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Single Idea 10149

[filed under theme 4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / j. Axiom of Choice IX ]

Full Idea

The Axiom of Choice seems clearly true from the Platonistic point of view, independently of how sets may be defined, but is rejected by those who think such existential claims must show how to pick out or define the object claimed to exist.

Gist of Idea

Platonist will accept the Axiom of Choice, but others want criteria of selection or definition

Source

Feferman / Feferman (Alfred Tarski: life and logic [2004], Int I)

Book Ref

Feferman,S/Feferman,A.B.: 'Alfred Tarski: life and logic' [CUP 2008], p.47


A Reaction

The typical critics are likely to be intuitionists or formalists, who seek for both rigour and a plausible epistemology in our theory.


The 12 ideas from Feferman / Feferman

'Recursion theory' concerns what can be solved by computing machines [Feferman/Feferman]
The Axiom of Choice is consistent with the other axioms of set theory [Feferman/Feferman]
Axiom of Choice: a set exists which chooses just one element each of any set of sets [Feferman/Feferman]
Platonist will accept the Axiom of Choice, but others want criteria of selection or definition [Feferman/Feferman]
The Trichotomy Principle is equivalent to the Axiom of Choice [Feferman/Feferman]
Cantor's theories needed the Axiom of Choice, but it has led to great controversy [Feferman/Feferman]
Both Principia Mathematica and Peano Arithmetic are undecidable [Feferman/Feferman]
A structure is a 'model' when the axioms are true. So which of the structures are models? [Feferman/Feferman]
Tarski and Vaught established the equivalence relations between first-order structures [Feferman/Feferman]
Löwenheim-Skolem says if the sentences are countable, so is the model [Feferman/Feferman]
Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, and Gödel's completeness of first-order logic, the earliest model theory [Feferman/Feferman]
If a sentence holds in every model of a theory, then it is logically derivable from the theory [Feferman/Feferman]