An earlier, not yet conclusive, attempt at formulating a theory of this kind was made by Scott 1970. Also related, although less closely, are the type and logic free theories of constructions of Kreisel 1962 and 1965 and Goodman 1970. In its first version, the present theory was based on the strongly impredicative axiom that there is a type of all types whatsoever, which is at the same time a type and an object of that type. This axiom had to be abandoned, however, after it was shown to lead to a contradiction by Jean Yves Girard. I am very grateful to him for showing me his paradox. The change that it necessitated is so drastic that my theory no longer contains intuitionistic simple type theory as it originally did. Instead, its proof theoretic strength should be close to that of predicative analysis.

Abstract not found

Explicit modal logic was first sketched by Gödel in [16] as the logic with the atoms "t is a proof of F". The complete axiomatization of the Logic of Proofs LP was found in [4] (see also [6],[7],[18]). In this paper we establish a sort of a functional completeness property of proof polynomials which constitute the system of proof terms in LP. Proof polynomials are built from variables and constants by three operations on proofs: "\Delta" (application), "!" (proof checker), and "+" (choice). Here constants stand for canonical proofs of "simple facts", namely instances of propositional axioms and axioms of LP in a given proof system. We show that every operation on proofs that (i) can be specified in a propositional modal language and (ii) is invariant with respect to the choice of a proof system is realized by a proof polynomial.

ABSTRACT. According to a main idea of Gentzen the meanings of the logical constants are reflected by the introduction rules in his system of natural deduction. This idea is here understood as saying roughly that a closed argument ending with an introduction is valid provided that its immediate subarguments are valid and that other closed arguments are justified to the extent that they can be brought to introduction form. One main part of the paper is devoted to the exact development of this notion. Another main part of the paper is concerned with a modification of this notion as it occurs in Michael Dummett’s book The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. The two notions are compared and there is a discussion of how they fare as a foundation for a theory of meaning. It is noted that Dummett’s notion has a simpler structure, but it is argued that it is less appropriate for the foundation of a theory of meaning, because the possession of a valid argument for a sentence in Dummett’s sense is not enough to be warranted to assert the sentence. 1.

Gödel’s interpretation of intuitionism