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Do Intuitionists have good reason to reject the Law of Excluded Middle? In this paper, I will look at the argument intuitionists have for rejecting the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM). I also will see who else may have suggested rejecting the LEM and what was their motivation for doing so. I do this to give us a sense of the greater picture, and why the arguments surrounding the LEM should not be solely the provenance of those those who adhere to the school of intuitionism; conversely, the arguments are cause for concern for all those who practice/think about mathematics. Firstly, I shall give a brief outline of what it is to be an intuitionist, looking at the contrast between itself and the other schools contained within the Philosophy of Mathematics. I shall then look into the LEM, taking note on its usage in mathematics and where it originated. Subsequently I shall see if there is any historical motivation for looking into the tautological status of the LEM on standard semantics of first order logic. Having done this I shall look at the incentives that caused the intuitionist examination into the LEM and follow through the intuitionist argument against the LEM. I shall then look at some objections to this argument, and finally conclude with the objection that I feel holds the most weight. Intuitionism is a school of thought in the Philosophy of Mathematics. Introduced by L.E.J Brouwer at the beginning of the 20th century, it is still an important movement today, with the development of intuitionist logic and set theory. Intuitionism is based on the philosophy that mathematics is created within the mind. This differs from the formalist idea that mathematics is just the manipulation of symbols on paper, an idea that had particular philosophical currency at the time. As Brouwer put it the question where mathematical exactness does exist is answered differently by the two sides; the intuitionist says: in the human intellect, the formalist says: on paper. (1912, p.123). For the intuitionist we actually construct the mathematics in our head; writing mathematics down is just a way to communicate with fellow mathematicians. Intuitionism also greatly deviates from the Fregean view of logicism. Logicism holds the view that logic is the very foundation of mathematics. For an Intuitionist this simply is not so. Logic is secondary to mathematics, and thus if the laws of mathematics are restricted, so must the laws of logic. We will see that this view is important to us in our discussion. Intuitionism also differs from Fregean logicism on metaphysical grounds. Intuitionists require fundamentally there to be no assumption in line with the Platonic view that mathematical objects exists in an abstract domain. By this, one requires the thought that when doing mathematics you cannot presuppose its existence. However, it is not essential this is ones 1

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actual conviction; Heyting, Brouwers student, declared that for the intuitionist, there is no objection against a mathematician privately admitting any metaphysical meaning he likes. (Heyting, 1956, p. 2) The LEM is derived from the Principle of Bivalence: every sentence expressing a proposition is either true or not true, or more commonly, true of false, where falsity is defined truth functionally as not true. The LEM is a syntactic version of this: either P or not-P (in symbols P P) where P is any proposition. This law is considered a tautology in mathematics, i.e. that for any interpretation of it, it must always be true. From it, we can use the method of proof reductio ad absurdum (known as proof by contradiction.) This is the classical method of proof obtained by assuming not P and producing an absurd claim from this, thus arising in the conclusion, from LEM, that P must hold. This method is used in classical mathematics everyday, and thus any attempt to disregard it has huge repercussions in the mathematical world, especially in the field of higher set theory. One of the first written instances, arguably, of the LEM was in Aristotles On Interpretation (c.9), where he says in the case of a pair of contradictoriesone of the two must be true and the other false. However, Haack (1974) provides us with an interpretation of Aristotles following argument. On the face of it the argument is quite compelling, and certainly gives us something to think about. The argument Haack gives us, based on her interpretation of Aristotle1, is as follows: 1. If every future tense sentence is either true or false, then, or each pair consisting of a future tense sentence and its denial, one must be true, the other false 2. If, of each pair consisting of a future tense sentence and its denial, one must be true, the other false, then, everything that happens of necessity. 3. But not everything that happens, happens of necessity; some events are contingent 4. [Thus,] not every future tense is true or false (1974, p.74)

This argument, if sound, thus suggests the existence of some other value that is not true or false for future tense propositions, thus promoting the idea that the LEM is not essential. Haack later on (1974, p.78) rejects this argument on the basis that it contains a modal fallacy in the second
1

Please note I am not trying to suggest this is most definitely what Aristotle is saying, or that this is taken widely as the interpretation. I am merely trying to look into the proposed argument itself. Please see Haack 1974 Part Two for more information about alternative interpretations.

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premise.2 However, it suffices to say that this argument alone is still a cause for much discussion, and it enlightens us to the possibility that the necessity of the LEM is not as clear as it may appear to be. The problem of vagueness in ordinary language could also be used to justify the need for examination of the LEM. For example, one could say that the statement Usain Bolt ran the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds3 was both true and false. Likely false, because time is plausibly continuous, but in our day to day lives we assert that this proposition is in fact true, within a certain degree of error. Therefore, this obviously fails the principle of bivalence. Another vagueness problem is that of Sorites' heap paradox: after adding several grains of rice to a pile, with what grain does this pile become a heap? Although I will not go into this labyrinth of a topic, I think it is fair to say that from plausibly Aristotelian times there has been motivation to assess the credibility of the tautology of LEM. Having introduced Intuitionism, Brouwer was the first man to query the LEM because of intuitionist thought. His problem began with the concept of the continuum. At the turn of the 19th Century the continuum wasdefined as an infinite collection whose elements are themselves infinite sets each of whose elements in turn is an infinite sequence, (Posey, 2005, p321.) As Posey states, it was not that Brouwer disapproved of the concept of infinity (if anything Brouwer distanced himself from this objection); it was the use of sequences that could not be constructed (2005, p321). Intuitionists do not believe in actual infinities. By this, we mean a completed totality of infinity, such as the set of natural numbers. The implication of such a set is that we already assume the existence of the whole infinite sequence, even though in practice we are unable to establish every number, even though in theory we could. The Intuitionists view of mathematics is that construction is how we guarantee mathematical existence. This makes it very difficult for Brouwer to work with anything that, in his mind, has not been shown to exist. Fraenkel put this nicely by saying Intuitionists reject the very notion of an arbitrary sequence of integers, as denoting something finished and definite as illegitimate. Such a sequence is considered to be a growing object only and not a finished one. (1984, p. 236) Note that this does not mean
2

Again, see Haack 1974 pp. 75-78 for a detailed argument and see Lukssiewiez 1920, 1967 and

Kneale 1962 for further discussion.

3

As seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/8204505.stm as of 5th May 2011

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Brouwer necessarily thought that these sequences did not exist, they very well might have, had he found a way to construct every member of a set, and alternatively they could exist Platonisitcally, but this is not grounds for mathematical truth. However, Brouwer did rely on the concept of potential infinities. This is the idea that, for example, one can always succeed in adding another number to the sequence of natural numbers, but you never actually get to the completed infinity. As we can see this is a very constructive process. Brouwer subsequently proposed his own theory of the continuum. His continuum is still based on infinite sequences, but his must be able to be constructed. We denote these sequences as free choice sequences (Shapiro, 2000, p181.) These sequences are not pre-determined, and they could potentially be lawless. An example would be the sequence of numbers obtained by rolling a die. These sequences are denumerable, and thus can be treated as potential infinities. This means that at any time t we shall only have the finite, initial segment available to us. We are also not restricted to finite possibilities. One could have such a sequence of rational numbers such that (1)=45/2, but for every p we have a new term such that (p+1)=x, where x is any number within (45/2) -(p+1) from (p). This could give us a potential infinity of choices for where the sequence could go off to, and thus constructs our continuum. Now that Brouwer had redefined the continuum so that it was acceptable for intuitionists, he needed to go through logic and make sure that that too was acceptable. In his Consciousness, Philosophy and Mathematics he defines the simple principle of the excluded third [alternative terminology for LEM] as: Every assignment of a property to a mathematical entity can be judged, i.e. proved or reduced to absurdity (p489) One should look in particular at the phrase reduced to absurdity. There is a crucial difference between being shown to be not true, and being rebutted: i.e. not- shown to be true. If one does not assume bivalence is true, there is no way one can derive falsity from not true. The intuitionist has to construct a proof of not- for the property to be shown to be false. We can see from this that a situation could arise where by either the (strict) truth/falsity of a statement is not known and thus the statements truth-value is undetermined.

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Brouwers weak counter examples (Shapiro, 2000 p.183) were such that they did not refute LEM but did show it not to be true. A construction of one of these weak counter examples, taken from Shapiro (2000 pp. 182-183) is as follows. We take a function f such that for any x, with x being a real number, we have either f(x) = 0 or f(x) = 1 dependent on whether x 0 or x > 0 respectively. We then define a sequence dn to be such that dn= 1/n when there is no counterexample to the Goldbach Conjecture4 less than n, or dn=1/p otherwise, where p is the smallest counter example. So we can see that as n increases dn= 1, , 1/3, , 1/5, until one reaches a counter example and then dn= 1, , , 1/p, 1/p, 1/p, 1/p. If we call d the limit of dn as n tends to infinity, we can see that if d = 0 the Goldbach Conjecture must be true, whereas if it is equal to anything else the Conjecture must be false. Therefore, we can now see that given that f is an allowable function, which in classical mathematics it is, then setting d=x we see that the conjecture is either true, or not true. And it being not true, then one gets an unwanted instance of the excluded middle. (Shapiro 2000 pp. 182-183) In 1930, Menger objected to this concept (pp. 311-325). His argument was that, on discovery of a proof for the Goldbach Conjecture in, lets say 2035, d=0. So did d=0 before this date or not. Another way of looking at this is that the conjecture was not true pre 2035, but come post 2035 it was true. This is an embarrassing argument for intuitionist. Intuitively, one can see that the conjecture did not suddenly start being valid come 2035. However, Heyting responded that we are too caught up in the metaphysical concepts. (1966, p. 3) Of course, in some abstract independent space, if mathematical objects do exist here, then it was always the case that the conjecture was true. Nevertheless, we do not wish to rely on such things, because this cannot convincingly shown to be true. One tends to agree with Heyting here. The truth of an existence of an object is a construction of a proof of that object. Not only this, but frankly not relying on metaphysical notions seems the most sensible root to go. Otherwise, one needs to prove the existence of these objects first, rather than independently and this seems like doubling the work, and giving mathematics an unsteady foundation. However it should be noted that by having an ontological commitment to mathematical entities, we do allow ourselves the freedom to pursue areas of mathematics that we do not currently yet have the skills to construct a proof of that successfully meets the rigor demanded. This tool has been invaluable in the past, allowing the construction of complex numbers, as well as set theory in general. Thus this is perhaps not as clear-cut as Heyting makes it out to be.
4

Any natural number greater than two can be expressed as the sum of two primes.

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Another rejection comes from Carl Posy. He claims that if all statements truth-values can be decided then the LEM is fine. (2005 p. 345) On a finite domain, it is possible to construct proofs using the LEM as one can just take every element of the domain and subject this to whatever tests needed to assert the truth-value of the property of the said element. Therefore, our crucial issue is whether all statements are decidable. Thus, in undecidable contexts the LEM does not hold. Posy argues that this means intuitionists state the possible existence of these undecidable propositions. However, this means that the intuitionists are asserting the existence of something they cannot construct. However, this is the very reason that they deny the LEM. For something to exist it must be constructed. This argument is extremely compelling, for it goes right to the core of intuitionism. Thus it appears that the best argument we have established against the LEM appears to be self-refuting. I have given an outline of Brouwers intuitionism, and how this motivates the repudiation of the LEM. I also briefly looked into other reasons for the angst surrounding the LEM, and in doing so, I have hoped to enlighten people that this is not merely a trouble for only intuitionists to be concerned with. I concluded, based on Posys article (2005) that there just is not a good enough intuitionist argument for the rejection of the LEM. However I would still say that it is not a necessity that the LEM holds. The intuitionist mentality certainly strikes a chord within mathematicians, and it is not something to be ignored.

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Bibliography Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984. Brouwer, L. E. J. 1912. Intuitionism and formalism' (translation of Inuitionisme en Formalisme by A. Dreseden). Reprinted in A Heyting, ed. L.E.J Brouwer: Collected Works. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: NorthHolland Publishing Company, 1975. Brouwer, L. E. J. 1948. Consciousness, Philosophy and Mathematics. Reprinted in A Heyting, ed. L.E.J Brouwer: Collected Works. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975. Haack, S. 1974. Deviant logic: some philosophical issues. London: Cambridge University Press. Heyting, A. 1956, Intuitionism, an Introduction, Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company Heyting, A. 1966 Intuitionism: An Introduction. Second Revised Edition. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Fraenkel, A. A., Bar-Hillel, Y., Levy, A. 1984. Foundations of Set Theory. 2nd edn. Amsterdam, New York: North-Holland Publishing Company Menger K. 1930 Der Intuitionismus in Bltter fur Deutsche Philosophie, Vol. 4. Posy, C. 2005 Intuitionism and Philosophy In Shapiro, S. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Shapiro, S. 2000. Thinking about mathematics: The philosophy of mathematics. New York: Oxford University Press. Further Reading Lukasiewicz, J. 1920. On 3-valued logic. Reprinted in McCall, S. Polish logic, Oxford University Press 1967. Lukasiewicz, J. 1957. Aristotles Syllogistic. Oxford University Press. Knealse, W. and M. 1962 The Development of Logic. Oxford University Press.

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