier paper in proper perspective, a more complete summary of these interesting notes, with comments concerning them, is given here.Comment: 18 pages. minor additions, arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1604.0307

The deduction theorem for strong propositional proof systems

This paper focuses on the deduction theorem for propositional logic. We define and investigate different deduction properties and show that the presence of these deduction properties for strong proof systems is powerful enough to characterize the existence of optimal and even polynomially bounded proof systems. We also exhibit a similar, but apparently weaker condition that implies the existence of complete disjoint NP-pairs. In particular, this yields a sufficient condition for the completeness of the canonical pair of Frege systems and provides a general framework for the search for complete NP-pairs

Approximating Propositional Calculi by Finite-valued Logics

The problem of approximating a propositional calculus is to find many-valued logics which are sound for the calculus (i.e., all theorems of the calculus are tautologies) with as few tautologies as possible. This has potential applications for representing (computationally complex) logics used in AI by (computationally easy) many-valued logics. It is investigated how far this method can be carried using (1) one or (2) an infinite sequence of many-valued logics. It is shown that the optimal candidate matrices for (1) can be computed from the calculus

On the proof complexity of Paris-harrington and off-diagonal ramsey tautologies

We study the proof complexity of Paris-Harrington’s Large Ramsey Theorem for bi-colorings of graphs and of off-diagonal Ramsey’s Theorem. For Paris-Harrington, we prove a non-trivial conditional lower bound in Resolution and a non-trivial upper bound in bounded-depth Frege. The lower bound is conditional on a (very reasonable) hardness assumption for a weak (quasi-polynomial) Pigeonhole principle in RES(2). We show that under such an assumption, there is no refutation of the Paris-Harrington formulas of size quasipolynomial in the number of propositional variables. The proof technique for the lower bound extends the idea of using a combinatorial principle to blow up a counterexample for another combinatorial principle beyond the threshold of inconsistency. A strong link with the proof complexity of an unbalanced off-diagonal Ramsey principle is established. This is obtained by adapting some constructions due to Erdos and Mills. ˝ We prove a non-trivial Resolution lower bound for a family of such off-diagonal Ramsey principles

Disjoint NP-pairs from propositional proof systems

For a proof system P we introduce the complexity class DNPP(P) of all disjoint NP-pairs for which the disjointness of the pair is efficiently provable in the proof system P. We exhibit structural properties of proof systems which make the previously defined canonical NP-pairs of these proof systems hard or complete for DNPP(P). Moreover we demonstrate that non-equivalent proof systems can have equivalent canonical pairs and that depending on the properties of the proof systems different scenarios for DNPP(P) and the reductions between the canonical pairs exist

Construction, Convention, and Subjectivity in the Early Wittgenstein

Some of Wittgenstein"s early remarks on the connection between logic and the world leave a highly anticonventionalist impression. For example, in the Tractatus, he says that the world is "in logical space� (TLP 1.13) and that logic "pervades the world� (TLP 5.61). At a first glance, this seems to imply that the rules of logic are determined by the way the world is. And this, in turn, seems to be something that is not dependent on convention. Consider, for example, a passage from the Notebooks 1914-16, where Wittgenstein says: And it keeps on forcing itself upon us that there is some simple indivisible, an element of being, in brief a thing … And it appears as if that were identical with the proposition that the world must be what it is, it must be definite. (NB, 62