Since their inception, the Perspectives in Logic and Lecture Notes in Logic series have published seminal works by leading logicians. Many of the original books in the series have been unavailable for years, but they are now in print once again. In this volume, the sixth publication in the Perspectives in Logic series, Keith J. Devlin gives a comprehensive account of the theory of constructible sets at an advanced level. The book provides complete coverage of the theory itself, rather than the many and diverse applications of constructibility theory, although applications are used to motivate and illustrate the theory. The book is divided into two parts: Part I (Elementary Theory) deals with the classical definition of the L -hierarchy of constructible sets and may be used as the basis of a graduate course on constructibility theory. and Part II (Advanced Theory) deals with the J -hierarchy and the Jensen 'fine-structure theory'.

The purpose of this book is to provide the student beginning undergraduate mathematics with a solid foundation in the basic logical concepts necessary for most of the subjects encountered in a university mathematics course. The main distinction between most school mathematics and university mathematics lies in the degree of rigour demanded at university level. In general, the new student has no experience of wholly rigorous definitions and proofs, with the result that, although competent to handle quite difficult problems in, say, the differential calculus, he/she is totally lost when presented with a rigorous definition oflimits and derivatives. In effect, this means that in the first few weeks at university the student needs to master what is virtually an entire new language {'the language of mathematics'} and to adopt an entirely new mode ofthinking. Needless to say, only the very ablest students come through this process without a great deal of difficulty.