The Small-Is-Very-Small Principle

The central result of this paper is the small-is-very-small principle for restricted sequential theories. The principle says roughly that whenever the given theory shows that a property has a small witness, i.e. a witness in every definable cut, then it shows that the property has a very small witness: i.e. a witness below a given standard number. We draw various consequences from the central result. For example (in rough formulations): (i) Every restricted, recursively enumerable sequential theory has a finitely axiomatized extension that is conservative w.r.t. formulas of complexity $\leq n$. (ii) Every sequential model has, for any $n$, an extension that is elementary for formulas of complexity $\leq n$, in which the intersection of all definable cuts is the natural numbers. (iii) We have reflection for $\Sigma^0_2$-sentences with sufficiently small witness in any consistent restricted theory $U$. (iv) Suppose $U$ is recursively enumerable and sequential. Suppose further that every recursively enumerable and sequential $V$ that locally inteprets $U$, globally interprets $U$. Then, $U$ is mutually globally interpretable with a finitely axiomatized sequential theory. The paper contains some careful groundwork developing partial satisfaction predicates in sequential theories for the complexity measure depth of quantifier alternations

Computational reverse mathematics and foundational analysis

Reverse mathematics studies which subsystems of second order arithmetic are equivalent to key theorems of ordinary, non-set-theoretic mathematics. The main philosophical application of reverse mathematics proposed thus far is foundational analysis, which explores the limits of different foundations for mathematics in a formally precise manner. This paper gives a detailed account of the motivations and methodology of foundational analysis, which have heretofore been largely left implicit in the practice. It then shows how this account can be fruitfully applied in the evaluation of major foundational approaches by a careful examination of two case studies: a partial realization of Hilbert's program due to Simpson [1988], and predicativism in the extended form due to Feferman and Sch\"{u}tte. Shore [2010, 2013] proposes that equivalences in reverse mathematics be proved in the same way as inequivalences, namely by considering only $\omega$-models of the systems in question. Shore refers to this approach as computational reverse mathematics. This paper shows that despite some attractive features, computational reverse mathematics is inappropriate for foundational analysis, for two major reasons. Firstly, the computable entailment relation employed in computational reverse mathematics does not preserve justification for the foundational programs above. Secondly, computable entailment is a $\Pi^1_1$ complete relation, and hence employing it commits one to theoretical resources which outstrip those available within any foundational approach that is proof-theoretically weaker than $\Pi^1_1\text{-}\mathsf{CA}_0$.Comment: Submitted. 41 page

Current research on G\"odel's incompleteness theorems

We give a survey of current research on G\"{o}del's incompleteness theorems from the following three aspects: classifications of different proofs of G\"{o}del's incompleteness theorems, the limit of the applicability of G\"{o}del's first incompleteness theorem, and the limit of the applicability of G\"{o}del's second incompleteness theorem.Comment: 54 pages, final accepted version, to appear in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logi

Complete Additivity and Modal Incompleteness

In this paper, we tell a story about incompleteness in modal logic. The story weaves together a paper of van Benthem, `Syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness theorems,' and a longstanding open question: whether every normal modal logic can be characterized by a class of completely additive modal algebras, or as we call them, V-BAOs. Using a first-order reformulation of the property of complete additivity, we prove that the modal logic that starred in van Benthem's paper resolves the open question in the negative. In addition, for the case of bimodal logic, we show that there is a naturally occurring logic that is incomplete with respect to V-BAOs, namely the provability logic GLB. We also show that even logics that are unsound with respect to such algebras do not have to be more complex than the classical propositional calculus. On the other hand, we observe that it is undecidable whether a syntactically defined logic is V-complete. After these results, we generalize the Blok Dichotomy to degrees of V-incompleteness. In the end, we return to van Benthem's theme of syntactic aspects of modal incompleteness