Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T08:57:33.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Believing the axioms. II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Penelope Maddy*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California 92717

Extract

This is a continuation of Believing the axioms. I, in which nondemonstrative arguments for and against the axioms of ZFC, the continuum hypothesis, small large cardinals and measurable cardinals were discussed. I turn now to determinacy hypotheses and large large cardinals, and conclude with some philosophical remarks.

Determinacy is a property of sets of reals. If A is such a set, we imagine an infinite game G(A) between two players I and II. The players take turns choosing natural numbers. In the end, they have generated a real number r (actually a member of the Baire space ωω). If r is in A, I wins; otherwise, II wins. The set A is said to be determined if one player or the other has a winning strategy (that is, a function from finite sequences of natural numbers to natural numbers that guarantees the player a win if he uses it to decide his moves).

Determinacy is a “regularity” property (see Martin [1977, p. 807]), a property of well-behaved sets, that implies the more familiar regularity properties like Lebesgue measurability, the Baire property (see Mycielski [1964] and [1966], and Mycielski and Swierczkowski [1964]), and the perfect subset property (Davis [1964]). Infinitary games were first considered by the Polish descriptive set theorists Mazur and Banach in the mid-30s; Gale and Stewart [1953] introduced them into the literature, proving that open sets are determined and that the axiom of choice can be used to construct an undetermined set.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Addison, J. W. [1959] Some consequences of the axiom of constructibility, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 46 (1959), pp. 337357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Addison, J. W. [1974] Current problems in descriptive set theory, in Jech [1974], pp. 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Addison, J. W. and Moschovakis, Y. N. [1968] Some consequences of the axiom of definable determinateness, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 59 (1968), pp. 708712.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bar-Hillel, Y., editor [1970] Mathematical logic and foundations of set theory, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1970.Google Scholar
Barwise, J., editor [1977] Handbook of mathematical logic, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1977.Google Scholar
Benacerraf, P. and Putnam, H., editors [1983] Philosophy of mathematics, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1983.Google Scholar
Blackwell, D. [1967] Infinite games and analytic sets, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 58 (1967), pp. 18361837.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brouwer, L. E. J. [1912] Intuitionism and formalism, in Benacerraf and Putnam [1983], pp. 7789CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, M. [1964] Infinite games of perfect information, Advances in game theory (Dresher, M.et al., editors), Annals of Mathematics Studies, vol. 52, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1964, pp. 85101.Google Scholar
Fenstad, J. E. [1971] The axiom of determinateness, Proceedings of the second Scandinavian logic symposium (Fenstad, J. F., editor), North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1971, pp. 4161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, H. [1985] On conservativeness and incompleteness, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82 (1985), pp. 239260.Google Scholar
Foreman, M., Magidor, M., and Shelah, S. [MM] Martin's Maximum, saturated ideals, and nonregular ultrafilters (to appear).Google Scholar
Gale, D. and Stewart, F. M. [1953] Infinite games with perfect information, Contributions to the theory of games, vol. 2, Annals of Mathematics Studies, vol. 28, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1953, pp. 245266.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. [1980] Theory and evidence, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1980.Google Scholar
Gödel, K. [1947/64] What is Cantor's continuum problem?, in Benacerraf and Putnam [1983], pp. 470485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, L. [1978] Analytic determinacy and 0#, this Journal, vol. 43 (1978), pp. 685693.Google Scholar
Hellman, G. [1986] A modal interpretation of mathematics, circulated photocopy.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. [1945] Studies in the logic of confirmation, Mind, vol. 54 (1945), pp. 1–26, 97121; reprinted in C. W. Hempel, Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science, MacMillan, 1965, pp. 3–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jech, T. J., editor [1974] Axiomatic set theory, Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics, vol. 13, part II, American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island, 1974.Google Scholar
Kanamori, K. and Magidor, M. [1978] The evolution of large cardinal axioms in set theory, Higher set theory (Müller, G. H. and Scott, D. S., editors), Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol. 669, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1978, pp. 99275.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. [1983] The nature of mathematical knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1983.Google Scholar
Kunen, K. [1971] Elementary embeddings and infinitary combinatorics, this Journal, vol. 36 (1971), pp. 407413.Google Scholar
Levy, A. and Solovay, R. M. [1967] Measurable cardinals and the continuum hypothesis, Israel Journal of Mathematics, vol. 5 (1967), pp. 234248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddy, P. [1980] Perception and mathematical intuition, Philosophical Review vol. 89 (1980), pp. 163196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddy, P. [1983] Proper classes, this Journal, vol. 48 (1983), pp. 113139.Google Scholar
Maddy, P. [1984] New directions in the philosophy of mathematics, PSA 1984 (Kitcher, P., editor), Philosophy of Science Association, 1985, pp. 425447.Google Scholar
Maddy, P. [BAI] Believing the axioms. I, this Journal, vol. 53 (1988), pp. 481511.Google Scholar
Martin, D. A. [PSCN] Projective sets and cardinal numbers, circulated photocopy.Google Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1968] The axiom of determinateness and reduction principles in the analytic hierarchy, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, vol. 74 (1968), pp. 687689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1970] Measurable cardinals and analytic games, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 66 (1970), pp. 287291.Google Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1975] Borel determinacy, Annals of Mathematics, ser. 2, vol. 102 (1975), pp. 363371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1976] Hilbert's first problem: the continuum hypothesis, Mathematical developments arising from Hilbert problems (Browder, F. E., editor), Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics, vol. 28, American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976, pp. 8192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1977] Descriptive set theory, in Barwise [1977], pp. 783815.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, D. A. [1978] Infinite games, Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Helsinki, 1978), vol. 1, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki, 1980, pp. 269273.Google Scholar
Moschovakis, Y. N. [1970] Determinacy and prewellorderings of the continuum, in Bar-Hillel [1970], pp. 2462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moschovakis, Y. N. [1980] Descriptive set theory, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1980.Google Scholar
Mycielski, J. [1964] On the axiom of determinateness, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 53 (1964), pp. 205224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mycielski, J. [1966] On the axiom of determinateness. II, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 59 (1966), pp. 203212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mycielski, J. and Steinhaus, H. [1962] A mathematical axiom contradicting the axiom of choice, Bulletin de 1'Académic Polonaise des Sciences, Série des Sciences Mathématiques, Astronomiques et Physiques, vol. 10 (1962), pp. 13.Google Scholar
Mycielski, J. and Swierczkowski, S. [1964] On Lebesgue measurability and the axiom of determinateness, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 54 (1964), pp. 6771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paris, J. B. [1972] ZF ⊢ Σ40 determinateness, this Journal, vol. 37 (1972), pp. 661667.Google Scholar
Parsons, C. [1978/80] Mathematical intuition, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 80 (19791980), pp. 142168.Google Scholar
Parsons, C. [1983] Mathematics in philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. [1967] Mathematics without foundation, in Benacerraf and Putnam [1983], pp. 295311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhardt, W. N. [1974] Remarks on reflection principles, large cardinals and elementary embeddings, in Jech [1974], pp. 189205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reinhardt, W. N. [1974] Set existence principles of Shoenfield, Ackermann, and Powell, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 84 (1974), pp. 534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resnik, M. [1981] Mathematics and a science of patterns.: ontology and reference, Noûs, vol. 15 (1981), pp. 529550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resnik, M. [1982] Mathematics as a science of patterns: epistemology, Noûs, vol. 16 (1982), pp. 95105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, S. [1983] Mathematics and reality, Philosophy of Science, vol. 50 (1983), pp. 523548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoenfield, J. R. [1967] Mathematical logic, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1967.Google Scholar
Sierpinski, W. [1925] Sur une classe d'ensembles, Fundamenta Mathematicae, vol. 7 (1925), pp. 237243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solovay, R. M. [1969] The cardinality of Σ21 sets, Foundations of Mathematics (Bulloff, J. J.et al., editors), Symposium papers commemorating the sixtieth birthday of Kurt Gödel, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1969, pp. 5873.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solovay, R. M., Reinhardt, W. N., and Kanamori, A. [1978] Strong axioms of infinity and elementary embeddings, Annals of Mathematical Logic, vol. 13 (1978), pp. 73116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, H. [1974] The concept of set, in Benacerraf and Putnam [1983], pp. 530570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, M. [1979] Maxwell's condition—Goodman's problem, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 30 (1979), pp. 107123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, R. [1985] Determinateness of certain almost Borel games, this Journal, vol. 50 (1985), pp. 569579.Google Scholar
Wolfe, P. [1955] On the strict determinacy of certain infinite games, Pacific Journal of Mathematics, vol. 5 (1955), pp. 841847.CrossRefGoogle Scholar