Bernays and the completeness theorem

A well-known result in Reverse Mathematics is the equivalence of the formalized version of the Gödel completeness theorem [8] – i.e. every countable, consistent set of first-order sentences has a model – and Weak König's Lemma [WKL] – i.e. every infinite tree of 0-1 sequences contains an infinite path– over the base theory RCA0. It is less well known how the Completeness Theorem came to be studied in the setting of second-order arithmetic and computability theory. The first goal of this note will be to recount these developments against the backdrop of the latter phases of the Hilbert program, culminating in the publication of the second volume of Hilbert and Bernays’s [13] Grundlagen der Mathematiks in 1939. This work contains a detailed formalization of the Completeness Theorem in a system similar to first-order Peano arithmetic [PA] – a result which has come to be known as the Arithmetized Completeness Theorem. Its second goal will be to illustrate how reflection on this result informed Bernays’s views about the philosophy of mathematics, in particular in regard to his engagement with the maxim “consistency implies existence”

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

Incompleteness via paradox and completeness

This paper explores the relationship borne by the traditional paradoxes of set theory and semantics to formal incompleteness phenomena. A central tool is the application of the Arithmetized Completeness Theorem to systems of second-order arithmetic and set theory in which various “paradoxical notions” for first-order languages can be formalized. I will first discuss the setting in which this result was originally presented by Hilbert & Bernays (1939) and also how it was later adapted by Kreisel (1950) andWang (1955) in order to obtain formal undecidability results. A generalization of this method will then be presented whereby Russell’s paradox, a variant of Mirimano’s paradox, the Liar, and the Grelling-Nelson paradox may be uniformly transformed into incompleteness theorems. Some additional observations are then framed relating these results to the unification of the set theoretic and semantic paradoxes, the intensionality of arithmetization (in the sense of Feferman, 1960), and axiomatic theories of truth