17,132 research outputs found
A robust semantics hides fewer errors
In this paper we explore how formal models are interpreted and to what degree meaning is captured in the formal semantics and to what degree it remains in the informal interpretation of the semantics. By applying a robust approach to the definition of refinement and semantics, favoured by the event-based community, to state-based theory we are able to move some aspects from the informal interpretation into the formal semantics
Virtual Evidence: A Constructive Semantics for Classical Logics
This article presents a computational semantics for classical logic using
constructive type theory. Such semantics seems impossible because classical
logic allows the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM), not accepted in constructive
logic since it does not have computational meaning. However, the apparently
oracular powers expressed in the LEM, that for any proposition P either it or
its negation, not P, is true can also be explained in terms of constructive
evidence that does not refer to "oracles for truth." Types with virtual
evidence and the constructive impossibility of negative evidence provide
sufficient semantic grounds for classical truth and have a simple computational
meaning. This idea is formalized using refinement types, a concept of
constructive type theory used since 1984 and explained here. A new axiom
creating virtual evidence fully retains the constructive meaning of the logical
operators in classical contexts.
Key Words: classical logic, constructive logic, intuitionistic logic,
propositions-as-types, constructive type theory, refinement types, double
negation translation, computational content, virtual evidenc
Lewis meets Brouwer: constructive strict implication
C. I. Lewis invented modern modal logic as a theory of "strict implication".
Over the classical propositional calculus one can as well work with the unary
box connective. Intuitionistically, however, the strict implication has greater
expressive power than the box and allows to make distinctions invisible in the
ordinary syntax. In particular, the logic determined by the most popular
semantics of intuitionistic K becomes a proper extension of the minimal normal
logic of the binary connective. Even an extension of this minimal logic with
the "strength" axiom, classically near-trivial, preserves the distinction
between the binary and the unary setting. In fact, this distinction and the
strong constructive strict implication itself has been also discovered by the
functional programming community in their study of "arrows" as contrasted with
"idioms". Our particular focus is on arithmetical interpretations of the
intuitionistic strict implication in terms of preservativity in extensions of
Heyting's Arithmetic.Comment: Our invited contribution to the collection "L.E.J. Brouwer, 50 years
later
A Galois connection between classical and intuitionistic logics. I: Syntax
In a 1985 commentary to his collected works, Kolmogorov remarked that his
1932 paper "was written in hope that with time, the logic of solution of
problems [i.e., intuitionistic logic] will become a permanent part of a
[standard] course of logic. A unified logical apparatus was intended to be
created, which would deal with objects of two types - propositions and
problems." We construct such a formal system QHC, which is a conservative
extension of both the intuitionistic predicate calculus QH and the classical
predicate calculus QC.
The only new connectives ? and ! of QHC induce a Galois connection (i.e., a
pair of adjoint functors) between the Lindenbaum posets (i.e. the underlying
posets of the Lindenbaum algebras) of QH and QC. Kolmogorov's double negation
translation of propositions into problems extends to a retraction of QHC onto
QH; whereas Goedel's provability translation of problems into modal
propositions extends to a retraction of QHC onto its QC+(?!) fragment,
identified with the modal logic QS4. The QH+(!?) fragment is an intuitionistic
modal logic, whose modality !? is a strict lax modality in the sense of Aczel -
and thus resembles the squash/bracket operation in intuitionistic type
theories.
The axioms of QHC attempt to give a fuller formalization (with respect to the
axioms of intuitionistic logic) to the two best known contentual
interpretations of intiuitionistic logic: Kolmogorov's problem interpretation
(incorporating standard refinements by Heyting and Kreisel) and the proof
interpretation by Orlov and Heyting (as clarified by G\"odel). While these two
interpretations are often conflated, from the viewpoint of the axioms of QHC
neither of them reduces to the other one, although they do overlap.Comment: 47 pages. The paper is rewritten in terms of a formal meta-logic (a
simplified version of Isabelle's meta-logic
Changing a semantics: opportunism or courage?
The generalized models for higher-order logics introduced by Leon Henkin, and
their multiple offspring over the years, have become a standard tool in many
areas of logic. Even so, discussion has persisted about their technical status,
and perhaps even their conceptual legitimacy. This paper gives a systematic
view of generalized model techniques, discusses what they mean in mathematical
and philosophical terms, and presents a few technical themes and results about
their role in algebraic representation, calibrating provability, lowering
complexity, understanding fixed-point logics, and achieving set-theoretic
absoluteness. We also show how thinking about Henkin's approach to semantics of
logical systems in this generality can yield new results, dispelling the
impression of adhocness. This paper is dedicated to Leon Henkin, a deep
logician who has changed the way we all work, while also being an always open,
modest, and encouraging colleague and friend.Comment: 27 pages. To appear in: The life and work of Leon Henkin: Essays on
his contributions (Studies in Universal Logic) eds: Manzano, M., Sain, I. and
Alonso, E., 201
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