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Although Church and Turing presented their path-breaking undecidability results immediately after their explication of effective decidability in 1936, it has been generally felt that these results do not have any direct bearing on ordinary mathematics but only contribute to logic, metamathematics and the theory of computability. Therefore it was such a celebrated achievement when Yuri Matiyasevich in 1970 demonstrated that the problem of the solvability of Diophantine equations is undecidable. His work was building essentially on the earlier work by Julia Robinson, Martin Davis and Hilary Putnam (1961), who had showed that the problem of solvability of exponential Diophantine equations is undecidable. One should note, however, that although it was only Matiyasevich's result which finally solved Hilbert's tenth problem, already the earlier result had provided a perfectly natural problem of ordinary number theory which is undecidable.Nevertheless, both the set of Diophantine equations with solutions and the set of exponential Diophantine equations with solutions are still semi-decidable, that is, recursively enumerable (i.e., Σ10); if an equation in fact has a solution, this can be eventually verified. More generally, they are — as are their complements, the sets of equations with no solutions, which are Π10, — also Trial and Error decidable (Putnam [1965]), or decidable in the limit (Shoenfield [1959]), for every Δ20 set is (and conversely). This last-mentioned natural “liberalized” notion of decidability has begun more recently to play an essential role e.g., in so-called Formal Learning Theory (see e.g., Osherson, Stob, and Weinstein [1986], Kelly [1996]).

We show that true first-order arithmetic is interpretable over the real-algebraic structure of models of intuitionistic analysis built upon a certain class of complete Heyting algebras. From this the undecidability of the structures follows. We also show that Scott's model is equivalent to true second-order arithmetic. In the appendix we argue that undecidability on the language of ordered rings follows from intuitionistically plausible properties of the real numbers.

In the course of a recent paper on modal' extensions of the intuitionist propositional calculus, [1], I made some suggestions as to the relationships between the system MIPC, the intuitionist predicate calculus, and the question of producing a genuine intuitionist concept of modality. This paper may be regarded as a clarification of those rather inaccurate ideas in the light of Kripke's outstanding analysis of the intuitionist predicate calculus, [2]. (I use Kripke's notation and terminology here without explanation — this work is intended to be read in conjunction with [2].) In particular, I shall adapt his interpretation of his modelling to give an account of MIPC in terms of differing mathematical intuitions.

My aim in this paper is to propose what seems to me a distinctive approach to set theoretic methodology. By ‘methodology’ I mean the study of the actual methods used by practitioners, the study of how these methods might be justified or reformed or extended. So, for example, when the intuitionist's philosophical analysis recommends a wholesale revision of the methods of proof used in classical mathematics, this is a piece of reformist methodology. In contrast with the intuitionist, I will focus more narrowly on the methods of contemporary set theory, and, more importantly, I will certainly recommend no sweeping reforms. Rather, I begin from the assumption that the methodologist's job is to account for set theory as it is practiced, not as some philosophy would have it be. This credo lies at the very heart of the so-called ‘naturalism’ to be described here.A philosopher looking at set theoretic practice from the outside, so to speak, might notice any number of interesting methodological questions, beginning with the intuitionist's ‘why use classical logic?’, but this sort of question is not a live issue for most practicing set theorists. One central question on which the philosopher's and the practitioner's interests converge is this: what is the status of independent statements like the continuum hypothesis (CH)? A number of large questions arise in its wake: what criteria should guide the search for new axioms? For that matter, what reasons support our adoption of the old axioms?

Based on the relevant logic R, the system R#was proposed as a relevant Peano arithmetic. R#has many nice properties: the most conspicuous theorems of classical Peano arithmetic PA are readily provable therein; it is readily and effectively shown to be nontrivial; it incorporates both intuitionist and classical proof methods. But it is shown here that R#is properly weaker than PA, in the sense that there is a strictly positive theorem QRF of PA which is unprovable in R#. The reason is interesting: if PA is slightly weakened to a subtheory P+, it admits the complex ring C as a model; thus QRF is chosen to be a theorem of PA but false in C. Inasmuch as all strictly positive theorems of R#are already theorems of P+, this nonconservativity result shows that QRF is also a nontheorem of R#. As a consequence, Ackermann's rule γ is inadmissible in R#. Accordingly, an extension of R#which retains its good features is desired. The system R##, got by adding an omega-rule, is such an extension. Central question: is there an effectively axiomatizable system intermediate between R#and R#, which does formalize arithmetic on relevant principles, but also admits γ in a natural way?

Though many working mathematicians embrace a rough and ready form of Platonism, that venerable position has suffered a checkered philosophical career. Indeed the three schools of thought with which most of us began our official philosophizing about mathematics—Intuitionism, Formalism, and Logicism—all stand in fundamental disagreement with Platonism. Nevertheless, various versions of Platonistic thinking survive in contemporary philosophical circles. The aim of this paper is to describe these views, and, as my title suggests, to trace their roots.I'll begin with some preliminary remarks about the big three schools. This seems a reasonable approach to the issues both because most observers are familiar, at least in a general way, with the tenets of Intuitionism, Formalism, and Logicism, and because it is in reaction to these that contemporary Platonism has taken shape.

This expository paper contains a list of 102 problems which, at the time of publication, are unsolved. These problems are distributed in four subdivisions of logic: model theory, proof theory and intuitionism, recursion theory, and set theory. They are written in the form of statements which we believe to be at least as likely as their negations. These should not be viewed as conjectures since, in some cases, we had no opinion as to which way the problem would go.In each case where we believe a problem did not originate with us, we made an effort to pinpoint a source. Often this was a difficult matter, based on subjective judgments. When we were unable to pinpoint a source, we left a question mark. No inference should be drawn concerning the beliefs of the originator of a problem as to which way it will go (lest the originator be us).The choice of these problems was based on five criteria. Firstly, we are only including problems which call for the truth value of a particular mathematical statement. A second criterion is the extent to which the concepts involved in the statements are concepts that are well known, well denned, and well understood, as well as having been extensively considered in the literature. A third criterion is the extent to which these problems have natural, simple and attractive formulations. A fourth criterion is the extent to which there is evidence that a real difficulty exists in finding a solution. Lastly and unavoidably, the extent to which these problems are connected with the author's research interests in mathematical logic.

It is probably because intuitionism is founded on the concept of (abstract) proof that it has been possible to develop various kinds of models. The following is but a partial list: Gabbay [5], Beth [2], Kripke [8], Kleene [7], Läuchli [9], McKinsey and Tarski [10], Rasiowa and Sikorski [14], Scott [15], de Swart [16], and Veldman [17].The original purpose for having the models appears to have been for obtaining independence or consistency results for certain formalizations of intuitionism [see Beth [2], Prawitz [13]]; of course, if the models could be also justified as being plausible interpretations of intuitionistic thinking, so much the better. In fact, having some kind of plausible interpretation makes it much easier to work with the models. Occasionally the models were used to suggest possible extensions of the formal systems; for example, the Kripke models with constant domains have motivated interest in the formal logic CD which extends the Intuitionistic Predicate Calculus (IPC) by having the axiom schema

Although Brouwer became famous for his vehement attacks upon classical logic and set theory, his work did not develop in a vacuum and strongly depended on that of Cantor.His mind bent on shifting aside nonconstructive arguments, he tried to rebuild Cantor's edifice along new, intuitionistic lines. The continuum hypothesis, lying at the core of set theory, also confronted Brouwer, and he had to face the farthest conclusion Cantor had been able to reach in trying to solve it: every nondenumerable closed subset of the real line has the power of the continuum.Brouwer's thinking about it seems to have been subject to some development. In 1914 we hear him saying: “Wir sahen oben dass das Cantorsche Haupttheorem für den Intuitionisten keines Beweises bedarf” (“As we saw above, for us, being intuitionists, Cantor's Main Theorem does not need a proof”) [3]. Nevertheless, five years later, he publishes an essay: Theorie der Punktmengen, which might be described as an attempt to reconstruct Cantor's reasonings in detail [4].This attempt was not entirely successful, as Brouwer comes to admit in 1952, probably having lost, now, some of his youthful rashness [10]. So the question of what the constructive content of Cantor's Main Theorem is, still awaits an answer.We do not think the answer we will give can be considered a conclusive one, but, in any case, it is a beginning.

A standard set of axioms for the intuitionist propositional calculus is the following (we associate to the right, and use the convention that ⊃ binds less strongly than the other connectives).

S. A. Kripke has given [6] a very simple notion of model for intuitionistic predicate logic. Kripke's models consist of a quasi-ordering (C, ≤) and a function ψ which assigns to every c ∈ C a model of classical logic such that, if c ≤ c′, ψ(c′) is greater or equal to ψ(c). Grzegorczyk [3] described a class of models which is still simpler: he takes, for every ψ(c), the same universe. Grzegorczyk's semantics is not adequate for intuitionistic logic, since the formulawhere х is not free in α. holds in his models but is not intuitionistically provable. It is a conjecture of D. Klemke that intuitionistic predicate calculus, strengthened by the axiom scheme (D), is correct and complete with respect to Grzegorczyk's semantics. This has been proved independently by D. Klemke [5] by a Henkinlike method and me; another proof has been given by D. Gabbay [1]. Our proof uses lattice-theoretical methods.

Dummett's LC [1] is a system which characterizes all formulas of the propositional calculus which are valid in every chain (for definitions and notation see the first section of [2]). An L-algebra is a Heyting algebra in which (x → y) + (y → x) = 1 for all x, y. L-algebras bear the same relation to LC as Boolean algebras to the classical propositional calculus and Heyting algebras to the intuitionist propositional calculus.