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Ideas for 'Internalism Exposed', 'Alfred Tarski: life and logic' and 'Foundations of Geometry'

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4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 1. Logical Models
A structure is a 'model' when the axioms are true. So which of the structures are models? [Feferman/Feferman]
     Full Idea: A structure is said to be a 'model' of an axiom system if each of its axioms is true in the structure (e.g. Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry). 'Model theory' concerns which structures are models of a given language and axiom system.
     From: Feferman / Feferman (Alfred Tarski: life and logic [2004], Int V)
     A reaction: This strikes me as the most interesting aspect of mathematical logic, since it concerns the ways in which syntactic proof-systems actually connect with reality. Tarski is the central theoretician here, and his theory of truth is the key.
Tarski and Vaught established the equivalence relations between first-order structures [Feferman/Feferman]
     Full Idea: In the late 1950s Tarski and Vaught defined and established basic properties of the relation of elementary equivalence between two structures, which holds when they make true exactly the same first-order sentences. This is fundamental to model theory.
     From: Feferman / Feferman (Alfred Tarski: life and logic [2004], Int V)
     A reaction: This is isomorphism, which clarifies what a model is by giving identity conditions between two models. Note that it is 'first-order', and presumably founded on classical logic.
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 3. Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems
Löwenheim-Skolem says if the sentences are countable, so is the model [Feferman/Feferman]
     Full Idea: The Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, the earliest in model theory, states that if a countable set of sentences in a first-order language has a model, then it has a countable model.
     From: Feferman / Feferman (Alfred Tarski: life and logic [2004], Int V)
     A reaction: There are 'upward' (sentences-to-model) and 'downward' (model-to-sentences) versions of the theory.
Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, and Gödel's completeness of first-order logic, the earliest model theory [Feferman/Feferman]
     Full Idea: Before Tarski's work in the 1930s, the main results in model theory were the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, and Gödel's establishment in 1929 of the completeness of the axioms and rules for the classical first-order predicate (or quantificational) calculus.
     From: Feferman / Feferman (Alfred Tarski: life and logic [2004], Int V)