A theory T is trustworthy iff, whenever a theory U is interpretable in T, then it is faithfully interpretable. In this paper we give a characterization of trustworthiness. We provide a simple proof of Friedman’s Theorem that finitely axiomatized, sequential, consistent theories are trustworthy. We provide an example of a theory whose schematic predicate logic is complete Π20.

I here investigate the sense in which diagonalization allows one to construct sentences that are self-referential. Truly self-referential sentences cannot be constructed in the standard language of arithmetic: There is a simple theory of truth that is intuitively inconsistent but is consistent with Peano arithmetic, as standardly formulated. True self-reference is possible only if we expand the language to include function-symbols for all primitive recursive functions. This language is therefore the natural setting for investigations of self-reference.

Proofs of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem are often accompanied by claims such as that the gödel sentence constructed in the course of the proof says of itself that it is unprovable and that it is true. The validity of such claims depends closely on how the sentence is constructed. Only by tightly constraining the means of construction can one obtain gödel sentences of which it is correct, without further ado, to say that they say of themselves that they are unprovable (...) and that they are true; otherwise a false theory can yield false gödel sentences. (shrink)

Philosophers of language have drawn on metamathematical results in varied ways. Extensionalist philosophers have been particularly impressed with two, not unrelated, facts: the existence, due to Frege/Tarski, of a certain sort of semantics, and the seeming absence of intensional contexts from mathematical discourse. The philosophical import of these facts is at best murky. Extensionalists will emphasize the success and clarity of the model theoretic semantics; others will emphasize the relative poverty of the mathematical idiom; still others will question the aptness (...) of the standard extensional semantics for mathematics. In this paper I investigate some implications of the Gödel Second Incompleteness Theorem for these positions. I argue that the realm of mathematics, proof theory in particular, has been a breeding ground for intensionality and that satisfactory intensional semantic theories are implicit in certain rigorous technical accounts. (shrink)

Hofstadter has introduced the notion of an explicit Henkin sentence. Roughly speaking, an explicit Henkin sentence not only asserts its own provability, as ordinary Henkin sentences do, but explicitly provides a detailed description of a proof. We provide, in this paper, a precise formalization of Hofstadter's notion and then show that true explicit Henkin sentences exist.

This is a book that every enthusiast for Gödel’s proofs of his incompleteness theorems will want to own. It gives an up-to-date account of connections between systems of modal logic and results on provability in formal systems for arithmetic, analysis, and set theory.