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On a theory of weak implications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
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The purpose of this paper is to study logical implications which are much weaker than the implication of intuitionistic logic.
In §1 we define the system SI (system of Simple Implication) which is obtained from intuitionistic logic by restricting the inference rules of intuitionistic implication. The implication of the system SI is called the “simple implication” and denoted by ⊃, where the simple implication ⊃ has the following properties:
(1) The simple implication ⊃ is much weaker than the usual intuitionistic implication.
(2) The simple implication ⊃ can be interpreted by the notion of provability, i.e., we have a very simple semantics for SI so that a sentence A ⊃ B is interpreted as “there exists a proof of B from A”.
(3) The full-strength intuitionistic implication ⇒ is definable in a weak second order extension of SI; in other words, it is definable by help of a variant of the weak comprehension schema and the simple implication ⊃. Therefore, though SI is much weaker than the intuitionistic logic, the second order extension of SI is equivalent to the second order extension of the intuitionistic logic.
(4) The simple implication is definable in a weak modal logic MI by the use of the modal operator and the intuitionistic implication ⇒ with full strength. More precisely, A ⊃ B is defined as the strict implication of the form ◽(A ⇒ B).
In §1, we show (3) and (4). (2) is shown in §2 in a more general setting.
Semantics by introduction rules of logical connectives has been studied from various points of view by many authors (e.g. Gentzen [4], Lorentzen [5], Dummett [1], [2], Prawitz [8]. Martin-Löf [7], Maehara [6]). Among them Gentzen (in §§10 and 11 of [4]) introduced such a semantics in order to justify logical inferences and the mathematical induction rule. He observed that all of the inference rules of intuitionistic arithmetic, except for those on implication and negation, are justified by means of his semantics, but justification of the inference rules on implication and negation contains a circular argument for the interpretation by introduction rules, where the natural interpretation of A ⊃ B by ⊃-introduction rule is “there exists a proof of B from A ” (cf. §11 of Gentzen [4]).
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- Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1988
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