Labelled proof systems for existential reasoning

Abstract

Usually in logic, proof systems are defined having in mind proving properties like validity and semantic consequence. It seems worthwhile to address the problem of having proof systems where satisfiability is a primitive notion in the sense that a formal derivation means that a finite set of formulas is satisfiable. Moreover, it would be useful to cover within the same framework as many logics as possible. We consider Kripke semantics where the properties of the constructors are provided by valuation constraints as the common ground of those logics. This includes for instance intuitionistic logic, paraconsistent Nelson’s logic ${\textsf{N4}}$, paraconsistent logic ${\textsf{imbC}}$ and modal logics among others. After specifying a logic by those valuation constraints, we show how to induce automatically and from scratch an existential proof system for that logic. The rules of the proof system are shown to be invertible. General results of soundness and completeness are proved and then applied to the logics at hand.