Varieties of truth definitions
Abstract
We study the structure of the partial order induced by the definability relation on definitions of truth for the language of arithmetic. Formally, a definition of truth is any sentence which extends a weak arithmetical theory (which we take to be EA) such that for some formula and any arithmetical sentence , is provable in . We say that a sentence is definable in a sentence , if there exists an unrelativized translation from the language of to the language of which is identity on the arithmetical symbols and such that the translation of is provable in . Our main result is that the structure consisting of truth definitions which are conservative over the basic arithmetical theory forms a countable universal distributive lattice. Additionally, we generalize the result of Pakhomov and Visser showing that the set of (G\"odel codes of) definitions of truth is not -definable in the standard model of arithmetic. We conclude by remarking that no -sentence, satisfying certain further natural conditions, can be a definition of truth for the language of arithmetic.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2311.13519,
title = {Varieties of truth definitions},
author = {Piotr Gruza and Mateusz Łełyk},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.13519},
year = {2023}
}