Decidability in Propositional Logic – Understanding Completeness

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Propositional logic can be presented as in Mendelson’s book, with the sole inference rule of modus ponens, and with the following three axioms:
$$B \Rightarrow (C \Rightarrow B)$$
$$(B \Rightarrow (C \Rightarrow D)) \Rightarrow ((B \Rightarrow C) \Rightarrow (B \Rightarrow D))$$
$$((\neg C) \Rightarrow (\neg B)) \Rightarrow (((\neg C) \Rightarrow B) \Rightarrow C)$$
This is a sound and complete theory, as are several other theories for propositional logic.

I have questions about similar theories for propositional logic:

  1. Given a complete set of logical connectives and a finite set of sound axioms and inference rules, can we algorithmically determine if the resulting theory is complete?

  2. Given a finite set of axioms and inference rules $X$ (not necessarily sound) and a formula $\alpha$ in the underlying language of propositional connectives, can we algorithmically determine if $\alpha$ can be derived from $X$?

Best Answer

It is undecidable, because it is even undecidable to recognize whether a finite set of axioms together with the rule of modus ponens axiomatizes exactly classical propositional logic by the Post-Linial theorem. This was shown in 1948 by Linial and Post, see their announcement (p. 50), but the first published proof is by Yntema. There are many similar results for other propositional logics.

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