Calculational reasoning revisited: An isabelle/isar experience

Abstract

We discuss the general concept of calculational reasoning within Isabelle/Isar, which provides a framework for high-level natural deduction proofs that may be written in a human-readable fashion. Setting out from a few basic logical concepts of the underlying meta-logical framework of Isabelle, such as higher-order unification and resolution, calculational commands are added to the basic Isar proof language in a flexible and non-intrusive manner. Thus calculational proof style may be combined with the remaining natural deduction proof language in a liberal manner, resulting in many useful proof patterns. A case-study on formalizing Computational Tree Logic (CTL) in simply-typed set-theory demonstrates common calculational idioms in practice.