On Inversion Principles

A general formulation of inductive and recursive definitions in Martin-Löf's type theory is presented. It extends Backhouse's ‘Do-It-Yourself Type Theory’ to include inductive definitions of families of sets and definitions of functions by recursion on the way elements of such sets are generated. The formulation is in natural deduction and is intended to be a natural generalisation to type theory of Martin-Löf's theory of iterated inductive definitions in predicate logic.Formal criteria are given for correct formation and introduction rules of a new set former capturing definition by strictly positive, iterated, generalised induction. Moreover, there is an inversion principle for deriving elimination and equality rules from the formation and introduction rules. Finally, there is an alternative schematic presentation of definition by recursion.The resulting theory is a flexible and powerful language for programming and constructive mathematics. We hint at the wealth of possible applications by showing several basic examples: predicate logic, generalised induction, and a formalisation of the untyped lambda calculus.

We develop rules for coalgebras in type theory, and give meaning explanations for them. We show that elements of coalgebras are determined by their elimination rules, whereas the introduction rules can be considered as derived. This is in contrast with algebraic data types, for which the opposite is true: elements are determined by their introduction rules, and the elimination rules can be considered as derived. In this sense, the function type from the logical framework is more like a coalgebraic data type, the elements of which are determined by the elimination rule. We illustrate why the simplest form of guarded recursion is nothing but the introduction rule originating from the formulation of coalgebras in category theory. We discuss restrictions needed in order to preserve decidability of equality.

Developing early results of Prawitz, Tennant proposed a criterion for an expression to count as a paradox in the framework of Gentzen’s natural deduction: paradoxical expressions give rise to non-normalizing derivations. Two distinct kinds of cases, going back to Crabbe and Tennant, show that the criterion overgenerates, that is, there are derivations which are intuitively non-paradoxical but which fail to normalize. Tennant’s proposed solution consists in reformulating natural deduction elimination rules in general (or parallelized) form. Developing intuitions of Ekman we show that the adoption of general rules has the consequence of hiding redundancies within derivations. Once reductions to get rid of the hidden redundancies are devised, it is clear that the adoption of general elimination rules offers no remedy to the overgeneration of the Prawitz–Tennant analysis. In this way, we indirectly provide further support for a solution to one of the two overgeneration cases developed in previous work.

This volume is dedicated to Prof. Dag Prawitz and his outstanding contributions to philosophical and mathematical logic. Prawitz's eminent contributions to structural proof theory, or general proof theory, as he calls it, and inference-based meaning theories have been extremely influential in the development of modern proof theory and anti-realistic semantics. In particular, Prawitz is the main author on natural deduction in addition to Gerhard Gentzen, who defined natural deduction in his PhD thesis published in 1934. The book opens with an introductory paper that surveys Prawitz's numerous contributions to proof theory and proof-theoretic semantics and puts his work into a somewhat broader perspective, both historically and systematically. Chapters include either in-depth studies of certain aspects of Dag Prawitz's work or address open research problems that are concerned with core issues in structural proof theory and range from philosophical essays to papers of a mathematical nature. Investigations into the necessity of thought and the theory of grounds and computational justifications as well as an examination of Prawitz's conception of the validity of inferences in the light of three dogmas of proof-theoretic semantics are included. More formal papers deal with the constructive behaviour of fragments of classical logic and fragments of the modal logic S4 among other topics. In addition, there are chapters about inversion principles, normalization of proofs, and the notion of proof-theoretic harmony and other areas of a more mathematical persuasion. Dag Prawitz also writes a chapter in which he explains his current views on the epistemic dimension of proofs and addresses the question why some inferences succeed in conferring evidence on their conclusions when applied to premises for which one already possesses evidence.

This paper formulates a bilateral account of harmony that is an alternative to one proposed by Francez. It builds on an account of harmony for unilateral logic proposed by K\"urbis and the observation that reading the rules for the connectives of bilateral logic bottom up gives the grounds and consequences of formulas with the opposite speech act. I formulate a process I call 'inversion' which allows the determination of assertive elimination rules from assertive introduction rules, and rejective elimination rules from rejective introduction rules, and conversely. It corresponds to Francez's notion of vertical harmony. I also formulate a process I call 'conversion', which allows the determination of rejective introduction rules from assertive elimination rules and conversely, and the determination of assertive introduction rules from rejective elimination rules and conversely. It corresponds to Francez's notion of horizontal harmony. The account has a number of features that distinguishes it from Francez's.

The basic idea behind that account is that we need to distinguish straightforward inconsistency, or self-contradiction, of a set of assumptions, from paradoxicality. Both involve proofs of absurdity (1). But the proofs of absurdity in connection with straightforward contradictions are normalizable, whereas those in connection with paradoxes are not. Proofs are normalizable when they can be brought into normal form by a finite sequence of applications of reduction procedures. These reduction procedures are designed to get rid of unnecessary prolixity. Such prolixity can arise, most importantly, by applying an introduction rule for a logical operator and then immediately applying the corresponding elimination rule. The result is a sentence occurrence within the proof standing as the conclusion of an application of the introduction rule and as the major premiss of an application of the corresponding elimination rule. Reductions get rid of such 'maximal' sentence occurrences, which stand as unwanted 'knuckles' in the proof. The reduction procedures for the logical operators are designed to eliminate such unnecessary detours within proofs.1

We introduce new proof systems for propositional logic, simple deduction Frege systems, general deduction Frege systems, and nested deduction Frege systems, which augment Frege systems with variants of the deduction rule. We give upper bounds on the lengths of proofs in Frege proof systems compared to lengths in these new systems. As applications we give near-linear simulations of the propositional Gentzen sequent calculus and the natural deduction calculus by Frege proofs. The length of a proof is the number of lines (or formulas) in the proof.A general deduction Frege proof system provides at most quadratic speedup over Frege proof systems. A nested deduction Frege proof system provides at most a nearly linear speedup over Frege system where by “nearly linear” is meant the ratio of proof lengths is O(α(n)) where α is the inverse Ackermann function. A nested deduction Frege system can linearly simulate the propositional sequent calculus, the tree-like general deduction Frege calculus, and the natural deduction calculus. Hence a Frege proof system can simulate all those proof systems with proof lengths bounded by O(n . α(n)). Also we show that a Frege proof of n lines can be transformed into a tree-like Frege proof of O(n log n) lines and of height O(log n). As a corollary of this fact we can prove that natural deduction and sequent calculus tree-like systems simulate Frege systems with proof lengths bounded by O(n log n).

Any set of truth-functional connectives has sequent calculus rules that can be generated systematically from the truth tables of the connectives. Such a sequent calculus gives rise to a multi-conclusion natural deduction system and to a version of Parigot’s free deduction. The elimination rules are “general,” but can be systematically simplified. Cut-elimination and normalization hold. Restriction to a single formula in the succedent yields intuitionistic versions of these systems. The rules also yield generalized lambda calculi providing proof terms for natural deduction proofs as in the Curry–Howard isomorphism. Addition of an indirect proof rule yields classical single-conclusion versions of these systems. Gentzen’s standard systems arise as special cases.

Proof Certificates for Equality Reasoning

The behavior of languages such as C++, Java, Smalltalk and Eiffel and the modeling features such classes, inheritance, polymorphism, message passing are discussed. The important theoretical approaches such as subtyping, F-bounds, matching and the object calculus are also discussed. A mathematical model was developed, that show the possibility of motivating the existence of something as relatively sophisticated as an object with a state and method. The two kind of type rules include: introduction rules that describes the formation of functions and records and elimination rules, describing the decomposition of constructions.

We explicate the different ways that a first-order sentence can be true (resp., false) in a model M, as formal objects, called (M-relative) truth-makers (resp., falsity-makers). M-relative truth-makers and falsity-makers are co-inductively definable, by appeal to the “atomic facts” in M, and to certain rules of verification and of falsification, collectively called rules of evaluation. Each logical operator has a rule of verification, much like an introduction rule; and a rule of falsification, much like an elimination rule. Applications of the rules (∀) and (∃) involve infinite furcation when the domain of M is infinite. But even in the infinite case, truth-makers and falsity-makers are tree-like objects whose branches are at most finitely long. A sentence φ is true (resp., false) in a model M (in the sense of Tarski) if and only if there existsπ such that π is an M-relative truth-maker (resp., falsity-maker) for φ. With “ways of being true” explicated as these logical truthmakers, one can re-conceive logical consequence between given premises and a conclusion. It obtains just in case there is a suitable method for transforming M-relative truthmakers for the premises into an M-relative truthmaker for the conclusion, whatever the model M may be.

In the Trinity Term of 1977 I had the privilege of hearing Michael Dummett lecture in the Old Library at All Souls on the justification and criticism of logical laws, and subsequently I also assisted Mark Helme in the production of some unauthorised, not altogether successful, notes on these lectures. I can vividly recall my surprise when Prof. Dummett stated, in connection with the idea with which he had up till then been mainly concerned, namely the idea that meaning is primarily determined in terms of the Gentzen introduction rules, that my old tutor, the Swedish logician Per Martin-Lof, in correspondence, held that “the meanings of the logical constants CAN IN NO WAY be given by the introduction rules, rather they are given by the elimination rules”.1 This was, as far as I knew from tutorials and conversations with Martin-Lof, not a position he would defend at the time and certainly not today. In fact, he has steadfastly held by the introduction-rule orthodoxy in all relevant publications from 1979 onwards.2 Taken jointly those publications constitute, as far as I know, the only sustained effort towards a realisation of a constructivist theory of meaning for a sizeable interpreted language serving the needs of pure mathematics on a scale comparable to that of Frege’s Grundgesetze. From this circumstance alone it seems clear that much of Dummettian interest can be found in the works of Martin-Lof.

Vector quantization is the process of encoding vector data as an index to a dictionary-or codebook-of representative vectors. Entropy-constrained vector quantizers (ECVQ) explicitly control the entropy of the output, and are superior to simple nearest-neighbor vector quantizers in terms of rate-distortion performances. ECVQ codebook design based on empirical data involves an expensive training phase in which a Lagrangian cost measure has to be minimized over the set of codebook vectors. In this paper, we describe two new general elimination rules allowing significant acceleration in the codebook design process. These rules use features of the codebook vectors in order to discard most of them as fast as possible during the search. Experimental results are presented on image block data. They show that those new rules perform slightly better than the previously known methods.

Prawitz proved a theorem, formalising ‘harmony’ in Natural Deduction systems, which showed that, corresponding to any deduction there is one to the same effect but in which no formula occurrence is both the consequence of an application of an introduction rule and major premise of an application of the related elimination rule. As Gentzen ordered the rules, certain rules in Classical Logic had to be excepted, but if we see the appropriate rules instead as rules for Contradiction, then we can extend the theorem to the classical case. Properly arranged there is a thoroughgoing ‘harmony’, in the classical rules. Indeed, as we shall see, they are, all together, far more ‘harmonious’ in the general sense than has been commonly observed. As this paper will show, the appearance of disharmony has only arisen because of the illogical way in which natural deduction rules for Classical Logic have been presented.

Boolean contact algebras constitute a suitable algebraic theory for qualitative spatial reasoning. They are Boolean algebras with an additional contact relation grasping the topological aspect of spatial entities. In this paper we present a logic that combines propositional logic, relevance logic, and modal logic to reason about Boolean contact algebras. This is done in two steps. First, we use the relevance logic operators to obtain a logic suitable for Boolean algebras. Then we add modal operators that are based on the contact relation. In both cases we present axioms that are equivalent to requirement that every frame for the logic is indeed a Boolean algebra resp. Boolean contact algebra. We also provide a natural deduction system for this logic by defining introduction and eliminations rules for each logical operator. The system is shown to be sound. Furthermore, we sketch an implementation of the natural deduction system in the functional programming language and interactive theorem prover Coq.