Formal topologies on the set of first-order formulae

Abstract

The completeness proof for first-order logic by Rasiowa and Sikorski [13] is a simplification of Henkin's proof [7] in that it avoids the addition of infinitely many new individual constants. Instead they show that each consistent set of formulae can be extended to a maximally consistent set, satisfying the following existence property: if it contains (∃x)ϕit also contains some substitutionϕ(y/x) of a variableyforx. In Feferman's review [5] of [13], an improvement, due to Tarski, is given by which the proof gets a simple algebraic form.Sambin [16] used the same method in the setting of formal topology [15], thereby obtaining a constructive completeness proof. This proof is elementary and can be seen as a constructive and predicative version of the one in Feferman's review. It is a typical, and simple, example where the use of formal topology gives constructive sense to the existence of a generic object, satisfying some forcing conditions; in this case an ultrafilter satisfying the existence property.In order to get a formal topology on the set of first-order formulae, Sambin used the Dedekind-MacNeille completion to define a covering relation ⊲DM. This method, by which an arbitrary poset can be extended to a complete poset, was introduced by MacNeille [9] and is a generalization of the construction of real numbers from rationals by Dedekind cuts. It is also possible to define an inductive cover, ⊲I, on the set of formulae, which can also be used to give canonical models, see Coquand and Smith [3].