This 2001 book will appeal to mathematicians and philosophers interested in the foundations of mathematics.

Presents a detailed and critical examination of the available conceptions of set and proposes a novel version.

This book provides an introduction to axiomatic set theory and descriptive set theory. It is written for the upper level undergraduate or beginning graduate students to help them prepare for advanced study in set theory and mathematical logic as well as other areas of mathematics, such as analysis, topology, and algebra.The book is designed as a flexible and accessible text for a one-semester introductory course in set theory, where the existing alternatives may be more demanding or specialized. Readers will learn the universally accepted basis of the field, with several popular topics added as an option. Pointers to more advanced study are scattered throughout the text.

This edited work presents contemporary mathematical practice in the foundational mathematical theories, in particular set theory and the univalent foundations. It shares the work of significant scholars across the disciplines of mathematics, philosophy and computer science. Readers will discover systematic thought on criteria for a suitable foundation in mathematics and philosophical reflections around the mathematical perspectives. The volume is divided into three sections, the first two of which focus on the two most prominent candidate theories for a foundation of mathematics. Readers may trace current research in set theory, which has widely been assumed to serve as a framework for foundational issues, as well as new material elaborating on the univalent foundations, considering an approach based on homotopy type theory (HoTT). The third section then builds on this and is centred on philosophical questions connected to the foundations of mathematics. Here, the authors contribute to discussions on foundational criteria with more general thoughts on the foundations of mathematics which are not connected to particular theories. This book shares the work of some of the most important scholars in the fields of set theory (S. Friedman), non-classical logic (G. Priest) and the philosophy of mathematics (P. Maddy). The reader will become aware of the advantages of each theory and objections to it as a foundation, following the latest and best work across the disciplines and it is therefore a valuable read for anyone working on the foundations of mathematics or in the philosophy of mathematics.

"This accessible approach to set theory for upper-level undergraduates poses rigorous but simple arguments. Each definition is accompanied by commentary that motivates and explains new concepts. A historical introduction is followed by discussions of classes and sets, functions, natural and cardinal numbers, the arithmetic of ordinal numbers, and related topics. 1971 edition with new material by the author"--

This text is formulated on the fundamental idea that much of mathematics, including the classical number systems, can best be based on set theory. 1961 edition.