How to prove Separation Schema within ZFC

formal-proofslogicset-theory

I am assuming consistency of ZFC throughout this post. Here are what I believe is correct, but please correct me if I am wrong:

  1. Every formal proof within ZFC uses finite fragment of ZFC.

  2. Separation schema is a collection of infinitely many axioms.

If those are correct, then I think there cannot exist a formal proof of Separation schema within ZFC, which sounds absurd, because Separation schema is true within ZFC as it is an axiom.

Independently from the above question, why are there some finite list of axioms if one could derive a contradiction from ZFC+$\phi$ for some formula $\phi$?

Best Answer

The idea of a schema is to replace a second-order idea by a template for axioms. So the natural thing is to also have a template for a proof.

Different Separation axioms have different proofs, since mostly they rely on different Replacement axioms to be proven. But we have a recipe, a template, an algorithm, that given any axiom in the Separation schema, we can prove that axiom.

Since the whole debate here is meta-mathematical anyway, that quantification which happens in the meta-theory is just that. Or, if you will, if this wasn't the case, there would be some Separation axiom $\varphi$ which cannot be proved from $\sf ZFC$, but plugging it into our template does work. So that's not the case.

As for your other question, deriving a contradiction is merely a proof that $\exists x(x\neq x)$. It's a finite proof, there are finitely many axioms from $\sf ZFC+\phi$ appearing in it. One of these axioms, presumably is your $\phi$, but the rest are just a finite list of axioms from $\sf ZFC$.

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