Feferman Interpretability

Abstract: We introduce a modal logic FIL for Feferman interpretability. In this logic both the provability modality and the interpretability modality can come with a label. This label indicates that in the arithmetical interpretation the axiom set of the underlying base theory is tweaked so as to mimic behaviour of finitely axiomatised theories. The theory with the tweaked axiom set will be extensionally the same as the original theory though this equality will in general not be provable. After providing the logic FIL and proving the arithmetical soundness, we set the logic to work to prove various interpretability principles to be sound in a large variety of (weak) arithmetical theories. In particular, we prove the two series of principles from [GJ20] to be arithmetically sound using FIL. Up to date, the arithmetical soundness of these series had only been proven using the techniques of definable cuts.