A sequent calculus for first-order logic formalized in Isabelle/HOL

Classical first-order logic is in many ways central to work in mathematics, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence, so it is worthwhile to define it in full detail. We present soundness and completeness proofs of a sequent calculus for first-order logic, formalized in the interactive proof assistant Isabelle/HOL. Our formalization is based on work by Stefan Berghofer, which we have since updated to use Isabelle's declarative proof style Isar (Archive of Formal Proofs, Entry FOL-Fitting, August 2007 / July 2018). We represent variables with de Bruijn indices; this makes substitution under quantifiers less intuitive for a human reader. However, the nature of natural numbers yields an elegant solution when compared to implementations of substitution using variables represented by strings. The sequent calculus considered has the special property of an always empty antecedent and a list of formulas in the succedent. We obtain the proofs of soundness and completeness for the sequent calculus as a derived result of the inverse duality of its tableau counterpart. We strive to not only present the results of the proofs of soundness and completeness, but also to provide a deep dive into a programming-like approach to the formalization of first-order logic syntax, semantics and the sequent calculus. We use the formalization in a bachelor course on logic for computer science and discuss our experiences.

In this paper, we share our experiences concerning the introduction of the Android-based self-study app AXolotl within the first-semester logic course offered at our university. This course is mandatory for students majoring in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. AXolotl was used as part of an optional lab assignment bridging clausal reasoning and SAT solving with classical reasoning, proof construction, and first-order logic. The app provides an intuitive interface for proof construction in various logical calculi and aids the students through rule application. The goal of the lab assignment was to help students make a smoother transition from clausal and decompositional reasoning used earlier in the course to inferential and contextual reasoning required for proof construction and first-order logic. We observed that the lab had a positive influence on students' understanding and end the paper with a discussion of these results.

Gentzen's systems of natural deduction and sequent calculus were byproducts in his program of proving the consistency of arithmetic and analysis. It is suggested that the central component in his results on logical calculi was the use of a tree form for derivations. It allows the composition of derivations and the permutation of the order of application of rules, with a full control over the structure of derivations as a result. Recently found documents shed new light on the discovery of these calculi. In particular, Gentzen set up five different forms of natural calculi and gave a detailed proof of normalization for intuitionistic natural deduction. An early handwritten manuscript of his thesis shows that a direct translation from natural deduction to the axiomatic logic of Hilbert and Ackermann was, in addition to the influence of Paul Hertz, the second component in the discovery of sequent calculus. A system intermediate between the sequent calculus LI and axiomatic logic, denoted LIG in unpublished sources, is implicit in Gentzen's published thesis of 1934–35. The calculus has half rules, half “groundsequents,” and does not allow full cut elimination. Nevertheless, a translation from LI to LIG in the published thesis gives a subformula property for a complete class of derivations in LIG. After the thesis, Gentzen continued to work on variants of sequent calculi for ten more years, in the hope to find a consistency proof for arithmetic within an intuitionistic calculus.

For a reasonable sound and complete proof calculus for firstorder logic consider the problem to decide, given a sentence ϕ of firstorder logic and a natural number n, whether ϕ has no proof of length ≤ n. We show that there is a nondeterministic algorithm accepting this problem which, for fixed ϕ, has running time bounded by a polynomial in n if and only if there is an optimal proof system for the set TAUT of tautologies of propositional logic. This equivalence is an instance of a general result linking the complexity of so-called slicewise monotone parameterized problems with the existence of an optimal proof system for TAUT.

In this paper, we investigate an extended first-order Belnap-Dunn logic with classical negation. We introduce a Gentzen-type sequent calculus FBD+ for this logic and prove theorems for syntactically and semantically embedding FBD+ into a Gentzen-type sequent calculus for first-order classical logic. Moreover, we show the cut-elimination theorem for FBD+ and prove the completeness theorems with respect to both valuation and many-valued semantics for FBD+.

The exact moment when Kurt Gödel decided on a thesis topic and began writing his dissertation is not known—nor is it known whether his mentor Hans Hahn or some other associate influenced his choice of thesis topic. In this chapter, we consider his path to that thesis topic, a problem in mathematical logic dealing with the ‘completeness’ of a logical system, the so-called ‘logical functional calculus’, or first-order predicate logic. We examine his steps to that completeness proof and its implications for mathematical logic, and how he used symbolic logic. We in addition meet up with some of his fellow logicians, in particular David Hilbert and L.E.J. Brouwer, and also Paul Bernays, Emil Post, and Leon Albert Henkin. All three of the latter interacted with Gödel in his later life, and in turn were influenced by his work.

Intuitionistic completeness of first-order logic

In theTractatus, Wittgenstein advocates two major notational innovations in logic. First, identity is to be expressed by identity of the sign only, not by a sign for identity. Secondly, only one logical operator, called “N” by Wittgenstein, should be employed in the construction of compound formulas. We show that, despite claims to the contrary in the literature, both of these proposals can be realized, severally and jointly, in expressively complete systems of first-order logic. Building on early work of Hintikka’s, we identify three ways in which the first notational convention can be implemented, show that two of these are compatible with the text of theTractatus, and argue on systematic and historical grounds, adducing posthumous work of Ramsey’s, for one of these as Wittgenstein’s envisaged method. With respect to the second Tractarian proposal, we discuss how Wittgenstein distinguished between general and non-general propositions and argue that, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, an expressively adequate N-operator notation is implicit in theTractatuswhen taken in its intellectual environment. We finally introduce a variety of sound and complete tableau calculi for first-order logics formulated in a Wittgensteinian notation. The first of these is based on the contemporary notion of logical truth as truth in all structures. The others take into account the Tractarian notion of logical truth as truth in all structures over one fixed universe of objects. Here the appropriate tableau rules depend on whether this universe is infinite or finite in size, and in the latter case on its exact finite cardinality.As it is obviously easy to express how propositions can be constructed by means of this operation and how propositions are not to be constructed by means of it, this must be capable of exact expression.5.503

In this paper we show how to extend the standard cut-elimination procedure from first-order intuitionistic stable logic to a class of intuitionistic stable theories. Building on previous works by Negri and von Plato, we aptly modify the underlying calculus for first-order intuitionistic logic so as to preserve the admissibility of all the structural rules, including cut, in the presence of a restricted version of the rule of classical reductio ad absurdum and of a special case of universal rules.

Separation logic is used as an assertion language for Hoare-style proof systems about programs with pointers, and there is an ongoing quest for understanding its complexity and expressive power. Herein, we show that first-order separation logic with one record field restricted to two variables and the separating implication (no separating conjunction) is as expressive as weak second-order logic, substantially sharpening a previous result. Capturing weak second-order logic with such a restricted form of separation logic requires substantial updates to known proof techniques. We develop these and, as a by-product, identify the smallest fragment of separation logic known to be undecidable: first-order separation logic with one record field, two variables, and no separating conjunction. Because we forbid ourselves the use of many syntactic resources, this underscores even further the power of separating implication on concrete heaps.

This paper focuses on the evolution of the notion of completeness in contemporary logic. We discuss the differences between the notions of completeness of a theory, the completeness of a calculus, and the completeness of a logic in the light of Gödel's and Tarski's crucial contributions.We place special emphasis on understanding the differences in how these concepts were used then and now, as well as on the role they play in logic. Nevertheless, we can still observe a certain ambiguity in the use of the close notions of completeness of a calculus and completeness of a logic. We analyze the state of the art under which Gödel's proof of completeness was developed, particularly when dealing with the decision problem for first-order logic. We believe that Gödel had to face the following dilemma: either semantics is decidable, in which case the completeness of the logic is trivial or, completeness is a critical property but in this case it cannot be obtained as a corollary of a previous decidability result. As far as first-order logic is concerned, our thesis is that the contemporary understanding of completeness of a calculus was born as a generalization of the concept of completeness of a theory. The last part of this study is devoted to Henkin's work concerning the generalization of his completeness proof to any logic from his initial work in type theory.

In this paper we continue to develop the approach to automated search for theorem proofs started in Kyiv in 1960–1970s. This approach presupposes the development of deductive techniques used for the processing of mathematical texts, written in a formal first-order language, close to the natural language used in mathematical papers. We construct two logical calculi, gS and mS, satisfying the following requirements: the syntactical form of the initial problem should be preserved; the proof search should be goal-oriented; preliminary skolemization is not obligatory; equality handling should be separated from the deduction process. The calculus gS is a machine-oriented sequent-type calculus with “large-block” inference rules for first-order classical logic. The calculus mS is a further development of the calculus gS, enriched with formal analogs of the natural proof search techniques such as definition handling and application of auxiliary propositions. The results on soundness and completeness of gS and mS are given.KeywordsInference RuleTheorem ProveInference TreeLogical InferenceCurrent GoalThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

We introduce a concept of behavioural implementation for algebraic specifications which is based on an indistinguishability relation (called behavioural equality). The central objective of this work is the investigation of proof rules which allow us to establish the correctness of behavioural implementations in a modular (and stepwise) way and, moreover, are practicable enough to induce proof obligations that can be discharged with existing theorem provers. Under certain conditions our proof technique can also be applied for proving the correctness of implementations based on an abstraction equivalence between algebras in the sense of Sannella and Tarlecki. The whole approach is presented in the framework of total algebras and first-order logic with equality.

Pomset logic introduced by Retor\'e is an extension of linear logic with a self-dual noncommutative connective. The logic is defined by means of proof-nets, rather than a sequent calculus. Later a deep inference system BV was developed with an eye to capturing Pomset logic, but equivalence of system has not been proven up to now. As for a sequent calculus formulation, it has not been known for either of these logics, and there are convincing arguments that such a sequent calculus in the usual sense simply does not exist for them. In an on-going work on semantics we discovered a system similar to Pomset logic, where a noncommutative connective is no longer self-dual. Pomset logic appears as a degeneration, when the class of models is restricted. Motivated by these semantic considerations, we define in the current work a semicommutative multiplicative linear logic}, which is multiplicative linear logic extended with two nonisomorphic noncommutative connectives (not to be confused with very different Abrusci-Ruet noncommutative logic). We develop a syntax of proof-nets and show how this logic degenerates to Pomset logic. However, a more interesting problem than just finding yet another noncommutative logic is to find a sequent calculus for this logic. We introduce decorated sequents, which are sequents equipped with an extra structure of a binary relation of reachability on formulas. We define a decorated sequent calculus for semicommutative logic and prove that it is cut-free, sound and complete. This is adapted to "degenerate" variations, including Pomset logic. Thus, in particular, we give a variant of sequent calculus formulation for Pomset logic, which is one of the key results of the paper.

In this paper we extend the models for the “logic of categories” to a wider class of categories than is usually considered. We consider two kinds of logic, a restricted first-order logic and the full higher-order logic of elementary topoi.The restricted first-order logic has as its only logical symbols ∧, ∃, Τ, and =. We interpret this logic in a category with finite limits equipped with a factorization system (in the sense of [4]). We require to satisfy two additional conditions: ⊆ Monos, and any pullback of an arrow in is again in . A category with a factorization system satisfying these conditions will be called an EM-category.The interpretation of the restricted logic in EM-categories is given in §1. In §2 we give an axiomatization for the logic, and in §§3 and 5 we give two completeness proofs for this axiomatization. The first completeness proof constructs an EM-category out of the logic, in the spirit of Makkai and Reyes [8], though the construction used here differs from theirs. The second uses Boolean-valued models and shows that the restricted logic is exactly the ∧, ∃-fragment of classical first-order logic (adapted to categories). Some examples of EM-categories are given in §4.The restricted logic is powerful enough to handle relations, and in §6 we assign to each EM-category a bicategory of relations Rel() and a category of “functional relations” fr. fr is shown to be a regular category, and it turns out that Rel( and Rel(fr) are biequivalent bicategories. In §7 we study complete objects in an EM-category where an object of is called complete if every functional relation into is yielded by a unique morphism into . We write c for the full subcategory of consisting of the complete objects. Complete objects have some, but not all, of the properties that sheaves have in a category of presheaves.