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Ideas for 'Natural Kinds and Biological Realism', 'works' and 'Foundations without Foundationalism'

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7 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 1. Logical Models
Semantics for models uses set-theory [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Typically, model-theoretic semantics is formulated in set theory.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 2.5.1)
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 2. Isomorphisms
An axiomatization is 'categorical' if its models are isomorphic, so there is really only one interpretation [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: An axiomatization is 'categorical' if all its models are isomorphic to one another; ..hence it has 'essentially only one' interpretation [Veblen 1904].
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 1.2.1)
Categoricity can't be reached in a first-order language [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Categoricity cannot be attained in a first-order language.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.3)
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 3. Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems
The Löwenheim-Skolem theorems show an explosion of infinite models, so 1st-order is useless for infinity [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: The Löwenheim-Skolem theorems mean that no first-order theory with an infinite model is categorical. If Γ has an infinite model, then it has a model of every infinite cardinality. So first-order languages cannot characterize infinite structures.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 4.1)
     A reaction: So much of the debate about different logics hinges on characterizing 'infinite structures' - whatever they are! Shapiro is a leading structuralist in mathematics, so he wants second-order logic to help with his project.
Substitutional semantics only has countably many terms, so Upward Löwenheim-Skolem trivially fails [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: The Upward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem fails (trivially) with substitutional semantics. If there are only countably many terms of the language, then there are no uncountable substitution models.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 9.1.4)
     A reaction: Better and better. See Idea 13674. Why postulate more objects than you can possibly name? I'm even suspicious of all real numbers, because you can't properly define them in finite terms. Shapiro objects that the uncountable can't be characterized.
Downward Löwenheim-Skolem: each satisfiable countable set always has countable models [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: A language has the Downward Löwenheim-Skolem property if each satisfiable countable set of sentences has a model whose domain is at most countable.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 6.5)
     A reaction: This means you can't employ an infinite model to represent a fact about a countable set.
Upward Löwenheim-Skolem: each infinite model has infinite models of all sizes [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: A language has the Upward Löwenheim-Skolem property if for each set of sentences whose model has an infinite domain, then it has a model at least as big as each infinite cardinal.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 6.5)
     A reaction: This means you can't have a countable model to represent a fact about infinite sets.