The revised edition contains a new chapter which provides an elegant description of the semantics. The various classes of lambda calculus models are described in a uniform manner. Some didactical improvements have been made to this edition. An example of a simple model is given and then the general theory (of categorical models) is developed. Indications are given of those parts of the book which can be used to form a coherent course.

This monograph develops techniques for equational reasoning in higher-order logic. Due to its expressiveness, higher-order logic is used for specification and verification of hardware, software, and mathematics. In these applica tions, higher-order logic provides the necessary level of abstraction for con cise and natural formulations. The main assets of higher-order logic are quan tification over functions or predicates and its abstraction mechanism. These allow one to represent quantification in formulas and other variable-binding constructs. In this book, we focus on equational (...) logic as a fundamental and natural concept in computer science and mathematics. We present calculi for equa tional reasoning modulo higher-order equations presented as rewrite rules. This is followed by a systematic development from general equational rea soning towards effective calculi for declarative programming in higher-order logic and A-calculus. This aims at integrating and generalizing declarative programming models such as functional and logic programming. In these two prominent declarative computation models we can view a program as a logical theory and a computation as a deduction. (shrink)

The usage of sorts in first-order automated deduction has brought greater conciseness of representation and a considerable gain in efficiency by reducing the search spaces involved. This suggests that sort information can be employed in higher-order theorem proving with similar results.