Gentzen-type systems, resolution and tableaux
Abstract
In advanced books and courses on logic (e.g. Sm], BM]) Gentzen-type systems or their dual, tableaux, are described as techniques for showing validity of formulae which are more practical than the usual Hilbert-type formalisms. People who have learnt these methods often wonder why the Automated Reasoning community seems to ignore them and prefers instead the resolution method. Some of the classical books on AD (such as CL], Lo]) do not mention these methods at all. Others (such as Ro]) do, but the connections and reasons for preference remain unclear after reading them (at least to the present author, and obviously also the authors of OS], in which a theorem-prover, based exclusively on tableaux, is described). The confusion becomes greater when the reader is introduced to Kowalski's form of a clause ( Ko], Bu]), which is nothing but a Gentzen's sequent of atomic formulae, and when he realizes that resolution is just a form of a Cut, and so that while the elimination of cuts is the principal tool in proof-theory, its use is the main technique in AD!