Class choice and the surprising weakness of Kelley-Morse set theory

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Authors: Victoria Gitman, Joel David Hamkins, Thomas A. Johnstone
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Abstract

Kelley-Morse set theory KM is weaker than generally supposed and fails to prove several principles that may be desirable in a foundational second-order set theory. Even though KM includes the global choice principle, for example, (i) KM does not prove the class choice scheme, asserting that whenever every set $x$ admits a class $X$ with $φ(x,X)$, then there is a class $Z\subseteq V\times V$ for which $φ(x,Z_x)$ on every section. This scheme can fail with KM even in low-complexity first-order instances $φ$ and even when only a set of indices $x$ are relevant. For closely related reasons, (ii) the theory KM does not prove the Łoś theorem scheme for internal second-order ultrapowers, even for large cardinal ultrapowers, such as the ultrapower by a normal measure on a measurable cardinal. Indeed, the theory KM itself is not generally preserved by internal ultrapowers. Finally, (iii) KM does not prove that the $Σ^1_n$ logical complexity is invariant under first-order quantifiers, even bounded first-order quantifiers. For example, $\forall α{

Fields of Study & Subjects

Advanced Topology and Set Theory Mathematical and Theoretical Analysis Logic programming and type systems

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
30 January 2026
Document type
Preprint