The Fan Theorem, its strong negation, and the determinacy of games

Abstract

In the context of a weak formal theory called Basic Intuitionistic Mathematics \(\textsf{BIM}\), we study Brouwer’s Fan Theorem and a strong negation of the Fan Theorem, Kleene’s Alternative (to the Fan Theorem). We prove that the Fan Theorem is equivalent to contrapositions of a number of intuitionistically accepted axioms of countable choice and that Kleene’s Alternative is equivalent to strong negations of these statements. We discuss finite and infinite games and introduce a constructively useful notion of determinacy. We prove that the Fan Theorem is equivalent to the Intuitionistic Determinacy Theorem. This theorem says that every subset of Cantor space \(2^\omega \) is, in our constructively meaningful sense, determinate. Kleene’s Alternative is equivalent to a strong negation of a special case of this theorem. We also consider a uniform intermediate value theorem and a compactness theorem for classical propositional logic. The Fan Theorem is equivalent to each of these theorems and Kleene’s Alternative is equivalent to strong negations of them. We end with a note on ‘stronger’ Fan Theorems. The paper is a sequel to Veldman (Arch Math Logic 53:621–693, 2014).