Robinson's joint consistency theorem
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Robinson's Joint Consistency theorem is an important theorem of mathematical logic. It is related to Craig interpolation and Beth definability.
The classical formulation of Robinson's Joint Consistency theorem is as follows:
Let and be first-order theories. If and are consistent and the intersection is complete (in the common language of and ), then the union is consistent. Note that a theory is complete if it decides every formula, i.e. either and .
Since the completeness assumption is quite hard to fulfill, there is a variant of th theorem:
Let and be first-order theories. If and are consistent and if there is no formula in the common language of and such that and , then the union is consistent.