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Single Idea 13044

[filed under theme 4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / f. Axiom of Infinity V ]

Full Idea

Axiom of Infinity: There is at least one limit level.

Gist of Idea

Infinity: There is at least one limit level

Source

Michael Potter (Set Theory and Its Philosophy [2004], 04.9)

Book Ref

Potter,Michael: 'Set Theory and Its Philosophy' [OUP 2004], p.68


A Reaction

A 'limit ordinal' is one which has successors, but no predecessors. The axiom just says there is at least one infinity.

Related Idea

Idea 15931 The iterative conception needs the Axiom of Infinity, to show how far we can iterate [Lavine]


The 31 ideas from Michael Potter

Traditionally there are twelve categories of judgement, in groups of three [Potter]
Frege's sign |--- meant judgements, but the modern |- turnstile means inference, with intecedents [Potter]
A material conditional cannot capture counterfactual reasoning [Potter]
Compositionality should rely on the parsing tree, which may contain more than sentence components [Potter]
'Direct compositonality' says the components wholly explain a sentence meaning [Potter]
'Greater than', which is the ancestral of 'successor', strictly orders the natural numbers [Potter]
Impredicative definitions are circular, but fine for picking out, rather than creating something [Potter]
Deductivism can't explain how the world supports unconditional conclusions [Potter]
If 'concrete' is the negative of 'abstract', that means desires and hallucinations are concrete [Potter]
The phrase 'the concept "horse"' can't refer to a concept, because it is saturated [Potter]
Modern logical truths are true under all interpretations of the non-logical words [Potter]
Compositionality is more welcome in logic than in linguistics (which is more contextual) [Potter]
Why is fictional arithmetic applicable to the real world? [Potter]
The Identity Theory says a proposition is true if it coincides with what makes it true [Potter]
The formalist defence against Gödel is to reject his metalinguistic concept of truth [Potter]
It has been unfortunate that externalism about truth is equated with correspondence [Potter]
Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process [Potter]
Set theory's three roles: taming the infinite, subject-matter of mathematics, and modes of reasoning [Potter]
Supposing axioms (rather than accepting them) give truths, but they are conditional [Potter]
We can formalize second-order formation rules, but not inference rules [Potter]
Mereology elides the distinction between the cards in a pack and the suits [Potter]
Collections have fixed members, but fusions can be carved in innumerable ways [Potter]
Nowadays we derive our conception of collections from the dependence between them [Potter]
Priority is a modality, arising from collections and members [Potter]
If dependence is well-founded, with no infinite backward chains, this implies substances [Potter]
If set theory didn't found mathematics, it is still needed to count infinite sets [Potter]
Usually the only reason given for accepting the empty set is convenience [Potter]
A relation is a set consisting entirely of ordered pairs [Potter]
Infinity: There is at least one limit level [Potter]
It is remarkable that all natural number arithmetic derives from just the Peano Axioms [Potter]
The 'limitation of size' principles say whether properties collectivise depends on the number of objects [Potter]