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Exercise 1.3.2
Replace the Axiom of Existence by the following weaker postulate:
Weak Axiom of Existence: Some set exists.
Prove the Axiom of Existence using the Weak Axiom of Existence and the Comprehension Schema. [Hint: Let be a set known to exist; consider .]
Answers
Proof. Invoking the Weak Axiom of Existence, suppose that is a set that exists. Let denote the proprty , noting that clearly is false no matter the , since otherwise identity would be violated. Then the set uniquely exists by the Axiom Schema of Comprehension and Lemma 1.3.4.
Now consider any . If , then clearly either. If , then again since the property is false (since it is false for any ). Hence, in both cases , which shows that
since was arbitrary. This of course means that is the unique empty set, proving the Axiom of Existence since was shown to exist. □