Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On the Question of Absolute Undecidability', 'A Subject with No Object' and 'The Myth of the Given'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 1. Set Theory
Mathematical set theory has many plausible stopping points, such as finitism, and predicativism [Koellner]
     Full Idea: There are many coherent stopping points in the hierarchy of increasingly strong mathematical systems, starting with strict finitism, and moving up through predicativism to the higher reaches of set theory.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], Intro)
'Reflection principles' say the whole truth about sets can't be captured [Koellner]
     Full Idea: Roughly speaking, 'reflection principles' assert that anything true in V [the set hierarchy] falls short of characterising V in that it is true within some earlier level.
     From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 2.1)
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 5. Conceptions of Set / d. Naïve logical sets
The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen]
     Full Idea: The paradoxes only seem to arise in connection with Frege's logical notion of extension or class, not Cantor's mathematical notion of set. Cantor never assumed that every condition determines a set.
     From: JP Burgess / G Rosen (A Subject with No Object [1997], III.C.1.b)
     A reaction: This makes the whole issue a parochial episode in the history of philosophy, not a central question. Cantor favoured some sort of abstractionism (see Kit Fine on the subject).