The predicative Frege hierarchy (Q2271986)

The paper is devoted to the characterization of the strength of the predicative Frege hierarchy P\(^{n+1}\)V, introduced by \textit{J. P. Burgess} in [Fixing Frege. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (2005; Zbl 1089.03001)]. It is shown that P\(^{n+1}\)V and \(\text{Q} + \text{con}^{n}\)(Q) are mutually interpretable. This gives also an alternative proof of \textit{M. Ganea}'s result in [J. Symb. Log. 72, No.~2, 619--624 (2007; Zbl 1118.03050)] that PV (= P\(^{1}\)V) is mutually interpretable with Q. The main result implies also that the whole hierarchy taken together, P\(^{\omega}\)V, is not finitely axiomatizable; even more: no theory that is mutually locally interpretable with P\(^{\omega}\)V is finitely axiomatizable.