910 research outputs found
The predicative Frege hierarchy
AbstractIn this paper, we characterize the strength of the predicative Frege hierarchy, Pn+1V, introduced by John Burgess in his book [J. Burgess, Fixing frege, in: Princeton Monographs in Philosophy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005]. We show that Pn+1V and Q+conn(Q) are mutually interpretable. It follows that PV:=P1V is mutually interpretable with Q. This fact was proved earlier by Mihai Ganea in [M. Ganea, Burgess’ PV is Robinson’s Q, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 72 (2) (2007) 619–624] using a different proof. Another consequence of the our main result is that P2V is mutually interpretable with Kalmar Arithmetic (a.k.a. EA, EFA, IΔ0+EXP, Q3). The fact that P2V interprets EA was proved earlier by Burgess. We provide a different proof.Each of the theories Pn+1V is finitely axiomatizable. Our main result implies that the whole hierarchy taken together, PωV, is not finitely axiomatizable. What is more: no theory that is mutually locally interpretable with PωV is finitely axiomatizable
Predicativity, the Russell-Myhill Paradox, and Church's Intensional Logic
This paper sets out a predicative response to the Russell-Myhill paradox of
propositions within the framework of Church's intensional logic. A predicative
response places restrictions on the full comprehension schema, which asserts
that every formula determines a higher-order entity. In addition to motivating
the restriction on the comprehension schema from intuitions about the stability
of reference, this paper contains a consistency proof for the predicative
response to the Russell-Myhill paradox. The models used to establish this
consistency also model other axioms of Church's intensional logic that have
been criticized by Parsons and Klement: this, it turns out, is due to resources
which also permit an interpretation of a fragment of Gallin's intensional
logic. Finally, the relation between the predicative response to the
Russell-Myhill paradox of propositions and the Russell paradox of sets is
discussed, and it is shown that the predicative conception of set induced by
this predicative intensional logic allows one to respond to the Wehmeier
problem of many non-extensions.Comment: Forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophical Logi
Fragments of Frege's Grundgesetze and G\"odel's Constructible Universe
Frege's Grundgesetze was one of the 19th century forerunners to contemporary
set theory which was plagued by the Russell paradox. In recent years, it has
been shown that subsystems of the Grundgesetze formed by restricting the
comprehension schema are consistent. One aim of this paper is to ascertain how
much set theory can be developed within these consistent fragments of the
Grundgesetze, and our main theorem shows that there is a model of a fragment of
the Grundgesetze which defines a model of all the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel
set theory with the exception of the power set axiom. The proof of this result
appeals to G\"odel's constructible universe of sets, which G\"odel famously
used to show the relative consistency of the continuum hypothesis. More
specifically, our proofs appeal to Kripke and Platek's idea of the projectum
within the constructible universe as well as to a weak version of
uniformization (which does not involve knowledge of Jensen's fine structure
theory). The axioms of the Grundgesetze are examples of abstraction principles,
and the other primary aim of this paper is to articulate a sufficient condition
for the consistency of abstraction principles with limited amounts of
comprehension. As an application, we resolve an analogue of the joint
consistency problem in the predicative setting.Comment: Forthcoming in The Journal of Symbolic Logi
The Strength of Abstraction with Predicative Comprehension
Frege's theorem says that second-order Peano arithmetic is interpretable in
Hume's Principle and full impredicative comprehension. Hume's Principle is one
example of an abstraction principle, while another paradigmatic example is
Basic Law V from Frege's Grundgesetze. In this paper we study the strength of
abstraction principles in the presence of predicative restrictions on the
comprehension schema, and in particular we study a predicative Fregean theory
which contains all the abstraction principles whose underlying equivalence
relations can be proven to be equivalence relations in a weak background
second-order logic. We show that this predicative Fregean theory interprets
second-order Peano arithmetic.Comment: Forthcoming in Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. Slight change in title
from previous version, at request of referee
"Ultimate" facts? Zalabardo on the metaphysics of truth
A Comment on a Forthcoming article by José Zalabardo on the Tractatus Picture Theory's origins in Wittgenstein's reactions to Russell's Multiple Relation theory of Judgment and Truth. For a special issue of the Australasian Philosophical Review
Logicism, Ontology, and the Epistemology of Second-Order Logic
In two recent papers, Bob Hale has attempted to free second-order logic of the 'staggering existential assumptions' with which Quine famously attempted to saddle it. I argue, first, that the ontological issue is at best secondary: the crucial issue about second-order logic, at least for a neo-logicist, is epistemological. I then argue that neither Crispin Wright's attempt to characterize a `neutralist' conception of quantification that is wholly independent of existential commitment, nor Hale's attempt to characterize the second-order domain in terms of definability, can serve a neo-logicist's purposes. The problem, in both cases, is similar: neither Wright nor Hale is sufficiently sensitive to the demands that impredicativity imposes. Finally, I defend my own earlier attempt to finesse this issue, in "A Logic for Frege's Theorem", from Hale's criticisms
The Consistency of predicative fragments of frege’s grundgesetze der arithmetik
As is well-known, the formal system in which Frege works in his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik is formally inconsistent, Russell?s Paradox being derivable in it.This system is, except for minor differences, full second-order logic, augmented by a single non-logical axiom, Frege?s Axiom V. It has been known for some time now that the first-order fragment of the theory is consistent. The present paper establishes that both the simple and the ramified predicative second-order fragments are consistent, and that Robinson arithmetic, Q, is relatively interpretable in the simple predicative fragment. The philosophical significance of the result is discusse
Potential infinity, abstraction principles and arithmetic (Leniewski Style)
This paper starts with an explanation of how the logicist research program can be approached within the framework of Leśniewski’s systems. One nice feature of the system is that Hume’s Principle is derivable in it from an explicit definition of natural numbers. I generalize this result to show that all predicative abstraction principles corresponding to second-level relations, which are provably equivalence relations, are provable. However, the system fails, despite being much neater than the construction of Principia Mathematica (PM). One of the key reasons is that, just as in the case of the system of PM, without the assumption that infinitely many objects exist, (renderings of) most of the standard axioms of Peano Arithmetic are not derivable in the system. I prove that introducing modal quantifiers meant to capture the intuitions behind potential infinity results in the (renderings of) axioms of Peano Arithmetic (PA) being valid in all relational models (i.e. Kripke-style models, to be defined later on) of the extended language. The second, historical part of the paper contains a user-friendly description of Leśniewski’s own arithmetic and a brief investigation into its properties
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