Goaldirected Proof Theory

This book verifies with compelling evidence the author’s inclination to "write a book on proof theory which needs no previous knowledge of proof theory". Avoiding the cryptic terminology of proof as far as possible, the book starts at an elementary level and displays the connections between infinitary proof theory and generalized recursion theory, especially the theory of inductive definitions.

Goal Directed Proof Theory presents a uniform and coherent methodology for automated deduction in non-classical logics, the relevance of which to computer science is now widely acknowledged. The methodology is based on goal-directed provability. It is a generalization of the logic programming style of deduction, and it is particularly favourable for proof search.