Constructive validity is nonarithmetic

Abstract

It follows constructively from weak versions of Markov's principle (MP) and of Church's thesis (WCT) that logical validity for single sentences is not arithmetically definable. This is a direct consequence of the constructive model-theoretic fact that, using MP and WCT, one can prove the categoricity of first-order Heyting arithmetic. By a straightforward refinement of this proof, we then obtain generalizations of the incompleteness theorem of Kreisel [K 2] as presented by van Dalen [Da] and improved by Leivant [L 1]. An analogous result for classical validity in r.e. models appears in [V].Our methods of proof are new in that they rely not upon variants of the ideas of [K2] but upon a constructive proof idea inspired by the classical result of Tennenbaum ([Te], [E&K], [S]) on recursive models of arithmetic. This line of reasoning was suggested by the applications of readability to recursive mathematics described in [McC1], [McC2] and [McC3].