Related papers: Philosophical Uses of Categoricity Arguments
This article surveys recent literature by Parsons, McGee, Shapiro and others on the significance of categoricity arguments in the philosophy of mathematics. After discussing whether categoricity arguments are sufficient to secure reference…
Informally speaking, the categoricity of an axiom system means that its non-logical symbols have only one possible interpretation that renders the axioms true. Although non-categoricity has become ubiquitous in the second half of the 20th…
Inspired by Zermelo's quasi-categoricity result characterizing the models of second-order Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory $\text{ZFC}_2$, we investigate when those models are fully categorical, characterized by the addition to $\text{ZFC}_2$…
In recent years philosophers of science have explored categorical equivalence as a promising criterion for when two (physical) theories are equivalent. On the one hand, philosophers have presented several examples of theories whose…
We provided in \cite{BaldwinBrincusI} extensions of first order logic by modified inferential definitions of the classical $\omega$-rule in $1$ or $2$ sorts. These logics are categorical in the inferential sense. Arithmetic has a unique…
This is an introduction to the set-theoretic method of forcing, including its application in proving the independence of the Continuum Hypothesis from the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms of set theory. I presuppose no particular mathematical…
Axiomatizing mathematical structures and theories is an objective of Mathematical Logic. Some axiomatic systems are nowadays mere definitions, such as the axioms of Group Theory; but some systems are much deeper, such as the axioms of…
Although the categorical arithmetic is not effectively axiomatizable, the belief that the incompleteness Theorems can be apply to it is fairly common. Furthermore, the so-called "essential" (or "inherent") semantic incompleteness of the…
We combine several folklore observations to provide a working framework for iterating constructions which contradict the axiom of choice. We use this to define a model in which any kind of structural failure must fail with a proper class of…
The standard axioms of set theory, the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms (ZFC), do not suffice to answer all questions in mathematics. While this follows abstractly from Kurt G\"odel's famous incompleteness theorems, we nowadays know numerous…
This article was motivated by the discovery of a potential new foundation for mainstream mathematics. The goals are to clarify the relationships between primitives, foundations, and deductive practice; to understand how to determine what…
The testimony and practice of notable mathematicians indicate that there is an important phenomenological and epistemological difference between superficial and deep analogies in mathematics. In this paper, we offer a descriptive theory of…
We give a brief survey on the interplay between forcing axioms and various other non-constructive principles widely used in many fields of abstract mathematics, such as the axiom of choice and Baire's category theorem. First of all we…
Recent work in set theory indicates that there are many different notions of 'set', each captured by a different collection of axioms, as proposed by J. Hamkins in [Ham11]. In this paper we strive to give one class theory that allows for a…
This text summarizes and expands the content of a general audience talk given in 2018 at the University of Mainz. Motivated by recent developments in dependent type theory and infinity category theory, it presents a history of ideas around…
We present a coherent collection of finite mathematical theorems some of which can only be proved by going well beyond the usual axioms for mathematics. The proofs of these theorems illustrate in clear terms how one uses the well studied…
According to Cantor, a set is a collection into a whole of defined and separate (we shall say distinct) objects. So, a natural question is ``How to treat as `sets' collections of indistinguishable objects?". This is the aim of quasi-set…
The dual character of invariance under transformations and definability by some operations has been used in classical work by for example Galois and Klein. Following Tarski, philosophers of logic have claimed that logical notions themselves…
We examine Paul Halmos' comments on category theory, Dedekind cuts, devil worship, logic, and Robinson's infinitesimals. Halmos' scepticism about category theory derives from his philosophical position of naive set-theoretic realism. In the…
An argument can be seen as a pair consisting of a set of premises and a claim supported by them. Arguments used by humans are often enthymemes, i.e., some premises are implicit. To better understand, evaluate, and compare enthymemes, it is…