Self-referentiality in Constructive Semantics of Intuitionistic and Modal Logics

This thesis explores self-referentiality in the framework of justification logic. In this framework initialed by Artemov, the language has formulas of the form t:F, which means the term t is a justification of the formula F. Moreover, terms can occur inside formulas and hence it is legal to have t:F(t), which means the term t is a justification of the formula F about t itself. Expressions like this is not only interesting in the semantics of justification logic, but also, as we will see, necessary in applications of justification logic in formalizing constructive contents implicitly carried by modal and intuitionistic logics. Works initialed by Artemov and followed by Brezhnev and others have successfully extracted constructive contents packaged by modality in many modal logics. Roughly speaking, they offer methods of substituting modalities by terms in various justification logics, and then computing the exact structure of each term. After performing these methods, each formula prefixed by a modality becomes a formula prefixed by a term, which intuitively stands for the justification of the formula being prefixed. In terminology of this framework, we say that modal logics are realized in justification logics. Within the family of justification logics, the Logic of Proofs LP is perhaps the most important member. As Artemov showed, this logic is not only complete w.r.t. to arithmetical semantics about proofs, but also accommodates the modal logic S4 via realization. Combined with Godel\u27s modal embedding from intuitionistic propositional logic IPC to S4, the Logic of Proofs LP serves as an intermedium via which IPC receives its provability semantics, also known as Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov semantics, or BHK semantics. This thesis presents the candidate\u27s works in two directions. (1) Following Kuznets\u27result that self-referentiality is necessary for the realization of several modal logics including S4, we show that it is also necessary for BHK semantics. (2) We find a necessary condition for a modal theorem to require self-referentiality in its realization, and using this condition to derive many interesting properties about self-referentiality

Advances in Proof-Theoretic Semantics

Logic; Mathematical Logic and Foundations; Mathematical Logic and Formal Language

Synonymy and Identity of Proofs - A Philosophical Essay

The main objective of the dissertation is to investigate from a strictly philosophical perspective different approaches and results related to the problem of identity of proofs, which is a problem of general proof theory at the intersection of mathematics and philosophy. The author characterizes,compares and evaluates a range of formal criteria of proof-identity that have been proposed in the proof-theoretic literature. While these proposals come from mathematical logicians, the author’s background in both mathematical logic and philosophy allows him to present and discuss these proposals in a manner that is accessible to and fruitful for philosophers, especially those working in logic and philosophy of mathematics, as well as mathematical logicians. The dissertation is structured into a prologue and five sections. In the prologue, the author traces the development of the concept of a proof in ancient philosophy, culminating in the work of Aristotle. In Section I, the author turns to the roots of proof theory in modern philosophy, offering a detailed interpretation of Kant’s “Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren”, which uncovers interesting links between Kant’s inferences of understanding and of reason and modern proof-theoretic semantics. In Section II, the author turns from historical to systematic considerations concerning different kinds of identity-criteria of proofs, ranging from overly liberal criteria that trivialize proof identity to overly strict, syntactical criteria. In Section III, the heart of the dissertation, the author offers a thorough philosophical discussion of the normalisation thesis. In Section IV, the author considers the difficulties encountered in his discussion of identity of proofs --- particularly of the normalisation thesis --- through the lens of a discussion of the notion of synonymy, and compares this thesis with other possible formal accounts of identity of proofs. In particular, by recourse to Carnap’s notion of synonymy, developed in “Meaning and Necessity”, the author proposes a notion of synonymy of proofs. In Section V, the final substantial section, the author compares the normalisation thesis to the Church-Turing thesis, thereby adducing another dimension of evaluation of the former

A General Semantics for Logics of Affirmation and Negation

A general framework for translating various logical systems is presented, including a set of partial unary operators of affirmation and negation. Despite its usual reading, affirmation is not redundant in any domain of values and whenever it does not behave like a full mapping. After depicting the process of partial functions, a number of logics are translated through a variety of affirmations and a unique pair of negations. This relies upon two preconditions: a deconstruction of truth-values as ordered and structured objects, unlike its mainstream presentation as a simple object; a redefinition of the Principle of Bivalence as a set of four independent properties, such that its definition does not equate with normality

Topics in Programming Languages, a Philosophical Analysis through the case of Prolog

[EN]Programming languages seldom find proper anchorage in philosophy of logic, language and science. is more, philosophy of language seems to be restricted to natural languages and linguistics, and even philosophy of logic is rarely framed into programming languages topics. The logic programming paradigm and Prolog are, thus, the most adequate paradigm and programming language to work on this subject, combining natural language processing and linguistics, logic programming and constriction methodology on both algorithms and procedures, on an overall philosophizing declarative status. Not only this, but the dimension of the Fifth Generation Computer system related to strong Al wherein Prolog took a major role. and its historical frame in the very crucial dialectic between procedural and declarative paradigms, structuralist and empiricist biases, serves, in exemplar form, to treat straight ahead philosophy of logic, language and science in the contemporaneous age as well. In recounting Prolog's philosophical, mechanical and algorithmic harbingers, the opportunity is open to various routes. We herein shall exemplify some: - the mechanical-computational background explored by Pascal, Leibniz, Boole, Jacquard, Babbage, Konrad Zuse, until reaching to the ACE (Alan Turing) and EDVAC (von Neumann), offering the backbone in computer architecture, and the work of Turing, Church, Gödel, Kleene, von Neumann, Shannon, and others on computability, in parallel lines, throughly studied in detail, permit us to interpret ahead the evolving realm of programming languages. The proper line from lambda-calculus, to the Algol-family, the declarative and procedural split with the C language and Prolog, and the ensuing branching and programming languages explosion and further delimitation, are thereupon inspected as to relate them with the proper syntax, semantics and philosophical élan of logic programming and Prolog