We prove that for every family I of closed subsets of a Polish space each set can be covered by countably many members of I or else contains a nonempty set which cannot be covered by countably many members of I. We prove an analogous result for κ-Souslin sets and show that if A# exists for any A ⊂ ωω, then the above result is true for sets. A theorem of Martin is included stating that this result is also true for weakly homogeneously Souslin sets. As an application of our results we derive from them a general form of Hurewicz's theorem due to Kechris. Louveau, and Woodin and a theorem of Feng on the open covering axiom. Also some well-known theorems on finding “big” closed sets inside of “big” and are consequences of our results.

A small large cardinal upper bound in V for proving when certain subsets of ω1 (including the universally Baire subsets) are precisely those constructible from a real is given. In the core model we find an exact equivalence in terms of the length of the mouse order; we show that ∀B ⊆ ω1 [B is universally Baire ⇔ B ϵ L[r] for some real r] is preserved under set-sized forcing extensions if and only if there are arbitrarily large “admissibly measurable” cardinals.

In § 1 of this paper, we characterize the isomorphism property of nonstandard universes in terms of the realization of some second-order types in model theory. In §2, several applications are given. One of the applications answers a question of D. Ross in [this Journal, vol. 55 (1990), pp. 1233–1242] about infinite Loeb measure spaces.

We introduce a notion of ideal type such that any two ideals with the same ideal type are isomorphic. From this we infer, under the axiom t = h, that each ideal which consists of all nowhere Ramsey sets contained in some family of infinite subsets of natural numbers is isomorphic with the ideal of all nowhere Ramsey sets.

A Boolean algebra B is said to be openly generated if {A : A ≤rcB, ∣A∣ = ℵ0} includes a club subset of . We show:

(V = L). For any cardinal κ there exists an L∞κ-free Boolean algebra which is not openly generated (Proposition 4.1).

(MA+(σ-closed)). Every -free Boolean algebra is openly generated (Theorem 4.2).

The last assertion follows from a characterization of openly generated Boolean algebras under MA+(σ-closed) (Theorem 3.1). Using this characterization we also prove the independence of problem 7 in Ščepin [15] (Proposition 4.3 and Theorem 4.4).

A reader coming anew to the recent work on languages which contain their own truth predicates may be perplexed by the simple question of where to begin. A first approach to the literature suggests a field which is alive and busy with investigations heading in many different directions, but there is much less indication of how various pieces fit together. There are at least two sources of this confusion. First, the literature is large and diffuse (as befits a subject which goes back over 2000 years); Visser's survey [33] aptly describes the literature as “vast but scattered, repetitive, and disconnected.” Moreover, recent interest in the field has led to a proliferation of research and publication; it seems that almost any issue of any philosophical logic journal from the mid-1980s contains some article on the topic. The second reason, in part a consequence of the first, is that while a typical article in print usually presents a good internal motivation, with clear reference to its immediate intellectual antecedents, its place in the broader picture may not be so easily discerned. The problem can be especially acute in presentations of axiomatic approaches, because decisions on certain basic questions can lie hidden in the formal and notational details which abound in any axiomatization.

In fact, though, the recent research on methods for handling self-referential truth can be seen as a body of work which is very well structured, one in which a few fundamental decisions suffice to locate any particular approach in its appropriate place on the landscape. My goal is to describe this structure and in particular to stress a few critical forks in the road, which will be the recurring metaphor throughout this paper. I will also pay particular attention to pointing out where the interesting technical and mathematical questions lie.

Let T be a one-based theory. We define a notion of width, in the case of T having the finiteness property, for the lattice of finitely generated algebraically closed sets and prove

Theorem. Let T be one-based with the finiteness property. If T is of bounded width, then every type in T is nonorthogonal to a weight one type. If T is countable, the converse is true.

In this paper, we generalize the notion of distributivity and consider some properties of distributive ideals, that is, ideals I such that the algebra P(κ)/I is distributive in our sense.

Our notation and terminology is explained in §1, while the main results of this paper begin in §2. We shall show here some relations of the distributivity and the ideal theoretic partitions. In §3, we shall study the class of distributive ideals over κ whose existence is equivalent to the ineffability of κ, and other classes. Finally, in §4, we shall consider the equivalence of the Boolean prime ideal theorem and show that the existence of certain distributive ideals characterizes several large cardinals. As a byproduct, we can give a simple proof of Ketonen's theorem that κ is strongly compact if and only if for any regular cardinal λ ≥ κ there exists a nontrivial κ-complete prime ideal over λ.

In the first part of this paper we discuss some aspects of Detlefsen's attempt to save Hilbert's Program from the consequences of Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem. His arguments are based on his interpretation of the long standing and well-known controversy on what, exactly, finitistic means are. In his paper [1] Detlefsen takes the position that there is a form of the ω-rule which is a finitistically valid means of proof, sufficient to prove the consistency of elementary number theory Z. On the other hand, he claims that Z with its first-order logic is not strong enough to allow a formalization of such an ω-rule. This would explain why the unprovability of Con(Z) in Z does not imply that the consistency of Z cannot be proved by finitistic means. We show that Detlefsen's proposal is unacceptable as originally formulated in [1], but that a reasonable modification of the rule he suggest leads to a partial program already studied for many years. We investigate the scope of such a program in terms of proof-theoretic reducibilities. We also show that this partial program encompasses mathematically important theories studied in the “Reverse Mathematics” program. In order to investigate the provability with such a modified rule, we define new consistency and provability predicates which are weaker than the usual ones. We then investigate their properties, including a few that have no apparent philosophical significance but compare interestingly with the properties of the program based on the iteration of our ω-rule. We determine some of the limitations of such programs, pointing out that these limitations partly explain why partial programs that have been successfully carried out use quite different and substantially more radical extensions of finitistic methods with more general forms of restricted reasoning.

We show that Diophantine equivalence of two suitably presented countable rings implies that the existential polynomial languages of the two rings have the same “expressive power” and that their Diophantine sets are in some sense the same. We also show that a Diophantine class of countable rings is contained completely within a relative enumeration class and demonstrate that one consequence of this fact is the existence of infinitely many Diophantine classes containing holomorphy rings of ℚ.

An awkward feature of the standard fine structure theory of the Jα's (see Jensen [72]) is that special parameters are required to make good sense of the notion of “Σn Skolem hull”, parameters which may not be preserved in condensation arguments.

The purpose of this article is to indicate how a reformulation of Jensen's Σ* theory (developed for the study of core models) can be used to provide a more satisfactory treatment of uniformization, hulls, and Skolem functions for the Jα's. Then we use this approach to fine structure to formulate a principle intended to capture the combinatorial content of the axiom V = L.