Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T13:38:46.872Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A consistent combinatory logic with an inverse to equality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Frederic B. Fitch*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Extract

In a previous paper [9] a demonstrably consistent type-free system of combinatory logic CΔ was presented. This system contained a moderately strong exten-sionality principle, the usual equations of combinatory logic, Boolean propositional connectives, unrestricted quantifiers, an unrestricted abstraction principle (“comprehension axiom”), and a limited principle of excluded middle. It also contained elementary arithmetic in its entirety, avoiding arithmetical Gödel incompleteness [14] by being ω-complete. CΔ probably can be shown to contain certain important parts of mathematical analysis, such as the theory of continuous functions, which are contained by the somewhat similar (but nonextensional) system K′ [6], [7]. A stronger system CΓ, having these same properties and more, will be formulated in the present paper. Elsewhere [13] it will be shown that the system Q of my book, Elements of combinatory logic (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1974), referred to below as ECL, is essentially a subsystem of CΓ, so that the consistency of CΓ guarantees that of Q.

will be stronger than both CΔ and Q in having an operator ‘ɿ’ (inverted Greek iota) which denotes the inverse of equality in the sense that ‘ɿ(= a) = a’ is a theorem of the system. Thus ‘ɿ’ denotes a function or operator which operates on a unit class to give the only member of that class. (Here ‘=a’ denotes the unit class whose only member is denoted by ‘a’.) If uninverted Greek iota, ‘ι’, is used as an abbreviation for ‘=’, the above equation could be written as ‘ɿ(ιa) = a’. Here ‘ιa’ is analogous to Bertrand Russell's well-known notation ‘ιa’, denoting a unit class. This same operator ‘ɿ’ makes it possible to transform one-many or many-one relations into the corresponding functions or operators, a kind of transformation not usually available in systems of combinatory logic [1], [2]. It also provides a method for restricting functions by restricting the corresponding relations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1]Curry, H. B. and Feys, R., Combinatory logic, vol. 1, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1958.Google Scholar
[2]Curry, H. B., Hindley, J. R. and Seldin, J. P., Combinatory logic, vol. 2, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1972.Google Scholar
[3]Feferman, S., Non-extensional type-free theories of partial operations and classifications. I, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol. 500, Kiel Proof Theory Symposium, Springer, Berlin, 1975, pp. 73118.Google Scholar
[4]Fitch, F. B., Self-reference in philosophy, Mind, vol. 55 (1946), pp. 6473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5]Fitch, F. B., An extension of basic logic, this Journal, vol. 13 (1948), pp. 95106.Google Scholar
[6]Fitch, F. B., The Heine-Borel theorem in extended basic logic, this Journal, vol. 14 (1949), pp. 915.Google Scholar
[7]Fitch, F. B., A demonstrably consistent mathematics, this Journal, vol. 15 (1950), pp. 1724; vol. 16 (1951), pp. 121–124.Google Scholar
[8]Fitch, F. B., A definition of negation in extended basic logic, this Journal, vol. 19 (1954), pp. 2936.Google Scholar
[9]Fitch, F. B., The system CΔ of combinatory logic, this Journal, vol. 28 (1963), pp. 8797.Google Scholar
[10]Fitch, F. B., Universal metalanguages for philosophy, Review of Metaphysics, vol. 17 (1964), pp. 396402.Google Scholar
[11]Fitch, F. B., Elements of combinatory logic, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1974. (Referred to as ECL.)Google Scholar
[12]Fitch, F. B., Excluded middle and the paradoxes, Abstract, this Journal, vol. 42 (1977), pp. 148149.Google Scholar
[13]Fitch, F. B., The consistency of system Q, this Journal (to appear).Google Scholar
[14]Gödel, K., Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme. I, Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, vol. 38 (1931), pp. 173198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[15]Tarski, A., Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen, Studia Philosophica, vol. 1 (1936), pp. 261405.Google Scholar
[16]Whitehead, A. N. and Russell, B., Principia mathematica, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, vol. 1 (1910), vol. 2 (1912), vol. 3 (1913); 2nd ed. 1925, 1926, and 1927, respectively.Google Scholar