Set Theory With a Filter Quantifier

The incompleteness of ZF set theory leads one to look for natural extensions of ZF in which one can prove statements independent of ZF which appear to be “true”. One approach has been to add large cardinal axioms. Or, one can investigate second-order expansions like Kelley-Morse class theory, KM. In this paper we look at a set theory ZF(aa), with an added quantifier aa which ranges over ordinals. The “aa” stands for “almost all”, and although we will consider interpretations in terms of the closed unbounded filter on a regular cardinal κ, we will consider other interpretations also. We start in §1 by giving the axioms for the theory ZF(aa) and presenting a completeness theorem which gives a model-theoretic definition of ZF(aa). In §2 we investigate set theory with a satisfaction predicate and interpret it in a fragment of ZF(aa). In §3 we generalize the methods of §2 to obtain a hierarchy of satisfaction predicates. We use these predicates to prove reflection theorems, as well as to prove the consistency of certain fragments of ZF(aa). Next, in §4 we discuss expandability of models of ZF to models of fragments of ZF(aa) and of Kelley-Morse. We conclude in §5 with a discussion of an extension ZF(aa) + DET of ZF(aa) in which the quantifier aa is self-dual.