Parsons Mathematical Thought: Sec. 51, Predicativity and inductive definitions

The final section of Ch. 8 sits rather uneasily with what’s gone before. The preceding sections are about arithmetic and ordinary arithmetic induction, while this one briskly touches on issues arising from Feferman’s work on predicative analysis, and iterating reflection into the transfinite. It also considers whether there is a sense in which a rather different (and stronger) theory given by Paul Lorenzen some fifty years ago can also be called ‘predicative’. There is a page here reminding us of something of the historical genesis of the notion of predicativity: but there is nothing, I think, in this section which helps us get any clearer about the situation with arithmetic, the main concern of the chapter. So I’ll say no more about it.

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