Abstract

This recent addition to the Studies in Logic series is a systematic treatise on the set-theoretic, or semantic, approach to mathematical logic and axiomatic method. The basic notions for the discussion are those of different kinds of languages, their realizations, and the models of a formula. The book begins with a preliminary "chapter 0," giving some general theorems about classes of functions defined by finite schemas. These results are directly applicable to the language of truth-functional propositional logic, and such application is accomplished in detail in chapter 1, in which interpolation, finiteness and compactness theorems are proved for propositional calculus. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the predicate calculus without and with identity, respectively. More advanced topics dealt with in subsequent chapters include elimination of quantifiers. Certain algebraic structures such as real closed fields and some Boolean rings are given in the form of axiomatic systems in which every formula is equivalent to a quantifier-free formula. This leads to completeness. Also covered are type theory and alternate methods for developing predicate logic, the theory of definability, and the theory of principal models and infinite formulas. Appendices deal with some additional matters of philosophic interest, including a detailed discussion of set-theoretic vs. combinatorial foundations of mathematics. The book lacks an index and a bibliography, but these are not serious defects. This is a highly rewarding work.—H. P. K.