The Foundations Of Mathematics In The Theory Of Sets

This 2001 book will appeal to mathematicians and philosophers interested in the foundations of mathematics.

Presents a detailed and critical examination of the available conceptions of set and proposes a novel version.

This book provides an introduction to axiomatic set theory and descriptive set theory. It is written for the upper level undergraduate or beginning graduate students to help them prepare for advanced study in set theory and mathematical logic as well as other areas of mathematics, such as analysis, topology, and algebra.The book is designed as a flexible and accessible text for a one-semester introductory course in set theory, where the existing alternatives may be more demanding or specialized. Readers will learn the universally accepted basis of the field, with several popular topics added as an option. Pointers to more advanced study are scattered throughout the text.

Foundations of Set Theory discusses the reconstruction undergone by set theory in the hands of Brouwer, Russell, and Zermelo. Only in the axiomatic foundations, however, have there been such extensive, almost revolutionary, developments. This book tries to avoid a detailed discussion of those topics which would have required heavy technical machinery, while describing the major results obtained in their treatment if these results could be stated in relatively non-technical terms. This book comprises five chapters and begins with a discussion of the antinomies that led to the reconstruction of set theory as it was known before. It then moves to the axiomatic foundations of set theory, including a discussion of the basic notions of equality and extensionality and axioms of comprehension and infinity. The next chapters discuss type-theoretical approaches, including the ideal calculus, the theory of types, and Quine's mathematical logic and new foundations; intuitionistic conceptions of mathematics and its constructive character; and metamathematical and semantical approaches, such as the Hilbert program. This book will be of interest to mathematicians, logicians, and statisticians.

"José Ferreirós has written a magisterial account of the history of set theory which is panoramic, balanced, and engaging. Not only does this book synthesize much previous work and provide fresh insights and points of view, but it also features a major innovation, a full-fledged treatment of the emergence of the set-theoretic approach in mathematics from the early nineteenth century. This takes up Part One of the book. Part Two analyzes the crucial developments in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, above all the work of Cantor, but also Dedekind and the interaction between the two. Lastly, Part Three details the development of set theory up to 1950, taking account of foundational questions and the emergence of the modern axiomatization." (Bulletin of Symbolic Logic)

Explores sets and relations, the natural number sequence and its generalization, extension of natural numbers to real numbers, logic, informal axiomatic mathematics, Boolean algebras, informal axiomatic set theory, several algebraic theories, and 1st-order theories.