A theory of properties

Abstract

Frege's attempts to formulate a theory of properties to serve as a foundation for logic, mathematics and semantics all dissolved under the weight of the logicial paradoxes. The language of Frege's theory permitted the representation of the property which holds of everything which does not hold of itself. Minimal logic, plus Frege's principle of abstraction, leads immediately to a contradiction. The subsequent history of foundational studies was dominated by attempts to formulate theories of properties and sets which would not succumb to the Russell argument. Among such are Russell's simple theory of types and the development of various iterative conceptions of set. All of these theories ban, in one way or another, the self-reference responsible for the paradoxes; in this sense they are all “typed” theories. The semantical paradoxes, involving the concept of truth, induced similar nightmares among philosophers and logicians involved in semantic theory. The early work of Tarski demonstrated that no language that contained enough formal machinery to respresent the various versions of the Liar could contain a truth-predicate satisfying all the Tarski biconditionals. However, recent work in both disciplines has led to a re-evaluation of the limitations imposed by the paradoxes.In the foundations of set theory, the work of Gilmore [1974], Feferman [1975], [1979], [1984], and Aczel [1980] has clearly demonstrated that elegant and useful type-free theories of classes are feasible. Work on the semantic paradoxes was given new life by Kripke's contribution (Kripke [1975]). This inspired the recent work of Gupta [1982] and Herzberger [1982]. These papers demonstrate that much room is available for the development of theories of truth which meet almost all of Tarski's desiderata.