The Strength of Mac Lane Set Theory
The Strength of Mac Lane Set Theory A. R. D. MATHIAS D´epartement de Math´ematiques et Informatique Universit´e de la R´eunion To Saunders Mac Lane on his ninetieth birthday Abstract AUNDERS MAC LANE has drawn attention many times, particularly in his book Mathematics: Form and S Function, to the system ZBQC of set theory of which the axioms are Extensionality, Null Set, Pairing, Union, Infinity, Power Set, Restricted Separation, Foundation, and Choice, to which system, afforced by the principle, TCo, of Transitive Containment, we shall refer as MAC. His system is naturally related to systems derived from topos-theoretic notions concerning the category of sets, and is, as Mac Lane emphasizes, one that is adequate for much of mathematics. In this paper we show that the consistency strength of Mac Lane's system is not increased by adding the axioms of Kripke{Platek set theory and even the Axiom of Constructibility to Mac Lane's axioms; our method requires a close study of Axiom H, which was proposed by Mitchell; we digress to apply these methods to subsystems of Zermelo set theory Z, and obtain an apparently new proof that Z is not finitely axiomatisable; we study Friedman's strengthening KPP + AC of KP + MAC, and the Forster{Kaye subsystem KF of MAC, and use forcing over ill-founded models and forcing to establish independence results concerning MAC and KPP ; we show, again using ill-founded models, that KPP + V = L proves the consistency of KPP ; turning to systems that are type-theoretic in spirit or in fact, we show by arguments of Coret
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