PHIL 2500 Provability Logic (Spring 2026)

Instructor: Doug Blue

Email: doug.blue[at]pitt.edu

Meetings: Thursdays 10am-12:30pm in CL 1008B

Description

This course is about formal systems, their limitations, and what those limitations may or may not allow us to conclude philosophically. We will prove Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. Then we will study provability logic, the modal logic in which \(\square\) is interpreted as provability in a fixed formal system. Time permitting, we will discuss efforts to articulate absolute provability.

Requirements

There will be weekly exercises due on Fridays at 5pm via Gradescope.

References

1. Artemov, Beklemishev, Provability logic.
2. Beklemishev, Reflection principles and provability algebras in formal arithmetic.
3. Boolos, The Logic of Provability.
4. Goldfarb, Notes on Metamathematics.
5. Verbrugge, Provability Logic, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy