1. Introduction
Modal logic is a branch of formal logic with a wide variety of applications in philosophy, computer science, linguistics, economics, and other fields. In Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013), Timothy Williamson applies first-order modal logic as well as some of its higher order extensions to metaphysics. One of the primary roles which modal logic serves in this book is as a regimented language in which various metaphysical theses are formulated. This use is best illustrated with an example.
The overall aim of Williamson's book is to defend necessitism, the view, roughly, that it is necessary what there is. More explicitly, one might describe it as the view that nothing could have failed to be anything, and that this is necessarily so, i.e. as the view that necessarily, everything is necessarily something. For various reasons, such as to rule out ambiguities, it can be helpful to formulate such views in a formal language. Williamson formulates necessitism in first-order modal logic as follows:
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The role of the formula in Williamson's discussion is not just as an aid to understanding the natural language statement of necessitism given before, e.g. by indicating how to resolve potential scope ambiguities. Rather,
on its own is intended to be a statement of the view of necessitism. So, in addition to having formal properties such as being derivable in certain calculi but not others, and being valid on certain model theories but not others,
also needs to be endowed with meaning just as the English sentences of this article are endowed with meaning. Williamson's use of
therefore presupposes an intended interpretation of the formal language of first-order modal logic. In keeping with the variety of uses to which modal logics can be put, this need not be distinguished among various other possible interpretations of the language; it must only be isolated for the particular discussion in Williamson's book.
Williamson specifies his intended interpretation of first-order modal logic by saying that he intends quantifiers to be read unrestrictedly, and modal operators as expressing metaphysical necessity and possibility; he assumes that the intended interpretation of the identity connective and the Boolean operators is clear. This stipulation is of course not uncontroversial, as the intelligibility of both unrestricted quantification and the metaphysical interpretation of modal expressions have been questioned. Even more controversially, Williamson extends his intended interpretation to higher order modal logic by claiming that there is a way of interpreting higher order quantifiers analogously to the unrestricted interpretation of first-order quantifiers. This interpretation is neither to be understood in terms of our informal talk of properties and relations nor in terms of any set-theoretic model theory. For the purposes of this article, it will be assumed that with these stipulations, Williamson has succeeded in singling out an intended interpretation for first- and higher order modal logic; for further discussion, see Williamson (Reference Williamson2003). In the following, talk of properties and relations will sometimes be used as informal glosses of what should properly be formulated in higher order logic; the term individual will be used to indicate first-order quantification. Thus, sets will be understood to be individuals. This is worth noting since in impure set theory, the term individual is sometimes used for non-sets (also called urelemente).
The intended interpretation described so far does not provide any interpretation of non-logical constants. So, while closed formulas without non-logical constants, such as , are given an intended interpretation, closed formulas with non-logical constants are only partially interpreted. However, such formulas at least receive an intended interpretation relative to an interpretation of the non-logical constants occurring in it. (As noted below, quantification over such interpretations can be understood in terms of higher order quantification.) Consequently, the intended interpretation also determines which formulas are true on every interpretation of the non-logical constants (and the intended interpretation of the logical constants). Williamson calls these formulas metaphysically universal. Let
be the set of metaphysically universal formulas of first-order modal logic. (The formal language will be specified more precisely below). Analogously, let
be the relation which relates a set of closed formulas of first-order modal logic to a single such formula just in case the latter is true on any interpretation of non-logical constants on which all members of the former are true; of course, this closely corresponds what Tarski (Reference Tarski2002 [1936]) calls the relation of following logically. Whatever one calls
and
, Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 92) observes that their investigation has to be carried out.
Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 145) tentatively suggests an argument for the claim that is determined by a certain kind of Kripke frame for first-order modal logic consisting of two infinite sets. In the usual terminology, one of these sets is the domain of quantification and the other the set of worlds. The frames have no varying domain function since Williamson holds that it is a necessary matter what individuals there are; similarly, they have no accessibility relation since he holds that it is a necessary matter whether a given proposition is necessary. (Williamson's endorsement of the latter is in fact rather tentative, but since this won’t be criticized in the following, there is no harm in exploring a position which might be somewhat stronger than Williamson's own.) Such a frame determines a set of closed formulas of first-order modal logic as the set of such formulas which are true in every world of every model based on it, on the usual definitions of model and truth (defined more explicitly below). It is easy to see that only the cardinalities of the two sets making up a given frame matter for which set of formulas it determines. Thus, any two infinite cardinals
can be understood as directly determining a set of closed formulas of first-order modal logic; call it
. Here,
indicates the cardinality of the domain of quantification and
is the cardinality of the set of worlds; we might therefore read ‘
’ as ‘the logic of
individuals and
worlds.’ Williamson's argument aims to establish that
for some infinite cardinals
and
. The analogous definition of a consequence relation
raises the question whether
for some infinite cardinals
and
.
As Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 144) notes, one might conjecture that is uniquely determined by the claim that
for some infinite cardinals
and
, using some modal analog of the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem. And indeed, an analog of the downward Löwenheim–Skolem theorem was already proven in Kripke (Reference Kripke1959, 7), from which it follows that
. However, Kripke's result does not establish the converse containment. In fact, as Williamson points out, this is not the case, as
(which might be read as saying that every individual could be the unique U) can only be verified by a model based on a frame in which there are at least as many worlds as individuals, and so that the negation of this formula is a member of
just in case
. On the one hand, this shows that
and
depend on the choice of
and
; on the other hand, it is clear by cardinality considerations that many pairs of infinite cardinals
determine the same sets
and
.
How exactly do and
depend on
and
? This is the question to be investigated in Section 2. It turns out that
and
are uniquely determined by the condition that
, but sensitive to the cardinalities of
and
if
, with the different pairs of infinite cardinals determining infinitely many different logics. Furthermore, in some instances, whether two such pairs determine the same logic depends on set-theoretic principles which are likely not to be settled by first-order
. This section is of independent interest; as will become clear, it could be reformulated in terms of extensions of the standard Löwenheim–Skolem theorem to first-order modal logic on the present model theory. Section 3 returns to Williamson's argument that
is given by a pair of infinite cardinals. Some difficulties in evaluating one of the argument's premises will be raised, and it will be noted that the argument relies on worlds being individuals. The main contribution of this section is to show how to dispense with this last assumption, independently of any particular understanding of possible worlds.
Metaphysical universality is a simple and natural way of understanding logical validity and consequence. In the case of non-modal first-order logic, there are well-developed arguments which uniquely determine the set of metaphysically universal sentences, namely those derivable in a standard calculus extended by an axiom schema which says that there are at least n individuals, for each (Friedman Reference Friedman1999; Williamson Reference Williamson2000a; Rayo and Williamson Reference Rayo, Williamson and Beall2003); model-theoretically, this is the set of sentences valid on any fixed infinite set, or the class of all infinite sets. Williamson's necessary framework of objects (Williamson Reference Williamson2000b; Reference Williamson2013, Section 8.1), according to which it is necessary what individuals there are as well as necessary which propositions are necessary, is the strongest and simplest non-trivial theory of modal metaphysics available. The results below show that even on this assumption, the addition of necessity to first-order logic turns determining the set of metaphysically universal sentences into an extremely difficult issue; doing so involves not only settling difficult questions in metaphysics, concerning the relative numbers of worlds and individuals, but potentially also difficult questions in set theory or higher order logic. In general, such questions only become harder if the necessary framework of objects is rejected (although particular metaphysical assumptions might of course settle the matter). On the present way of understanding of logical validity and consequence, first-order modal logic is therefore far less well understood than first-order non-modal logic.
2. Set-theoretic models
To specify the formal languages under consideration more precisely, fix a countably infinite set V of individual variables and a relational signature containing a countable infinity of relation symbols for each finite arity. Let
be a standard first-order modal language with identity based on V and
. As explained above, it will be assumed that there is an intended interpretation of this language, on which quantifiers are interpreted unrestrictedly, and
as expressing metaphysical necessity. Let an
-theory be a set of
-sentences (closed
-formulas), and an
-sequent a tuple
consisting of an
-theory
and an
-sentence
. Call an
-sentence metaphysically universal if it is true on every interpretation assigning an n-ary relation to each n-ary relation symbol in
; call an
-sequent
metaphysically universal if on every such interpretation, all elements of
are true only if
is true. Let
be the set of metaphysically universal
-sentences and
the set of metaphysically universal
-sequents.
The notion of an interpretation of the relation symbols of appealed to in the definition of metaphysical universality is informal, but – it will be assumed in the following – nonetheless rigorous. The definition can be formalized in a higher order metalanguage, along the lines of Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, Section 5.7), and this can be carried over to the extension of
by second-order quantifiers, interpreting such quantifiers homophonically. Since the relevant metalanguage is always of a higher order than the object language under consideration, the assumption that the resulting truth predicates are transparent does not conflict with Tarksi's undefinability theorem.
Assume the truth of first-order (interpreting quantifiers as implicitly restricted to the pure sets) and the von Neumann construction of ordinals, on which every ordinal is the set of ordinals smaller than it. Let a
be a pair
of non-empty (pure) sets; informally, D and W will be called the sets of ‘individuals’ and ‘worlds, ’ respectively. Let a Kripke model based on
be a tuple
, where i is a function mapping each n-ary relation symbol in
to a function mapping each
to a set i(R)(w) of n-tuples on D, and
; informally, i and @ will be called the ‘interpretation function’ and the ‘actual world’, respectively. As usual, the interpretation of unary relations will be simplified by identifying any individual with its singleton sequence. Truth of an
-formula
in
is defined as usual relative to an element
and an assignment function
, written
. (Note that frames do not contain an accessibility relation, so
is true in a world if
is true in every world; similarly, there is no relativization of the domain of first-order quantifiers to worlds.) From this, truth of a sentence
in
is derived as
for all assignments a, and written
. A Kripke model of an
-theory
is a Kripke model in which all members of
are true.
is satisfiable on a frame
if there is a Kripke model of
based on
. Here and in the following, any notion – such as being satisfiable – is extended from theories to sentences, treating a sentence as its singleton.
A frame naturally determines a logic (a set of sentences) and a consequence relation (a set of sequents), by counting a sentence as valid if it is true in all models based on
, and a sequent as valid if its conclusion is true in all models based on
in which all of its premises are true. Any frames with the same numbers of individuals and worlds will determine the same logic and the same consequence relation, so define, for any cardinals
and
,
to be the set of
-sequents
such that
for all Kripke models
of
on
, and define
to be the set of
-sentences
such that
. (As usual, cardinals are taken to be initial ordinals.) Thus
and
can informally be thought of as the logic and consequence relation of frames with
individuals and
worlds.
2.1. Reduction
To investigate the space of logics and consequence relations and
for infinite cardinals
and
, membership in
and
will first be reduced to the so-called two-cardinal problem in model theory. As the two-cardinal problem has been investigated extensively, this relatively simple reduction immediately gives rise to a number of corollaries which would be extremely difficult to prove directly. Such corollaries will then be used to lay out the basic features of the space of logics and consequence relations determined by pairs of infinite cardinals, including results on compactness and recursive enumerability.
Let be the language of (non-modal) first-order logic with identity based on
and V. Let a model be a tuple
where D is a non-empty set and e is a function which maps every n-ary relation symbol R of
to a set e(R) of n-tuples on D; informally, D and e will be called the set of ‘individuals’ and the ‘interpretation function, ’ respectively. Truth of an
-formula
in
is defined as usual relative to an assignment function
, written
. From this, truth of a sentence
in
is derived as
for all assignments a, and written
. An
-theory is a set of sentences of
; an
-sequent is a tuple
consisting of an
-theory
and an
-sentence
. A model of an
-theory
is a model in which all members of
are true.
To state the two-cardinal problem, fix a unary relation symbol U of , and say that an
-theory
admits
, for cardinals
and
, if there is a model
of
such that
and
. The two-cardinal problem is to determine under which conditions an
-theory admitting a given pair of infinite cardinals admits another given pair of infinite cardinals. One might think of this as the problem of extending the standard Löwenheim–Skolem theorem to the case of two cardinals, one for the domain and one for the interpretation of U; this was in fact how Robert Vaught introduced the problem (Morley and Vaught Reference Morley and Vaught1962, Section 6). Let
be the set of
-theories admitting
, and
.
From now on, let ,
,
,
, etc. always be infinite cardinals. The following two elementary facts for any
-theory
will be required:
-
Fact (i). If
admits
and
, then
admits
.
-
Fact (ii). If
admits
then
admits
.
They can be derived from the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem for first-order logic; proofs can be found in Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Proposition 3.2.7 (i) and (ii)).
Membership in and
is straightforwardly reduced to satisfiability on
:
Lemma 1: Let be an
-sequent.
(i)
if and only if
is not satisfiable on
.
(ii)
if and only if
is not satisfiable on
.
Proof: Immediate.
This lemma makes the connection to extensions of the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem precise. It should be noted that the particular class of Kripke models used here matters. E.g. if an accessibility relation and variable individual domains were introduced, it would be straightforward to prove that the same -theories can be satisfied on all pairs of infinite cardinals, since one could always add an unconnected world with an arbitrary number of new individuals. Of course, there are also more interesting questions one could pose in such a setting; see, e.g. Bowen (Reference Bowen1979, Chapter 5). Such variant classes of models won’t be considered in the following. Similarly, it is also essential to the results established below exactly which resources are available in
. E.g. adding further modal operators, such as explicit quantifiers over worlds, would substantially change the dependence of
and
on
and
.
The main results to be established in this section are Theorems 3 and 6. The first reduces an -theory being satisfiable on
to a corresponding
-theory being a member of
, and the second reduces an
-theory being a member of
to a corresponding
-theory being satisfiable on
. With various two-cardinal results from model theory, these two theorems will entail many useful corollaries, which will be derived in the two subsequent sections. To prove Theorems 3 and 6, observe first that since in any Kripke model, adding any number of copies of one of its worlds doesn’t change which
-sentences are true in it, increasing the number of worlds in a frame doesn’t destroy satisfiability:
Lemma 2: If then any
-theory satisfiable on
is satisfiable on
.
Proof: Assume and let
be an
-theory satisfiable on
. Let
be a Kripke model of
. Define
such that for all relation symbols R in
and
,
It is routine to show that for all -sentences
,
if and only if
, and so that
is a Kripke model of
.
The syntactic mapping from -theories to
-theories used in Theorem 3 is a version of the so-called standard translation, which translates necessity as explicit universal quantification (informally, over worlds). To do so, the arity of each relation symbol is increased by one, and each atomic predication is translated by adding a special variable
to the arguments (which can informally be understood as recording the world of evaluation). Necessity is translated using a universal quantifier binding
, restricted to a new relation symbol U (informally, the worlds). Quantifiers are translated by restricting them to the negation of U (informally, the individuals). Using this recursive translation, which will be called
, the present version of the standard translation, called
, is derived in a second step using a new unary relation symbol A (which informally can be understood as identifying the actual world):
is the sentence which says that there is a unique U which is A, and letting
be this element,
is true.
To define this procedure more precisely, fix a unary relation symbol A of which is distinct from U, and
. Let
be an injection which maps every n-ary relation symbol of
to an
-ary relation symbol of
, and every element of V to an element of V, such that none of U, A, and
are in its image. Extend
to a mapping from
-formulas to
-formulas using the following recursion clauses:
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For any -sentence
, define
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and extend in the obvious way to any
-theory
:
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.
To prove Theorem 3, two model transformations corresponding to the syntactic mapping will be used, transforming a Kripke model into a corresponding model, and vice versa:
Theorem 3: For any -theory
,
is satisfiable on
if and only if
.
Proof: Let ; otherwise, the claim is trivial. Assume first that
is satisfiable on
, witnessed by
. Writing
for the disjoint union of sets X and Y, let
be a model such that
,
, and
for any n-ary relation symbol R in
. A routine induction on the complexity of formulas establishes that for all
-sentences
,
if and only if
. So
admits
and thus is a member of
.
Assume now that . Then for some
,
admits
. By Fact (i),
admits
. Let
be a witness such that
. Let
be a Kripke model such that for every n-ary relation symbols R in
and
,
, and @ is such that
(recall that
is non-empty). Again, a routine induction on the complexity of formulas establishes that for all
-sentences
,
if and only if
. So
is satisfiable on
, and thus by Lemma 2,
is satisfiable on
.
For Theorem 6, a complementary mapping from -sentences to
-sentences will be used. The idea behind this translation is to add two constraints: on the one hand, for there to be at least as many worlds as Us, and on the other hand, for there to be infinitely many Us. The first can be achieved by stating that each U is possibly the unique U. To achieve the second, a new relation symbol R will be used, stating that it is a serial, transitive, and asymmetric on U.
More precisely, let be an injection which maps every n-ary relation symbol of
to an n-ary relation symbol of
distinct from R, and which maps U to itself. Extend
to a function from
-formulas to
-formulas which only replaces a relation symbol F by
. For any
-sentence
, define
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,
where and
are the following
-sentences:
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As with , extend
in the obvious way to any
-theory
:
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.
To prove Theorem 6, two auxiliary lemmas are established:
Lemma 4: For any -theory
, if
admits
then
is satisfiable on
.
Proof: Assume that admits
, witnessed by a model
. Let
(using ordinal addition) be a Kripke model such that for all
,
,
, and, for any relation symbol F in
,
. It is routine to show that for any
-sentence
,
if and only if
, and so that
is a Kripke model of
. Since
,
is satisfiable on
.
Lemma 5: For any -theory
, if
is satisfiable on
then
admits
for some
.
Proof: Let ; otherwise, the claim is trivial. Let
be a Kripke model witnessing that
is satisfiable on
. Define a model
by letting
for any relation symbol F in
.
is a model of
. Furthermore, by
,
, and by
,
(recall that
).
Theorem 6: For any -theory
,
if and only if
is satisfiable on
.
Proof: Assume first that . Then there is a
such that
admits
. If
, then note that by Fact(ii),
admits
, and so by Lemma 4,
is satisfiable on
, and so by Lemma 2,
is satisfiable on
. If
, then
, so
admits
. So by Lemma 4,
is satisfiable on
and thus by Lemma 2,
is satisfiable on
.
Assume now that is satisfiable on
. Then by Lemma 5,
admits
for some
. If
, then note that by Fact (ii),
admits
, and since then
,
admits
and thus
. If
, then
, so
admits
, and thus
.
2.2. Logics and consequence relations
A helpful way of mapping out the logics and consequence relations determined by pairs of infinite cardinals, which also lends itself to reformulations in terms of analogs of the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem, is to establish conditions under which one is contained in another. Using Theorems 3 and 6, this can be reduced to the two-cardinal problem:
(i)
if and only if
.
(ii)
if and only if for every
-sentence
, if
then
Proof: (i) If , then by Lemma 1, there is an
-theory
which is satisfiable on
but not satisfiable on
. By Theorem 3,
and
, so
.
If , then there is an
-theory
such that
and
. By Theorem 6,
is satisfiable on
but not satisfiable on
, so by Lemma 1,
.
(ii) Analogous.
As a first corollary, it follows immediately that a frame in which there are at least as many worlds as individuals determines the unique weakest logic and consequence relation determined by any pair of infinite cardinals:
Corollary 8: If then
(and so
).
Proof: Assume . Fact (ii) entails that for any
-theory
, if
then
admits
, and therefore
. So
and therefore, with Theorem 7,
.
A second corollary follows from the so-called infinite gap two-cardinal theorem, due to Vaught (Reference Vaught, Addison, Henkin and Tarski1965a) (see also Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Theorem 7.2.6)), which entails that if a theory admits which are sufficiently far apart, it admits
. For this and the next few corollaries, two precise notions of distance among cardinals are required; one is in terms of successor cardinals, and one in terms of the powerset operation. So define, for any ordinal
,
and
as follows:
;
and
; and, if
is a limit ordinal,
and
. The relevant consequence of the infinite gap two-cardinal theorem can now formulated as saying that an
-theory admitting
also admits
(for
). It follows that any frame in which there are sufficiently more individuals than worlds determines the unique strongest logic and consequence relation determined by any pair of infinite cardinals:
Corollary 9: If , then
(and so
).
Proof: Let , and consider any
. Then there is a
such that
admits
. By Fact (i),
admits
(as
,
). By the infinite gap two-cardinal theorem,
admits
, and therefore
. Hence
and therefore by Theorem 7,
.
An immediate consequence of these two corollaries is that if , then
, and if
, then
, and analogously for the corresponding logics. To have non-arbitrary ways of referring to these, call them
/
and
/
, respectively.
What the first two corollaries leave open are and
where
; call these ‘intermediate.’ The following two corollaries show that in this intermediate region, the comparative cardinalities matter; furthermore, in case the generalized continuum hypothesis (abbreviated
, the claim that
for all ordinals
) fails, they show that both the comparison in terms of successor cardinals and the comparison in terms of the powerset operation matter.
Corollary 10: For each ,
(and so
).
Proof: There is an -sentence
which admits, for every
,
but not
(such a sentence is specified in the proof of Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Proposition 3.2.7 (iii), attributed to Raphael Robinson, unpublished)). So
admits
and thus
. Assume for contradiction that
. Then there is a
such that
admits
,
and so by Fact (i), admits
(since
,
).
, so
. Thus
and
. With Theorem 6, it follows that
is satisfiable on
but not
, and so that
witnesses
.
While (Chang and Keisler Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Proposition 3.2.7 (iv), attributed to Michael Morley, unpublished) record the existence of an -theory which admits, for every
,
but not
, the construction of such a theory is left as an exercise to the reader. To ensure that the corresponding analog to Corollary 10 holds for logics, not just consequence relations, the following lemma shows that there is a finite such theory.
Lemma 11: For each , there is an
-sentence
which admits, for every
,
but not
.
Proof: The following illustrates the proof for ; the general case is obtained by iterating the construction. Let R be a binary and B a ternary relation symbol of
. Let
be the following
-sentence, which requires R to be a linear order and B to induce, for every x, an injection from the elements R-related to x to U:
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admits
: Interpreting R as the standard order on ordinals. For each
, choose an injection
(which exists since
), and interpret B to relate abc just in case
.
does not admit
: Assume R is interpreted as a linear order, and let a be an element which is above
elements in this order (such an element must exist for cardinality reasons). Thus there can be no injection from these elements to
, and so no interpretation verifying
.
Corollary 12: For each ,
(and so
).
Proof: Analogous to the proof of Corollary 10, using Lemma 11.
In this proof, witnesses
. What does this sentence look like? Apart from relabeling R in
,
conjoins
with two
-sentences
and
which can informally be understood as requiring there to be infinitely many Us and there to be a world corresponding to each U. The most straightforward way of understanding how
imposes a constraint on the relation between cardinalities of individuals and worlds is in two steps, one imposing a constraint on the relation between cardinalities of individuals and Us and one imposing a constraint on the relation between cardinalities of Us and worlds. This line of thought applies as well to the witnesses used in the proof of Corollary 10 above and the proofs of several further corollaries below.
Especially without the , the last two corollaries show that the intermediate region exhibits interesting structure. The following two corollaries impose two basic containment properties on the whole space, and so in particular on this intermediate region. The first simply applies the earlier observation that satisfiability can’t be destroyed by increasing the number of worlds; the second notes that it can also not be destroyed by reducing the number of individuals:
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Corollary 13: If then
(and so
).
Proof: By Lemmas 1 and 2.
Corollary 14: If then
(and so
).
Proof: Let . Then
, so, by Fact (i), for all
,
. So
, and therefore, by Theorem 7,
.
The following diagram summarizes the positive corollaries obtained so far for logics and consequence relations determined by a pair of cardinals in the -series:
The two curves in the diagram divide the space of logics and consequence relations it represents into the region of , which includes those on the diagonal line, the shaded intermediate region, and the region of
, which includes those on the vertical lines.
marks the containment properties along both axes established in the last two corollaries. It should be noted that the diagram might be misleading in two respects: First, it only records pairs of cardinals in the
-series, so unless the
is true, it does not represent all pairs of infinite cardinals. Second, although the shaded area and lines suggest continuity, the represented space is obviously discrete. Not represented in the diagram is Corollary 10, which entails that any two represented consequence relations in the intermediate region are distinct if they, as one might say, differ in how far they are from the diagonal.
Assuming the , every intermediate consequence relations is identical to
for some
and
. One might conjecture that in this case, at least the choice of
does not matter. But it turns out that this conjecture is unlikely to be settled by
, even assuming the
: On the one hand, the conjecture follows from
, the axiom of constructibility, which entails the
. On the other hand, given the consistency of a very mild large cardinal hypothesis,
is consistent with the negation of the conjecture.
For the first of these observation, the conjecture will be derived from the so-called gap n conjecture, which says that every -theory admitting
also admits
. According to Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, 524), that this holds for all
was shown to follow from
in unpublished work by Ronald Jensen. (Details of the gap 1 case can be found in Björn Jensen (Reference Jensen1972); details of the gap 2 case and a sketch of the gap n case can be found in Devlin (Reference Devlin1984, Chapter VIII).)
Corollary 15: If , then for all
,
(and so
).
Proof: Assume and
. Then
admits
for some
, and thus
by Fact (i). So by the gap n conjecture,
admits
and therefore
. So
, and thus, with Theorem 7,
. By symmetry,
.
Assuming , the logics and consequence relations therefore form
-chains, linearly ordered by the proper subset relation, and determined by the following sequence of pairs of cardinals:
The second observation is based on a consistency proof of the failure of the gap 2 conjecture due to Jack Silver. This proof uses an -sentence k which admits
if and only if a certain claim
holds. (
states the existence of a so-called Kurepa tree satisfying certain properties in terms of
. A sketch of the construction of k can be found in Vaught (Reference Vaught and Bar-Hillel1965b), see also the discussion in Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, 527).) Using
and
(as in Lemma 11), this can be turned into a sentence which is a member of
if and only if
fails:
Lemma 16: if and only if
.
Proof: if and only if
is not satisfiable on
. By Theorem 6, this is the case if and only if
. Since
does not admit
for any
, this is equivalent to the claim that k does not admit
, which, as noted, is the case if and only if
.
On the assumption that is consistent with the existence of two uncountable inaccessible cardinals, Silver (Reference Silver and Scott1971) has proven that
is consistent with
as well as consistent with
. Thus on this assumption,
neither settles whether
is a member of
, nor whether it is a member of
, nor whether these logics are the same:
Corollary 17: If is consistent with the existence of two uncountable inaccessible cardinals, then
is consistent with (i) as well as consistent with (ii):
(i)
(and so
)
(ii)
(and so
)
Proof: Immediate by Lemma 16 and the result mentioned above.
In the same way, an analogous negative result for and
can be derived, and the independence of
from
(rather than
) can be obtained from the slightly weaker assumption that
is consistent with the existence of one uncountable inaccessible cardinal. (See Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, 527–528), who attribute the relevant results to Silver and Robert Solovay.)
Some particular positive results have been obtained in the case of the gap 1 conjecture, which lead to some particular positive corollaries for logics and consequence relations determined by pairs of infinite cardinals , although negative results are also available for such pairs. The first positive corollary is based on what is known as Vaught's Two-Cardinal Theorem:
Corollary 18: If , then
(and so
).
Proof: As proven in Morley and Vaught (Reference Morley and Vaught1962, Theorem 6.2) (see also Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Theorem 3.2.9)), for all ,
, so
, and thus by Theorem 7,
.
Using what is known as Chang's Two-Cardinal Theorem, this first positive corollary leads to a second one:
Corollary 19: If the holds and
is regular, then
(and so
).
Proof: As proven in Chang (Reference Chang1965) (see also Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Theorem 7.2.7)), , so
, and thus by Theorem 7,
. With Corollary 18, the claim follows.
The relevant negative results depend on large cardinal assumptions which are stronger than those used in the gap 2 case. Similar to the use of Kurepa trees in the gap 2 case, they use so-called special -Aronszajn trees, whose existence will be written as
. Again, there is an
-sentence a which admits
if and only if
(a construction is given in Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, 7.2.11); the observation that such a sentence exists is attributed to Frederick Rowbottom and Silver, independently and unpublished).
Lemma 20: if and only if
.
Proof: Analogous to Lemma 16.
While holds, the consistency of
with the existence of a Mahlo cardinal entails the consistency of
with
, and the consistency of
with the existence of a supercompact cardinal entails the consistency of
with
(see Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, 7.2.10. (i), 7.2.12. (i) & (iii)), who attribute these results to Nachman Aronszajn, Mitchell (Reference Mitchell1972) and Shelah (Reference Shelah, Boffa, van Dalen and McAloon1979)). Thus:
(i) If
is consistent with the existence of a Mahlo cardinal, then
is consistent with
(and so
).
(ii) If
is consistent with the existence of a supercompact cardinal, then
is consistent with
(and so
).
Proof: Immediate by Lemma 20 and the results mentioned above.
2.3. Axiomatizations
If it could be argued that is given by a particular pair
, it would be interesting to specify it using a standard axiomatic calculus. This requires (i)
to be compact, (ii)
to satisfy the deduction/detachment property, and (iii)
to be recursively enumerable. (ii) is easily seen to hold in general:
Proposition 22: if and only if
.
Proof: Routine.
This raises the question which pairs of infinite cardinals determine compact consequence relations, and which determine recursively enumerable logics. For those pairs that satisfy both conditions, it is also interesting to consider whether there are any natural axiomatizations of the logics they determine. The next result shows that all of this is easily done in the case of . For concreteness, the construction will be based on the axiomatization described in Hughes and Cresswell (Reference Hughes and Cresswell1996, Chapter 13), which will be called
. Its theorems are the same as those of the system which was presented in a more compressed manner in Kripke (Reference Kripke1959), and there proven to be sound and complete with respect to the class of all frames.
Theorem 23: Let be the result of adding the following axiom schema to
:
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Let be the set of sequents
such that
is derivable in
for some finite
.
.
Proof: If , then
, so there is no finite
such that
is derivable in
, and so no such sentence is derivable in
either. Thus by the adequacy of
(Hughes and Cresswell Reference Hughes and Cresswell1996, Chapter 14),
is satisfiable on a frame, which must contain infinitely many individuals. By Corollaries 13 and 8, this can be assumed to be
, so
.
Since the axioms of are valid on all frames, and the instances of
are valid on
, the axioms of
are valid on
. The validities on
are easily seen to be closed under the rules of
(necessitation, modus ponens, and a version of universal generalization). Thus all sentences provable in
are valid on
. Now, if
, then
is derivable in
for some finite
. Consider any model of
based on
; this must be a model of
, and so a model of
, hence
.
In case , the issues are more subtle. Theorems 3 and 6 allow us to derive a number of results on compactness and recursive enumerability. Starting with compactness, they yield the following theorem, which reduces the compactness of
to a corresponding property for
:
Theorem 24: The followings are equivalent:
(i)
is compact.
(ii) If every finite subset of an
-theory
is a member of
then
.
Proof: Assume first that (ii) is not the case, witnessed by an -theory
. Then by Theorem 6,
is not satisfiable on
although all of its finite subsets are; thus
is not compact.
Assume now that is not compact, so there is an
-theory
which is not satisfiable on
although all of its finite subsets are. By Theorem 3, all finite subsets of
are members of
but
; thus (ii) is not the case.
For and
, results are available from which compactness follows:
Corollary 25: and
are compact.
Proof: As shown in Vaught (Reference Vaught, Addison, Henkin and Tarski1965a), if every finite subset of an -theory
admits
then
admits
; see also Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Theorem 7.2.6, Exercise 7.2.12). As shown in Morley and Vaught (Reference Morley and Vaught1962), if every finite subset of an
-theory
admits
then
admits
, see also Chang and Keisler (Reference Chang and Jerome Keisler1990, Exercise 3.2.13). The claim follows by Theorem 24.
No corresponding compactness results seem easily available for the remaining intermediate consequence relations. Indeed, Shelah (Reference Shelah, Baaz, Friedman and Krajíček2005) contains, for each , a consistency result for the existence of an
-theory which does not admit
although all of its finite subsets admit it. With Theorem 24, a corresponding consistency result for the incompactness of
, for
, follows.
The question of recursive enumerability can also be reduced to one which has been explored in model theory, using the standard notion of consistency in first-order non-modal logic:
Theorem 26: If there is a recursive -theory
such that for any
-sentence
,
is consistent if and only if
, then
is recursively enumerable.
Proof: Assume there is such a theory , and consider any
-sentence
.
iff
is not satisfiable on
. By Theorem 3, this is the case iff
. By assumption, this is the case iff
is inconsistent, which is the case iff
is derivable from
in a standard calculus for first-order logic. This yields a method for recursively enumerating
.
Corollary 27: and
are recursively enumerable.
Proof: For , let
and
. The existence of a set satisfying the condition on
in Theorem 26 follows from the corresponding two-cardinal theorem by Vaught (Reference Vaught, Addison, Henkin and Tarski1965a); explicit specifications of such sets are given in Barwise (Reference Barwise, Butts and Hintikka1977) and Schmerl (Reference Schmerl1977). In the case of
, the existence of a set satisfying the condition on
in Theorem 26 for
and
was noted in Vaught (Reference Vaught1964) based on results in Fuhrken (Reference Fuhrken1964); an explicit specification of such a set is given in Keisler (Reference Keisler1966). In each case, the recursive enumerability of the relevant set of theorems follows by Theorem 26.
As the preceding corollaries indicate, and
stand out as compact consequence relations whose corresponding logics are easily shown to be recursively enumerable. It would be interesting to develop axiomatizations for them as well. Indeed, these two stand out also in that any of the other logics and consequence relations are likely to be extremely difficult to axiomatize; recall that previous corollaries exhibited various potential failures of
(or even
) to decide membership in logics such as
,
and
.
is an infinitary axiomatization of
in the sense that it is obtained from
by adding an axiom schema with infinitely many instances. It turns out that this is an essential feature, in the sense that there is no finite set of axioms which added to
yields an axiomatization of
(even if a rule of substitution is added to
, which Hughes and Cresswell (Reference Hughes and Cresswell1996, Chapter 13) do not include). Moreover, this is the case for any logic
; in this sense, none of the logics under consideration here is finitely axiomatizable.
Without setting up the relevant variant of in detail, here is a sketch of the proof: Consider a model
based on
which interprets every n-ary relation symbol in
as the function mapping every element of
to
, the set of all n-tuples on
. For any
, define
to be such a model based on
, i.e. one which interprets every n-ary relation symbol in
as the function mapping every element of
to
. Using a back and forth system, it can be shown that any
-sentence of quantifier rank up to i is true in
if and only if it is true in
. (The relevant definitions can be adapted from Fritz (Reference Fritz2013).) Considering any finite set
, let i be the maximum of the quantifier ranks of its members. Since
verifies all members of
, so does
. All axioms
are true in
(under any assignment function), and the
-formulas true in
(under any assignment function) are closed under the rules of
. But
, a sentence saying that there are at least
individuals, is not true in
. Thus
, which is a member of
, is not derivable in the axiomatization resulting from adding the members of
to
.
3. Metaphysical universality
Recall that the previous section developed the theory of logics and consequence relations determined by pairs of infinite cardinals on the assumption of first-order , a theory of pure sets. Since there are non-sets, there is no pure set containing all individuals, and so no intended frame, i.e. no frame
such that D is the set of individuals and W is the set of worlds. (Even in a variant model theory based on one of the usual extensions of
to impure sets, there is no intended frame, since there is no universal set.) An argument is therefore needed to show that
and
are determined by some pair of infinite cardinals. Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 117–118, 145) tentatively suggests such an argument, conditional on Premise 1, stated below.
The next section summarizes this argument, albeit somewhat loosely. The argument relies on two premises, which will be discussed in subsequent sections. On the one hand, some difficulties in evaluating the second premise of the argument will be raised. On the other hand, the first premise relies on the assumption that worlds are individuals; it will be shown how to eliminate this assumption.
3.1. Williamson's argument
Let be the extension of
by an infinite set of relational variables for each arity, as well as quantifiers binding them; let
be the corresponding extension of
. For any
-formula
, let
be the result of uniformly replacing each relation symbol in
by a distinct relational variable of appropriate arity, and prefixing the resulting formula by a string of universal quantifiers binding all of these variables; the result is an
-formula. Unless explicitly noted otherwise, first- and second-order quantifiers will be interpreted unrestrictedly, and
as expressing metaphysical necessity, as above. Thus, for any
-sentence
,
is a fully interpreted
-sentence. With this, the definition of
can be summarized as follows:
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is true
Recall that this truth predicate is assumed to be transparent, as third- and in general higher order quantifiers are assumed to be available in the metalanguage.
As in Section 2.1, let be an injection which maps every n-ary relation symbol of
to an
-ary relation symbol of
, and every element of V to an element of V, such that neither U nor
are in its image; this was extended to a version of the standard translation from
-formulas to
-formulas. Instead of this extension of
, the following will use a variant extension
which differs from the above extension of
only in that first-order quantifiers are not restricted to the negation of U. Thus, the most important clauses are:
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Extend the notation introduced above by writing
for the result of the same procedure, exempting U from being replaced by a variable and bound by a universal quantifier. Thus for any
-sentence
,
is an
-formula in which all relation symbols apart from U are interpreted, and no variable apart from
is free.
Premise 1: For any -sentence
,
is true iff
is true, interpreting U as being a world and
as the actual world.
Note that in the version of the standard translation used in this premise, the necessity operator is translated as a universal quantifier restricted to U, and first-order quantifiers are unchanged. In neither case is the relevant quantifier relativized to a condition formulated in terms of the variable representing the world of evaluation, so Premise 1 is where the assumptions of the necessity of what there is and what is necessary comes into the argument.
To state the second premise of the argument, say that an -theory is satisfiable on the intended interpretation if it is true on some interpretation of the non-logical constants, keeping the unrestricted interpretation of first- and second-order quantifiers. Say that such a such a theory is satisfiable on a set if it has a model in the standard set-theoretic semantics, according to which first-order quantifiers are interpreted as ranging over the members of a given set A, n-ary second-order quantifiers are interpreted as ranging over sets of n-tuples on A, and non-logical constants are interpreted accordingly.
-
Premise 2: Every
-theory satisfiable on the intended interpretation is satisfiable on a set.
Using these two premises, the argument runs as follows: By definition of , all members of
are true, so by Premise 1, all members of the
-theory
are true, interpreting U as being a world and
as the actual world. Thus
is satisfiable on the intended interpretation, and so by Premise 2 satisfiable on a set. In particular, there is a model
and assignment function a such that D is some cardinal
, e(U) is a cardinal
,
, and each member of
is true relative to
and a. To establish
, it now suffices to prove the following claim, which is routine: for any
-sentence
,
iff
is valid on
.
It should be noted that Williamson's argument only applies to . To turn it into an argument for the claim that
for some cardinals
and
, one could strengthen Premise 2 to apply to sentences of an extension of
which allows for suitably infinitary conjunctions. Although the following focuses on Williamson's original argument concerning
, much of it can be adapted to the case of
.
3.2. Premise 2: Kreisel's principle
A version of Premise 2 is discussed in Kreisel (Reference Kreisel and Lakatos1967), and investigated formally in Shapiro (Reference Shapiro1987), who calls it Kreisel's principle. Shapiro formalizes Kreisel's principle in the context of second-order . Williamson notes that Shapiro proves it to have a standard model satisfying second-order
, assuming that there are
inaccessible cardinals. However, such a semantic consistency proof does not establish the truth of the premise. Williamson also notes that Shapiro derives in second-order
that Kreisel's principle is equivalent to a certain reflection principle in second-order set theory. Such reflection principles have played an important role in modern set theory, and it has been suggested that adopting them can be justified on the basis of the iterative conception of set. However, some variants of such reflection principles have turned out to be inconsistent, and consequently, the status of the (as far as we know) consistent reflection principles is disputed, see, e.g. Koellner (Reference Koellner2009) for a recent overview.
Furthermore, it is not even clear that Shapiro's results apply to Premise 2 as used in Williamson's argument, since Shapiro (Reference Shapiro1987, 311) interprets all quantifiers to be restricted to pure sets, whereas Williamson appeals to an unrestricted reading of quantifiers. It is conceivable that Kreisel's principle holds on pure sets without holding in general, i.e. that every second-order theory satisfiable on the intended interpretation restricted to pure sets is satisfiable on a pure set even though there is some second-order theory satisfiable on the unrestricted intended interpretation which is not satisfiable on any pure (or even impure) set. Further assumptions of (impure) set theory are needed to show that this is not the case. Alternatively, one might directly endorse the relevant unrestricted version of the Kreisel Principle, which might turn out to be equivalent to a suitable reflection principle in impure set theory. Although reflection principles are usually discussed in the context of pure set theory, Burgess (Reference Burgess2004) introduces an impure set theory containing such a principle as one of its axioms.
3.3. Premise 1: worlds in higher order logic
Premise 1 captures the assumption that on a suitable understanding of possible worlds, necessity is equivalent to being true in all possible worlds. This won’t be questioned in the following. But Premise 1 also contains the assumption that possible worlds can be taken to be individuals, since replaces
by a restricted universal first-order quantifier. Maybe they can be so understood according to the modal realism of Lewis (Reference Lewis1986), but Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 17) explicitly rejects this view.
In line with a view which is perhaps more popular than modal realism (see, e.g. Stalnaker (Reference Stalnaker1976) and Fine (Reference Fine and Prior1977)), Williamson's treatment of possible world semantics in Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, Section 3.3) identifies possible worlds with possible propositions which are maximal in the sense of strictly entailing each proposition or its negation. Furthermore, in Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, Chapter 5), propositional quantification is treated as nullary second-order quantification, i.e. quantification into sentence position. It would therefore be natural for Williamson to treat quantification over worlds as restricted quantification into sentence position. He does not explicitly adopt this position in Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, Section 5.7), where he gives a homophonic interpretation of higher order modal logic. Rather, he leaves the understanding of worlds open by introducing a primitive type for worlds.
In the following, an argument will be sketched which shows that no matter how worlds are understood, Premise 1 can be adapted without loss of plausibility. For generality, will be extended by a type w for worlds, the interpretation of which will be left open. E.g. quantifiers binding variables of type w might be interpreted as propositional quantifiers restricted to propositions which are maximal in the sense described above. To define the syntax of this extended language
, let the type of a relational symbol be given by a finite sequence of es and ws, indicating that the symbol combines with a corresponding string of individual and world variables to form an atomic predication. E.g.
is the type of a relation symbol R which can be combined with two first-order variables x and y and a world variable
to form an atomic predication
. Based on a countably infinite supply of individual variables, world variables, as well as variables and constants of each relational type, which can be combined in the way just illustrated to form atomic predications, recursively define the formulas of
using Boolean operations as well as quantifiers binding first-order, world, and relational variables. However worlds are understood, worlds
and
are taken to be identical if they are indistinguishable in the sense that
, where X is a variable of type
.
To adapt Premise 1 to , let
be a version of the standard translation which differs from
in using a world variable
in place of the first-order variable
, and translating
using an unrestricted universal world-quantifier binding
:
-
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Of course, each n-ary relation symbol must now also be translated using an -ary relation symbol of type
. The required premise is then:
-
Premise 1a: For any
-sentence
,
is true iff
is true, interpreting
as the actual world.
Grant the truth of this premise for the sake of the argument – how to substantiate it will depend on the understanding of worlds. is in general a sentence of
rather than
, so the original argument using Premise 2 (Kreisel's principle) must be modified. The new argument distinguishes two cases: there being at least as many individuals as worlds, and there being more worlds than individuals.
Since set theory need not be applicable to worlds, how should this talk of ‘at least as many’ and ‘more’ be understood? There being at least as many individuals as worlds should be understood as there being an injective functional relation between worlds and individuals, and there being more words than individuals should be understood as there being no such relation. Here, quantification over relations between worlds and individuals should be understood as quantification binding variables of type , i.e. variables which combine with an expression of type w (denoting a world) and an expression of type e (denoting an individual) to form a sentence. For readability, the argument is written in English using phrases such as ‘relation between worlds and individuals, ’ rather than a formal higher order language, in which it would be expressed more properly.
-
Case 1: There are at least as many individuals as worlds; i.e. there is an injection i from worlds to individuals. For this case, the argument relies on the following premise:
-
Premise 1b: If there is an injection i from worlds to individuals, then for any
-sentence
,
is true, interpreting
as the actual world, iff
is true, interpreting U as the image of i and
as the image of the actual world under i.
This premise is motivated by the kind of unrestricted comprehension principle endorsed in Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, 227): with it, any sequence of relations witnessing the falsity of can be turned, via i into a counterexample of
, and vice versa. Premises 1a and 1b entail:
-
For any
-sentence
,
is true iff
is true, interpreting U as the image of i and
as the image of the actual world under i.
This claim can take the place of Premise 1 in the original argument.
-
Case 2: There are more worlds than individuals. (The following would also apply to the case in which there are as many worlds as individuals, but this is already covered by Case 1.) In this case, it will be shown that
, first showing
and then
.
Assume first that . Then by Theorem 23,
is derivable in
. With Premise 1c it follows that
, as required:
-
Premise 1c: For any
-sentence
, if
is derivable in
, then
is true.
A natural way of substantiating this premise is by an inductive argument over length of derivation in (a suitably modified version of) along the lines of the argument in Williamson (Reference Williamson2013, Section 3.3) for the propositional case.
For the other direction, it is helpful to establish an auxiliary claim for any given -sentence
. Assume that
is true, interpreting U as being an individual (and
as some particular individual – it does not matter which). On this interpretation,
is true, where
(interpreting
as identity). By Premise 2,
is therefore satisfiable on a cardinal
, interpreting U as a cardinal
. Thus
is valid on
, but
is not. Since
is not valid on
,
, and therefore
.
Contraposing this line of reasoning, if , then
is false, interpreting U as being an individual and
as some individual. With Premise 1d it follows that
is false, interpreting
as the actual world, and so, via Premise 1a, that
, as required:
-
Premise 1d: If there are more worlds than individuals, then for any
-sentence
, if
is false, interpreting U as being an individual and
as some individual, then
is false, interpreting
as the actual world.
This premise can be motivated by adapting the proof idea of Lemma 2: Since there are more worlds than individuals, there is a surjection s from worlds to individuals, mapping the actual world to the individual used to interpret . As in the argument for Premise 1b, given a sequence of relations which witnesses the falsity of
, the unrestricted comprehension principle allows us to construct, via s, a sequence of relations witnessing the falsity of
, interpreting
as the actual world.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jeremy Goodman and Timothy Williamson for comments on a draft, Øystein Linnebo, Beau Mount and Sam Roberts for discussions of Kreisel's principle, and audiences in Cambridge, Oxford, Paris and Montreal – especially my commentators, Michael Gabbay in Cambridge and Beau Mount in Oxford – for questions and comments.