50 ideas
| 10476 | The idea that groups of concepts could be 'implicitly defined' was abandoned [Hodges,W] |
| 15945 | Second-order set theory just adds a version of Replacement that quantifies over functions [Lavine] |
| 15914 | An 'upper bound' is the greatest member of a subset; there may be several of these, so there is a 'least' one [Lavine] |
| 15921 | Collections of things can't be too big, but collections by a rule seem unlimited in size [Lavine] |
| 15937 | Those who reject infinite collections also want to reject the Axiom of Choice [Lavine] |
| 15936 | The Power Set is just the collection of functions from one collection to another [Lavine] |
| 15899 | Replacement was immediately accepted, despite having very few implications [Lavine] |
| 15930 | Foundation says descending chains are of finite length, blocking circularity, or ungrounded sets [Lavine] |
| 15920 | Pure collections of things obey Choice, but collections defined by a rule may not [Lavine] |
| 15898 | The controversy was not about the Axiom of Choice, but about functions as arbitrary, or given by rules [Lavine] |
| 15919 | The 'logical' notion of class has some kind of definition or rule to characterise the class [Lavine] |
| 15900 | The iterative conception of set wasn't suggested until 1947 [Lavine] |
| 15931 | The iterative conception needs the Axiom of Infinity, to show how far we can iterate [Lavine] |
| 15932 | The iterative conception doesn't unify the axioms, and has had little impact on mathematical proofs [Lavine] |
| 15933 | Limitation of Size: if it's the same size as a set, it's a set; it uses Replacement [Lavine] |
| 15913 | A collection is 'well-ordered' if there is a least element, and all of its successors can be identified [Lavine] |
| 10282 | Logic is the study of sound argument, or of certain artificial languages (or applying the latter to the former) [Hodges,W] |
| 10478 | Since first-order languages are complete, |= and |- have the same meaning [Hodges,W] |
| 15926 | Second-order logic presupposes a set of relations already fixed by the first-order domain [Lavine] |
| 10477 | |= in model-theory means 'logical consequence' - it holds in all models [Hodges,W] |
| 15934 | Mathematical proof by contradiction needs the law of excluded middle [Lavine] |
| 10283 | A formula needs an 'interpretation' of its constants, and a 'valuation' of its variables [Hodges,W] |
| 10284 | There are three different standard presentations of semantics [Hodges,W] |
| 10285 | I |= φ means that the formula φ is true in the interpretation I [Hodges,W] |
| 10474 | |= should be read as 'is a model for' or 'satisfies' [Hodges,W] |
| 10473 | Model theory studies formal or natural language-interpretation using set-theory [Hodges,W] |
| 10475 | A 'structure' is an interpretation specifying objects and classes of quantification [Hodges,W] |
| 10481 | Models in model theory are structures, not sets of descriptions [Hodges,W] |
| 10288 | Down Löwenheim-Skolem: if a countable language has a consistent theory, that has a countable model [Hodges,W] |
| 10289 | Up Löwenheim-Skolem: if infinite models, then arbitrarily large models [Hodges,W] |
| 10287 | If a first-order theory entails a sentence, there is a finite subset of the theory which entails it [Hodges,W] |
| 15907 | Mathematics is nowadays (thanks to set theory) regarded as the study of structure, not of quantity [Lavine] |
| 15942 | Every rational number, unlike every natural number, is divisible by some other number [Lavine] |
| 15922 | For the real numbers to form a set, we need the Continuum Hypothesis to be true [Lavine] |
| 18250 | Cauchy gave a necessary condition for the convergence of a sequence [Lavine] |
| 15904 | The two sides of the Cut are, roughly, the bounding commensurable ratios [Lavine] |
| 15912 | Counting results in well-ordering, and well-ordering makes counting possible [Lavine] |
| 15949 | The theory of infinity must rest on our inability to distinguish between very large sizes [Lavine] |
| 15947 | The infinite is extrapolation from the experience of indefinitely large size [Lavine] |
| 15940 | The intuitionist endorses only the potential infinite [Lavine] |
| 15909 | 'Aleph-0' is cardinality of the naturals, 'aleph-1' the next cardinal, 'aleph-ω' the ω-th cardinal [Lavine] |
| 15915 | Ordinals are basic to Cantor's transfinite, to count the sets [Lavine] |
| 15917 | Paradox: the class of all ordinals is well-ordered, so must have an ordinal as type - giving a bigger ordinal [Lavine] |
| 10480 | First-order logic can't discriminate between one infinite cardinal and another [Hodges,W] |
| 15918 | Paradox: there is no largest cardinal, but the class of everything seems to be the largest [Lavine] |
| 15929 | Set theory will found all of mathematics - except for the notion of proof [Lavine] |
| 10286 | A 'set' is a mathematically well-behaved class [Hodges,W] |
| 15935 | Modern mathematics works up to isomorphism, and doesn't care what things 'really are' [Lavine] |
| 15928 | Intuitionism rejects set-theory to found mathematics [Lavine] |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |