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Russell's paradox
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Russell's paradox
Idea

Context
Foundations

Statement
Related ideas

Type theory

Resolutions
References

Idea
Russells paradox is a famous paradox of set theory1 that was first observed in
1902 by Ernst Zermelo and then, independently, shortly afterwards by the logician
Bertrand Russell. The paradox received instantly wide attention as it lead to a
contradiction in Freges monumental Foundations of Arithmetic (1893/1903) whose
second volume was just about to go to print when Frege was informed about the
inconsistency by Russell.
The paradox entangles a concept with its own extension in a vicious circle. The
attempt to overcome this circularity in set formation had a huge impact on
subsequent forms of axiomatic set theory and in the aftermath mathematical logic
became heavily focussed on consistency proofs for fully specified formal theories: the
paradoxes triggered a shift in the foundation of mathematics away from the
mathematics to the foundation itself.

Statement
Doch zur Sache selbst! Herr Russell hat einen Widerspruch aufgefunden, der nun
dargelegt werden mag. Frege (1903, p.253)

If one assumes a naive, full axiom of comprehension, one can form the set
R={x|xx}. R = \{ x | x \notin x \}.
One then asks: is RRR\in R? If so, then RRR\notin R by definition, whereas if not,
then RRR\in R by definition. Thus we have both RRR\in R and RRR\notin R, a
contradiction.

Related ideas
Russells paradox is closely related to the classical liar paradox (this sentence is
false), to Gdels incompleteness theorem, and to the halting problem all use
diagonalization? to produce an object which talks about itself in a contradictory or
close-to-contradictory way.
On the other hand, Cantor's paradox can be said to beta-reduce to Russells
paradox when we apply Cantor's theorem to the supposed set of all sets. See
Cantor's paradox for explanation.
Also related:
Burali-Forti's paradox

http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Russell%27s+paradox

Resolutions
There are a number of possible resolutions of Russells paradox.
Russell himself (1903,1908,1910) proposed the introduction of type theory as a
solution e.g. in Principia Mathematica (1910) an intricate system of ramified
types tracks the variables of propositional functions in order to prevent circular
propositions. This is inspired by Poincars ideas on impredicativity and can be
viewed as a radical generalisation of Freges ontological distinction between an
argument as a satured object and a function or concept as an unsaturated
object.
The classical solution, adopted in ZFC and thus by the mathematical
mainstream, is to restrict the axiom of comprehension so as to disallow the
formation of the set RR: one requires that the set being constructed be a subset
of some already existing set. The restricted axiom is usually given a different
name such as the axiom of separation.
Another solution is to distinguish between sets and proper classes (= collections
that are too big to be sets) as e.g. in NBG set theory.2 Here we may write
down the definition of RR, but from RRR \notin R we may conclude RRR \in R
only if we already know that RR is a set; the xx in the definition must be a set.
So we have no contradiction, but only a proof that RR is a proper class.
In the set theory called New Foundations, the axiom of comprehension is
restricted in a rather different way, by requiring the set-defining formula to be
stratifiable. Since the formula xxx\notin x is not stratifiable, the set RR
cannot be formed. This related to Russells ideas on ramified types.
In most structural set theories, the featurelessness of the elements of the
structural sets secures the consistency of set formation. If sets cannot be
elements of other sets, then the definition of RR is just a type error. The same
is true in other structural foundational systems such as (modern, nonRussellian) type theory. However, Russells paradox can be recreated in
structural foundations with inconsistent universes by constructing pure sets
within them.
Alternatively, one can change the underlying logic. Passing to constructive logic
does not help: although there is a seeming appeal to excluded middle (either
RRR\in R or RRR\notin R), without using excluded middle we can obtain that
RR is both not in RR and not not in RR, which is also a contradiction. However,
passing to linear logic (or even affine logic?) does help: there is an unavoidable
use of contraction in the paradox. There exist consistent linear set theories?
with the full comprehension axiom, in which RRR\in R implies RRR\notin R
and vice versa, but we can never get both RRR\in R and RRR\notin R at the
same time to produce a paradox.
Finally, and perhaps most radically, one can decide to allow contradictions,
choosing to use a paraconsistent logic. There exist nontrivial paraconsistent set
theories with full comprehension in which the set RR exists, being both a
member of itself and not a member of itself.

References
Zermelos observation which is mentioned in a footnote of his 1908 paper on the well
-ordering theorem is analyzed in
B. Rang, W. Thomas, Zermelos Discovery of the Russell Paradox , Hist. Math.
9 no.1 (1981) pp.15-22.

http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Russell%27s+paradox
Russell indicated the contradiction leading to the inconsistency of G. Freges system
of Grundgesetze der Arithmetik in a famous letter to the latter on June 16th 1902
which together with Freges reply is reprinted pp.124-128 in
J. van Heijenoort (ed.), From Frege to Gdel - A Source Book in Mathematical
Logic 1879-1931 , Harvard UP 1967.
For an account of Russells encounter with the paradox:
I. Grattan-Guinness, How Russell Discovered his Paradox , Hist. Math. 5 no.2
(1978) pp.127-137.
The first published account is presumably in the appendix of
G. Frege, Grundgesetze der Arithmetik II , Pohle Jena 1903.
Russell discusses the paradox extensively in chapter X of
B. Russell, The Principles of Mathematics , Cambridge UP 1903.
Discussion of a paradox similar to Russells in type theory with W-types is in
Thierry Coquand, The paradox of trees in Type Theory (1991) (web)
category: paradox

1. naive material set theory that is!

2. This solution proposed by J. von Neumann in the 1920s can be viewed as
related to ideas of G. Cantor. The latter knew about similar phenomena
concerning the set of all sets (in fact, Russell hit upon the paradox in a
reflection on Cantors proof of the inexistence of a largest cardinal number), and
had already pointed out in 1885 in a review of Freges Grundlagen der
Arithmetik that not every concept has an extension. Therefore Cantor proposed
in letters to Dedekind and Jourdain to differentiate between consistent
multiplicities (compossible multiplicities one could say) where things can
coexist or compose to a consistent whole - ensemble (fr.) which correspond to
sets in the usual sense and, as completed collections, can in turn be elements in
other sets, from inconsistent multiplicities whose elements cannot consistently
completed to a whole and cannot be member of other collections due to this lack
of unity.
Revised on July 20, 2015 07:15:52 by Thomas Holder (89.204.130.127)

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