In spite of the work of Gödel and Cohen, which showed the undecidability of the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis (GCH) from the axioms of set theory, the problem still remains to decide GCH on the basis of new axioms. It is almost 100 years since Cantor first conjectured the Continuum Hypothesis, yet we seem to be no closer to determining its truth (or falsity). Nevertheless, it is a sound methodological principle that given any undecidable set-theoretical statement, we should search for “other (hitherto unknown) axioms of set theory which a more profound understanding of the concepts underlying logic and mathematics would enable us to recognize as implied by these concepts” (see Gödel [7, p. 265]).

The purpose of this paper is to suggest two alternatives to Quine's definition of closure. These new definitions have two advantages over Quine's definition, and they probably are the simplest definitions having both advantages. The two advantages are:

(1). Principle *101 becomes superfluous and may be dropped from Quine's set of principles for quantification. (In the case of my second definition, however, the dropping of *101 must be balanced by a slight change in *104.)

(2). Closure is made independent of the alphabetical order of variables.

The second of these advantages turns on the fact that the “alphabetical order” possessed by variables in virtue of their respective positions in the alphabet (or arbitrarily assigned to them) is a mere convention and not of genuine logical significance. It seems therefore desirable to consider some alternatives to Quine's definition of closure, since according to his definition the closure of a given formula will be one statement or another, depending upon whether or not one letter of the alphabet is alphabetically prior to a certain other letter. It is interesting that the removal of this minor artificiality also enables us to dispense with *101.

According to Quine, the closure of a formula containing n free variables is obtained by prefixing to it in alphabetical order the n universal quantifiers formed from these variables by enclosing each in a pair of parentheses. (If n = 0 the formula is its own closure and is a “statement” rather than a “matrix.”) Thus the statement ‘(x)(y)(z)(xϵy ▪ yϵz)’ would be the closure of ‘xϵy ▪ yϵz’, but ‘(z)(x)(y)(xϵy ▪ yϵz)’ would not be its closure. Now there is no reason why ‘(z)(x)(y)(xϵy ▪ yϵz)’ or (y)(z)(x)(xϵy ▪ yϵz) and so on, could not just as well be regarded as “the” closure of ‘(xϵy ▪ yϵz’ as ‘(x)(y)(z)(xϵy ▪ yϵz)’. I therefore propose to allow to each formula not merely one closure, but as many closures as can be obtained by permuting in various ways the n prefixed universal quantifiers. In this way alphabetical order becomes irrelevant and no preference is given to one order of prefixed quantifiers in contrast to other orders which seem equally good. This constitutes my first redefinition of closure.

We improve the upper bound for the consistency strength of stationary reflection at successors of singular cardinals.

We study the structure of families of theories in the language of arithmetic extended to allow these families to refer to one another and to themselves. If a theory contains schemata expressing its own truth and expressing a specific Turing index for itself, and contains some other mild axioms, then that theory is untrue. We exhibit some families of true self-referential theories that barely avoid this forbidden pattern.

In this note we give a simplified ordinal analysis of first-order reflection. An ordinal notation system $OT$ is introduced based on $\psi $ -functions. Provable $\Sigma _{1}$ -sentences on $L_{\omega _{1}^{CK}}$ are bounded through cut-elimination on operator controlled derivations.

We characterize the determinacy of $F_\sigma $ games of length $\omega ^2$ in terms of determinacy assertions for short games. Specifically, we show that $F_\sigma $ games of length $\omega ^2$ are determined if, and only if, there is a transitive model of ${\mathsf {KP}}+{\mathsf {AD}}$ containing $\mathbb {R}$ and reflecting $\Pi _1$ facts about the next admissible set.

As a consequence, one obtains that, over the base theory ${\mathsf {KP}} + {\mathsf {DC}} + ``\mathbb {R}$ exists,” determinacy for $F_\sigma $ games of length $\omega ^2$ is stronger than ${\mathsf {AD}}$ , but weaker than ${\mathsf {AD}} + \Sigma _1$ -separation.

This article is concerned with functions k assigning a cardinal number to each infinite Boolean algebra (BA), and the behaviour of such functions under ultraproducts. For some common functions k we have

for others we have ≤ instead, under suitable assumptions. For the function π character we go into more detail. More specifically, ≥ holds when F is regular, for cellularity, length, irredundance, spread, and incomparability. ≤ holds for π. ≥ holds under GCH for F regular, for depth, π, πχ, χ, h-cof, tightness, hL, and hd. These results show that ≥ can consistently hold in ZFC since if V = L holds then all uniform ultrafilters are regular. For π-character we prove two more results: (1) If F is regular and ess , then

(2) It is relatively consistent to have , where A is the denumerable atomless BA.

A thorough analysis of what happens without the assumption that F is regular can be found in Rosłanowski, Shelah [8] and Magidor, Shelah [5]. Those papers also mention open problems concerning the above two possible inequalities.

In this paper we describe an intuitionistic theory SLP. It is a relatively strong theory containing intuitionistic principles for functionals of many types, in particular, the theory of the “creating subject”, axioms for lawless functionals and some versions of choice axioms. We construct a Beth model for the language of intuitionistic functionals of high types and use it to prove the consistency of SLP.

We also prove that the intuitionistic theory SLP is equiconsistent with a classical theory TI. TI is a typed set theory, where the comprehension axiom for sets of type n is restricted to formulas with no parameters of types > n. We show that each fragment of SLP with types ≤ s is equiconsistent with the corresponding fragment of TI and that it is stronger than the previous fragment of SLP. Thus, both SLP and TI are much stronger than the second order arithmetic. By constructing the intuitionistic theory SLP and interpreting in it the classical set theoryTI, we contribute to the program of justifying classical mathematics from the intuitionistic point of view.

It will be shown that system Q of [1], with minor corrections, is free from contradiction and can be strengthened in various ways without destroying its consistency.

By the system C*A will be meant the system that results in place of CA if rule 3.4.10 is omitted in [2] from the rules 3.4 defining PA and RA for an arbitrary class A of equations. We let P*A be the theorems of C*A and R*A be the antitheorems of C*A, just as PA and RA are respectively the theorems and antitheorems of CA in [2]. Similarly Γ* is the class that is defined exactly like the class Γ in 4.18 of [2] except that systems of the form C*A replace those of the form CA. The terminology and conventions of [2] will be assumed in what follows.

Using the methods that were used to show in 5.9 of [2] that CΓ is free from contradiction, it is easy to show that C*A is free from contradiction for every class A of equations. (The fact that rule 3.4.10 is omitted causes the proof of consistency to work even for cases where A is not systematically closed in the sense of 4.11 of [2].)

Just as it was shown in 4.19 of [2] that Γ is systematically closed (in the sense of 4.11 of [2]), so also it clearly can be shown that Γ* is systematically closed. This means, in effect, that the rule of substitution of equals for equals holds in the system C*Γ*.

We show that any symmetric, Baire measurable function from the complement of E0 to a finite set is constant on an E0-nonsmooth square. A simultaneous generalization of Galvin's theorem that Baire measurable colorings admit perfect homogeneous sets and the Kanovei-Zapletal theorem canonizing Borel equivalence relations on E0-nonsmooth sets, this result is proved by relating E0-nonsmooth sets to embeddings of the complete binary tree into itself and appealing to a version of Hindman's theorem on the complete binary tree. We also establish several canonization theorems which follow from the main result.

We define a new type of “shatter function” for set systems that satisfies a Sauer–Shelah type dichotomy, but whose polynomial-growth case is governed by Shelah’s two-rank instead of VC dimension. We identify the least exponent bounding the rate of growth of the shatter function, the quantity analogous to VC density, with Shelah’s $\omega $ -rank.

For a canonical model of set theory whose projective theory of the real numbers is stable under set forcing extensions, a set of reals of minimal complexity is constructed which fails to be universally Baire. The construction uses a general method for generating non-universally Baire sets via the Levy collapse of a cardinal, as well as core model techniques. Along the way it is shown (extending previous results of Steel) how sufficiently iterable fine structure models recognize themselves as global core models.

The existence of End Elementary Extensions of modelsM of ZFC is related to the ordinal height of M, according to classical results due to Keisler, Morley and Silver. In this paper, we further investigate the connection between the height of M and the existence of End Elementary Extensions of M. In particular, we prove that the theory ‘ZFC + GCH + there exist measurable cardinals + all inaccessible non weakly compact cardinals are possible heights of models with no End Elementary Extensions’ is consistent relative to the theory ‘ZFC + GCH + there exist measurable cardinals + the weakly compact cardinals are cofinal in ON’. We also provide a simpler coding that destroys GCH but otherwise yields the same result.