Up to now, most constructed calculi had the following common property: Whenever the rules of formation of a calculus laid down that expressions of the designs ‘Pa’, ‘Qa’, ‘Pb’ were sentences—‘P’ and ‘Q’ being first-level one-place predicates, ‘a’ and ‘b’ individual-symbols—, ‘Qb’ was a sentence too, according to the same rules. This self-imposed restriction of the logicians is historically understandable, since calculi of this common feature have a certain simplicity which differently constructed calculi will not have. So far, calculi of this type have proved to be sufficient for the formalization of mathematics and small parts of other sciences. We may ask ourselves, however, whether such a restriction will still be desirable when attempting to construct calculi covering more ground. It is quite possible that insistence on this kind of simplicity will involve a greater complexity in other respects. Inquiry into types of calculi which do not possess this simplicity should therefore be of some interest. To such an inquiry we are led also from another point of view. More and more stress has been laid in recent researches on the construction of calculi which should show close connection with ordinary languages, and it is obvious that ordinary language does not have the mentioned property. To use an example given by Carnap: Whereas ‘This stone is red,’ ‘Aluminium is red,’ ‘This stone weighs five pounds’ are all meaningful sentences of ordinary English, ‘Aluminium weighs five pounds’ is not and it does not matter in this connection whether we formulate this fact by saying that ‘Aluminium weighs five pounds,’ though grammatically an impeccable sentence, is logically meaningless, or whether we prefer the more modern formulation that this word-sequence does not form a sentence at all.

This paper continues the exposition of a demonstrably consistent foundation for mathematics begun in An extension of basic logic (hereafter referred to as EBL) and in The Heine-Borel theorem in extended basic logic (hereafter referred to as HB). Still earlier papers related to these are A basic logic (referred to as BL) and Representations of calculi (referred to as RC). The main conventions and results of all the above papers will be presupposed in what follows. The numbering of sections and paragraphs will be a continuation of that of EBL and HB.

The main purpose of this paper is to present a formal system P in which we enjoy a smooth-running technique and which countenances a universe of classes which is symmetrical as between large and small. More exactly, P is a system which differs from the inconsistent system of [1] only in the introduction of a rather natural new restrictive condition on the defining formulas of the elements (sets, membership-eligible classes). It will be proved that if the weaker system of [2] is consistent, then P is also consistent.

After the discovery of paradoxes, it may be recalled, Russell and Zermelo in the same year proposed two different ways of safeguarding logic against contradictions (see [3], [4]). Since then various simplifications and refinements of these systems have been made. However, in the resulting systems of Zermelo set theory, generation of classes still tends to be laborious and uncertain; and in the systems of Russell's theory of types, complications in the matter of reduplication of classes and meaningfulness of formulas remain. In [2], Quine introduced a system which seems to be free from all these complications. But later it was found out that in it there appears to be an unavoidable difficulty connected with mathematical induction. Indeed, we encounter the curious situation that although we can prove in it the existence of a class V of all classes, and we can also prove particular existence theorems for each of infinitely many classes, nobody has so far contrived to prove in it that V is an infinite class or that there exists an infinite class at all.

Die vorliegenden Untersuchungen haben sich aus solchen entwickelt, die ich an andrer Stelle früher veröffentlichte. Die Kenntnis dieser früheren Arbeit wird in keiner Weise hier vorausgesetzt und ist für das folgende unwesentlich. Es sei mir jedoch gestattet, für den Kenner der früheren Arbeit einige Bemerkungen voraufzuschicken. In der genannten Arbeit hatte ich, angeregt ursprünglich durch Gedankengänge von Herrn Behmann, ein typenfreies System der Logik aufgebaut, das allein auf dem Gedanken fußte, daß der Definitionsbereich der Prädikate im allgemeinen beschränkt ist, sodaß nur bestimmte Zusammenstellungen von Prädikaten und Dingen sinnvolle, d.h. wahre oder falsche Aussagen ergeben, und das diesen Gesichtspunkt meiner Meinung nach konsequent durchführte. Eine anschließende Arbeit sollte dann die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Systems untersuchen. Diese Untersuchung ist inzwischen geschehen. Es zeigte sich, daß sich die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Systems nur dann beweisen ließ, falls die in ihm enthaltene Vollständigkeit von → die sich durch das Bestehen eines Deduktionstheorems zeigte, fallen gelassen wurde. Die Grundformeln (13) und (14) mußten wegbleiben. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des restlichen Systems ließ sich dann durch eine dem System eigentümliche Methode der Beweistransformation zeigen.

Diese anschließienden Untersuchungen, die ihrer Zeit nicht mehr veröffentlicht werden konnten, sind inzwischen durch die vorliegenden überholt. Es war das Unbefriedigende bei dem genannten Aufbau, daß hinterher doch wieder eine Einschränkung gemacht werden mußte, die sich nicht aus den zugrunde gelegten Prinzipien ergab, sondern von ihnen aus unvorhergesehen war. Diese Einschränkung bewirkte übrigens, daß keine volle Zahlentheorie in dem System zu gewinnen war.