Semanticsofintuitionisticpropositionallogic.PDFVIP

Semantics of intuitionistic propositional logic Erik Palmgren Department of Mathematics, Uppsala University Lecture Notes for Applied Logic, Fall 2009 1 Introduction Intuitionistic logic is a weakening of classical logic by omitting, most promi- nently, the principle of excluded middle and the reductio ad absurdum rule. As a consequence, this logic has a wider range of semantical interpretations. The moti- vating semantics is the so called Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov interpretation of logic. The propositions A ,B ,C,... are regarded as problems or tasks to be solved, and their proofs a,b,c,... as methods or (computer) programs that solves them. • A proof-object, or just proof, for A ∧B is a pair a,b where a is a proof for A and b is proof for B . • A proof for A → B is a function f which to each proof a of A gives a proof f (a) of B . • A proof for A ∨B is either an expression inl(a) where a is a proof of A or an expression inr(b) where b is proof of B . • There is no proof of ⊥ (falsity). • A proof of ⊤ (truth) is a symbol t. We use lambda-notation for functions. For an expression a(x ) in the variable x , λx .a(x ) denotes the function which to t assigns a(t ). We also use the equivalent notation x → a(x ), familiar from mathematics. We use the sequent notation A ⊢ B for B follows from A . We identify proof- objects for A ⊢ B with proof-objects for A → B . Then we may find proof-objects for the following rules of intuitionistic propositional logic (IPC) listed below. Each rule is valid in the sense that if we find proof-objects for the premisses above 1 the line, then there is a proof-object for the conclusion below the line. For exam- ple the (→ E ) rule below is verified thus. Suppose f is a proof-object of A → B and a