Nutritional Sciences Instructor A.D. Irvine, Buchanan E365 Tel. I encourage you to contact me as often as you like during term in order to discuss matters arising in this seminar. This seminar will have as its primarily focus questions concerning the nature and justification of set-theoretical knowledge.
Set theory occupies a unique position in both mathematics and philosophy.
Because of its relation to the theory of universals, it provides an important bridge between the theory of properties and relations, on the one hand, and the formal study of both logic and model theory on the other. At the same time, because of its role in the foundations of mathematics, set theory also provides the means by which many mathematical theories can be shown to be related to one another, and to other branches of inquiry such as logic. For these reasons a basic knowledge of set theory, like knowledge of first-order logic itself, has long been required of all mathematics and philosophy students. The course will be of interest to both philosophy and mathematics students, and to others who are interested in the nature of mathematical knowledge. The readings for this course will be divided into five parts.