Foundations of Constructive Mathematics


Book Description

This book is about some recent work in a subject usually considered part of "logic" and the" foundations of mathematics", but also having close connec tions with philosophy and computer science. Namely, the creation and study of "formal systems for constructive mathematics". The general organization of the book is described in the" User's Manual" which follows this introduction, and the contents of the book are described in more detail in the introductions to Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four. This introduction has a different purpose; it is intended to provide the reader with a general view of the subject. This requires, to begin with, an elucidation of both the concepts mentioned in the phrase, "formal systems for constructive mathematics". "Con structive mathematics" refers to mathematics in which, when you prove that l a thing exists (having certain desired properties) you show how to find it. Proof by contradiction is the most common way of proving something exists without showing how to find it - one assumes that nothing exists with the desired properties, and derives a contradiction. It was only in the last two decades of the nineteenth century that mathematicians began to exploit this method of proof in ways that nobody had previously done; that was partly made possible by the creation and development of set theory by Georg Cantor and Richard Dedekind.




Foundations of Constructive Probability Theory


Book Description

This book provides a systematic and general theory of probability within the framework of constructive mathematics.




Foundations of Constructive Analysis


Book Description

This book, Foundations of Constructive Analysis, founded the field of constructive analysis because it proved most of the important theorems in real analysis by constructive methods. The author, Errett Albert Bishop, born July 10, 1928, was an American mathematician known for his work on analysis. In the later part of his life Bishop was seen as the leading mathematician in the area of Constructive mathematics. From 1965 until his death, he was professor at the University of California at San Diego.




Varieties of Constructive Mathematics


Book Description

A survey of constructive approaches to pure mathematics emphasizing the viewpoint of Errett Bishop's school. Considers intuitionism, Russian constructivism, and recursive analysis, with comparisons among the various approaches included where appropriate.




Constructive Analysis


Book Description

This work grew out of Errett Bishop's fundamental treatise 'Founda tions of Constructive Analysis' (FCA), which appeared in 1967 and which contained the bountiful harvest of a remarkably short period of research by its author. Truly, FCA was an exceptional book, not only because of the quantity of original material it contained, but also as a demonstration of the practicability of a program which most ma thematicians believed impossible to carry out. Errett's book went out of print shortly after its publication, and no second edition was produced by its publishers. Some years later, 'by a set of curious chances', it was agreed that a new edition of FCA would be published by Springer Verlag, the revision being carried out by me under Errett's supervision; at the same time, Errett gener ously insisted that I become a joint author. The revision turned out to be much more substantial than we had anticipated, and took longer than we would have wished. Indeed, tragically, Errett died before the work was completed. The present book is the result of our efforts. Although substantially based on FCA, it contains so much new material, and such full revision and expansion of the old, that it is essentially a new book. For this reason, and also to preserve the integrity of the original, I decided to give our joint work a title of its own. Most of the new material outside Chapter 5 originated with Errett.




Truth, Proof and Infinity


Book Description

Constructive mathematics is based on the thesis that the meaning of a mathematical formula is given, not by its truth-conditions, but in terms of what constructions count as a proof of it. However, the meaning of the terms `construction' and `proof' has never been adequately explained (although Kriesel, Goodman and Martin-Löf have attempted axiomatisations). This monograph develops precise (though not wholly formal) definitions of construction and proof, and describes the algorithmic substructure underlying intuitionistic logic. Interpretations of Heyting arithmetic and constructive analysis are given. The philosophical basis of constructivism is explored thoroughly in Part I. The author seeks to answer objections from platonists and to reconcile his position with the central insights of Hilbert's formalism and logic. Audience: Philosophers of mathematics and logicians, both academic and graduate students, particularly those interested in Brouwer and Hilbert; theoretical computer scientists interested in the foundations of functional programming languages and program correctness calculi.




The Foundations of Mathematics in the Theory of Sets


Book Description

This book presents a unified approach to the foundations of mathematics in the theory of sets, covering both conventional and finitary (constructive) mathematics. It is based on a philosophical, historical and mathematical analysis of the relation between the concepts of 'natural number' and 'set'. The author investigates the logic of quantification over the universe of sets and discusses its role in second order logic, as well as in the analysis of proof by induction and definition by recursion. Suitable for graduate students and researchers in both philosophy and mathematics.




Constructive Adpositional Grammars


Book Description

This book presents a new paradigm of natural language grammar analysis, based on adposition as the key concept, considered a general connection between two morphemes – or group of morphemes. The adpositional paradigm considers the morpheme as the basic unit to represent morphosyntax, taken as a whole, in terms of constructions, while semantics and pragmatics are treated accordingly. All linguistic observations within the book can be described through the methods and tools of Constructive Mathematics, so that the modelling becomes formally feasible. A full description in category-theoretic terms of the formal model is provided in the Appendix. A lot of examples taken from natural languages belonging to different typological areas are offered throughout the volume, in order to explain and validate the modeling – with special attention given to ergativity. Finally, a first real-world application of the paradigm is given, i.e., conversational analysis of the transcript of therapeutic settings in terms of constructive speech acts. The main goal of this book is to broaden the scope of Linguistics by including Constructive Mathematics in order to deal with known topics such as grammaticalization, children’s speech, language comparison, dependency and valency from a different perspective. It primarily concerns advanced students and researchers in the field of Theoretical and Mathematical Linguistics but the audience can also include scholars interested in applications of Topos Theory in Linguistics.




A Course in Constructive Algebra


Book Description

The constructive approach to mathematics has enjoyed a renaissance, caused in large part by the appearance of Errett Bishop's book Foundations of constr"uctiue analysis in 1967, and by the subtle influences of the proliferation of powerful computers. Bishop demonstrated that pure mathematics can be developed from a constructive point of view while maintaining a continuity with classical terminology and spirit; much more of classical mathematics was preserved than had been thought possible, and no classically false theorems resulted, as had been the case in other constructive schools such as intuitionism and Russian constructivism. The computers created a widespread awareness of the intuitive notion of an effecti ve procedure, and of computation in principle, in addi tion to stimulating the study of constructive algebra for actual implementation, and from the point of view of recursive function theory. In analysis, constructive problems arise instantly because we must start with the real numbers, and there is no finite procedure for deciding whether two given real numbers are equal or not (the real numbers are not discrete) . The main thrust of constructive mathematics was in the direction of analysis, although several mathematicians, including Kronecker and van der waerden, made important contributions to construc tive algebra. Heyting, working in intuitionistic algebra, concentrated on issues raised by considering algebraic structures over the real numbers, and so developed a handmaiden'of analysis rather than a theory of discrete algebraic structures.




Constructivism in Mathematics, Vol 1


Book Description

These two volumes cover the principal approaches to constructivism in mathematics. They present a thorough, up-to-date introduction to the metamathematics of constructive mathematics, paying special attention to Intuitionism, Markov's constructivism and Martin-Lof's type theory with its operational semantics. A detailed exposition of the basic features of constructive mathematics, with illustrations from analysis, algebra and topology, is provided, with due attention to the metamathematical aspects. Volume 1 is a self-contained introduction to the practice and foundations of constructivism, and does not require specialized knowledge beyond basic mathematical logic. Volume 2 contains mainly advanced topics of a proof-theoretical and semantical nature.