Correspondences between Classical, Intuitionistic and Uniform Provability

Based on an analysis of the inference rules used, we provide a characterization of the situations in which classical provability entails intuitionistic provability. We then examine the relationship of these derivability notions to uniform provability, a restriction of intuitionistic provability that embodies a special form of goal-directedness. We determine, first, the circumstances in which the former relations imply the latter. Using this result, we identify the richest versions of the so-called abstract logic programming languages in classical and intuitionistic logic. We then study the reduction of classical and, derivatively, intuitionistic provability to uniform provability via the addition to the assumption set of the negation of the formula to be proved. Our focus here is on understanding the situations in which this reduction is achieved. However, our discussions indicate the structure of a proof procedure based on the reduction, a matter also considered explicitly elsewhere.Comment: 31 page

Nominal Abstraction

Recursive relational specifications are commonly used to describe the computational structure of formal systems. Recent research in proof theory has identified two features that facilitate direct, logic-based reasoning about such descriptions: the interpretation of atomic judgments through recursive definitions and an encoding of binding constructs via generic judgments. However, logics encompassing these two features do not currently allow for the definition of relations that embody dynamic aspects related to binding, a capability needed in many reasoning tasks. We propose a new relation between terms called nominal abstraction as a means for overcoming this deficiency. We incorporate nominal abstraction into a rich logic also including definitions, generic quantification, induction, and co-induction that we then prove to be consistent. We present examples to show that this logic can provide elegant treatments of binding contexts that appear in many proofs, such as those establishing properties of typing calculi and of arbitrarily cascading substitutions that play a role in reducibility arguments.Comment: To appear in the Journal of Information and Computatio