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"We shall discuss the notion of proof and then present an introductory example of the analysis of the structure of proofs. The contents of the book are outlined in the third and last section of this chapter. 1.1 The idea of a proof A proof in logic and mathematics is, traditionally, a deductive argument from some given assumptions to a conclusion. Proofs are meant to present conclusive evidence in the sense that the truth of the conclusion should follow necessarily from the truth of the assumptions. Proofs must be, in principle, communicable in every detail, so that their correctness can be checked. Detailed proofs are a means of presentation that need not follow in anyway the steps in finding things out. Still, it would be useful if there was a natural way from the latter steps to a proof, and equally useful if proofs also suggested the way the truths behind them were discovered. The presentation of proofs as deductive arguments began in ancient Greek axiomatic geometry. It took Gottlob Frege in 1879 torealize that mere axioms and definitions are not enough, but that also the logical steps that combine axioms into a proof have to be made, and indeed can be made, explicit. To this purpose, Frege formulated logic itself as an axiomatic discipline, completed with just two rules of inference for combining logical axioms. Axiomatic logic of the Fregean sort was studied and developed by Bert-rand Russell, and later by David Hilbert and Paul Bernays and their students, in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Gradually logic came to be seen as a formal calculus instead of a system of reasoning: the language of logic was formalized and its rules of inference taken as part of an inductive definition of the class of formally provable formulas in the calculus"--
List of contents
Prologue: Hilbert's Last Problem; 1. Introduction; Part I. Proof Systems Based on Natural Deduction: 2. Rules of proof: natural deduction; 3. Axiomatic systems; 4. Order and lattice theory; 5. Theories with existence axioms; Part II. Proof Systems Based on Sequent Calculus: 6. Rules of proof: sequent calculus; 7. Linear order; Part III. Proof Systems for Geometric Theories: 8. Geometric theories; 9. Classical and intuitionistic axiomatics; 10. Proof analysis in elementary geometry; Part IV. Proof Systems for Nonclassical Logics: 11. Modal logic; 12. Quantified modal logic, provability logic, and so on; Bibliography; Index of names; Index of subjects.
About the author
Sara Negri is Docent of Logic at the University of Helsinki. She is the author of Structural Proof Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2001, with Jan von Plato) and she has also written several research papers on mathematical and philosophical logic.Jan von Plato is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Creating Modern Probability (Cambridge University Press, 1994), the co-author (with Sara Negri) of Structural Proof Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and has written several papers on logic and epistemology.
Report
"...provide a substantial contribution to the development of proof theory in mathematics.... The book covers a lot of useful material in a concise, efficient and very clearly structured manner. The chapters are written with a palpable intention to show how vast the applicability of the methods is. The results are uniform, general and require a high-level preparation in many different fields. This book can be seen as the stimulating continuation of the authors' introductory book Structural Proof Theory..."
--F. Poggiolesi, Institut d'Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, Paris, France, History and Philosophy of Logic
