Boolean-valued models generalize classical two-valued models by allowing arbitrary complete Boolean algebras as value ranges. The goal of my dissertation is to study Boolean-valued models and explore their philosophical and mathematical applications.

In Chapter 1, I build a robust theory of first-order Boolean-valued models that parallels the existing theory of two-valued models. I develop essential model-theoretic notions like “Boolean-valuation,” “diagram,” and “elementary diagram,” and prove a series of theorems on Boolean-valued models, including the (strengthened) Soundness and Completeness Theorem, the Löwenheim–Skolem Theorems, the Elementary Chain Theorem, and many more.

Chapter 2 gives an example of a philosophical application of Boolean-valued models. I apply Boolean-valued models to the language of mereology to model indeterminacy in the parthood relation. I argue that Boolean-valued semantics is the best degree-theoretic semantics for the language of mereology. In particular, it trumps the well-known alternative—fuzzy-valued semantics. I also show that, contrary to what many have argued, indeterminacy in parthood entails neither indeterminacy in existence nor indeterminacy in identity, though being compatible with both.

Chapter 3 (joint work with Bokai Yao) gives an example of a mathematical application of Boolean-valued models. Scott and Solovay famously used Boolean-valued models on set theory to obtain relative consistency results. In Chapter 3, I investigate two ways of extending the Scott–Solovay construction to set theory with urelements. I argue that the standard way of extending the construction faces a serious problem, and offer a new way that is free from the problem.

Abstract prepared by Xinhe Wu.

E-mail: [email protected]

In this paper, we use algebra-valued models to study cardinal numbers in a class of non-classical set theories. The algebra-valued models of these non-classical set theories validate the Axiom of Choice, if the ground model validates it. Though the models are non-classical, the foundations of cardinal numbers in these models are similar to those in classical set theory. For example, we show that mathematical induction, Cantor’s theorem, and the Schröder–Bernstein theorem hold in these models. We also study a few basic properties of cardinal arithmetic. In addition, the generalized continuum hypothesis is proved to be independent of these non-classical set theories.

Quantum set theory (QST) and topos quantum theory (TQT) are two long running projects in the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics (QM) that share a great deal of conceptual and technical affinity. Most pertinently, both approaches attempt to resolve some of the conceptual difficulties surrounding QM by reformulating parts of the theory inside of nonclassical mathematical universes, albeit with very different internal logics. We call such mathematical universes, together with those mathematical and logical structures within them that are pertinent to the physical interpretation, ‘Q-worlds’. Here, we provide a unifying framework that allows us to (i) better understand the relationship between different Q-worlds, and (ii) define a general method for transferring concepts and results between TQT and QST, thereby significantly increasing the expressive power of both approaches. Along the way, we develop a novel connection to paraconsistent logic and introduce a new class of structures that have significant implications for recent work on paraconsistent set theory.

The 3-valued paraconsistent logic Ciore was developed by Carnielli, Marcos and de Amo under the name LFI2, in the study of inconsistent databases from the point of view of logics of formal inconsistency (LFIs). They also considered a first-order version of Ciore called LFI2*. The logic Ciore enjoys extreme features concerning propagation and retropropagation of the consistency operator: a formula is consistent if and only if some of its subformulas is consistent. In addition, Ciore is algebraizable in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi. On the other hand, the logic LFI2* satisfies a somewhat counter-intuitive property: the universal and the existential quantifier are inter-definable by means of the paraconsistent negation, as it happens in classical first-order logic with respect to the classical negation. This feature seems to be unnatural, given that both quantifiers have the classical meaning in LFI2*, and that this logic does not satisfy the De Morgan laws with respect to its paraconsistent negation. The first goal of the present article is to introduce a first-order version of Ciore (which we call QCiore) preserving the spirit of Ciore, that is, without introducing unexpected relationships between the quantifiers. The second goal of the article is to adapt to QCiore the partial structures semantics for the first-order paraconsistent logic LPT1 introduced by Coniglio and Silvestrini, which generalizes the semantic notion of quasi-truth considered by Mikeberg, da Costa and Chuaqui. Finally, some important results of classical Model Theory are obtained for this logic, such as Robinson’s joint consistency theorem, amalgamation and interpolation. Although we focus on QCiore, this framework can be adapted to other 3-valued first-order LFIs.

This essay discusses rules and semantic clauses relating to Substitution—Leibniz’s law in the conjunctive-implicational form $s\dot{ = }t \wedge A\left( s \right) \to A\left( t \right)$—as these are put forward in Priest’s books In Contradiction and An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is. The stated rules and clauses are shown to be too weak in some cases and too strong in others. New ones are presented and shown to be correct. Justification for the various rules is probed and it is argued that Substitution ought to fail.

Varieties of the Fan Theorem have recently been developed in reverse constructive mathematics, corresponding to different continuity principles. They form a natural implicational hierarchy. Earlier work showed all of these implications to be strict. Here we reprove one of the strictness results, using very different arguments. The technique used is a mixture of realizability, forcing in the guise of Heyting-valued models, and Kripke models.

We separate many of the basic fragments of classical logic which are used in reverse constructive mathematics. A group of related Kripke and topological models is used to show that various fragments of the Weak Law of the Excluded Middle, the Limited Principle of Omniscience, and Markov’s Principle, including Weak Markov’s Principle, do not imply each other.

Varieties of the Fan Theorem have recently been developed in reverse constructive mathematics, corresponding to different continuity principles. They form a natural implicational hierarchy. Some of the implications have been shown to be strict, others strict in a weak context, and yet others not at all, using disparate techniques. Here we present a family of related Kripke models which separates all of the as yet identified fan theorems.

We study model theoretic properties of valued fields (equipped with a real-valued multiplicative valuation), viewed as metric structures in continuous first order logic.

For technical reasons we prefer to consider not the valued field (K, |·|) directly, but rather the associated projective spaces KPn, as bounded metric structures.

We show that the class of (projective spaces over) metric valued fields is elementary, with theory MVF, and that the projective spaces Pn and are Pm biinterpretable for every n, m ≥ 1. The theory MVF admits a model completion ACMVF, the theory of algebraically closed metric valued fields (with a nontrivial valuation). This theory is strictly stable (even up to perturbation).

Similarly, we show that the theory of real closed metric valued fields, RCMVF, is the model companion of the theory of formally real metric valued fields, and that it is dependent.

We give a model-theoretic account for several results regarding sequences of random variables appearing in Berkes and Rosenthal [12]. In order to do this,

• • We study and compare three notions of convergence of types in a stable theory: logic convergence, i.e., formula by formula, metric convergence (both already well studied) and convergence of canonical bases. In particular, we characterise א0-categorical stable theories in which the last two agree.

• • We characterise sequences that admit almost indiscernible sub-sequences.

• • We apply these tools to the theory of atomless random variables (ARV). We characterise types and notions of convergence of types as conditional distributions and weak/strong convergence thereof, and obtain, among other things, the Main Theorem of Berkes and Rosenthal.

BD-N is a weak principle of constructive analysis. Several interesting principles implied by BD-N have already been identified, namely the closure of the anti-Specker spaces under product, the Riemann Permutation Theorem, and the Cauchyness of all partially Cauchy sequences. Here these are shown to be strictly weaker than BD-N, yet not provable in set theory alone under constructive logic.

Using the method of non-well-founded generic ultra-powers, we shall prove a generalization of a theorem of Taylor that certain values of completeness and saturatedness of a uniform ideal rule out certain sizes of the underlying index set.