Systems of combinatory logic related to Quine's ‘New Foundations’

AbstractSystems TRC and TRCU of illative combinatory logic are introduced and shown to be equivalent in consistency strength and expressive power to Quine's set theory ‘New Foundations’ (NF) and the fragment NFU + Infinity of NF described by Jensen, respectively. Jensen demonstrated the consistency of NFU + Infinity relative to ZFC; the question of the consistency of NF remains open. TRC and TRCU are presented here as classical first-order theories, although they can be presented as equational theories; they are not constructive