Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
In this paper a new property of theories, called effective retractability is introduced and used to obtain a characterization for the degrees of subtheories of arithmetic and set theory. By theory we understand theory in standard formalization as defined by Tarski [10]. The word degree refers to the Kleene-Post notion of degree of recursive unsolvability [2]. By the degree of a theory we mean, of course, the degree associated with its decision problem via Gödel numbering.
The results in this paper constitute a part of the author's Dissertation written while the author was a graduate student at the University of Washington. The author wishes to express his thanks to Professors R. W. Ritchie of the University of Washington and M. B. Poúr-El of the University of Minnesota for many helpful suggestions regarding the writing of this paper.