Definition (Zermelo‒Fraenkel set theory):
Zermelo‒Fraenkel set theory (ZF set theory) is the theory given by the following axioms (where most are written in the language of set theory
):
- Axiom of extensionality:

- Empty set:

- Pairing:

- Union:

- Restricted comprehension schema: Given a set
and a formula in the language of set theory
. Then we have a set of all
such that
is true. We write this as the set
.
- Replacement schema: Given a set
and a formula in the language of set theory
, such that for all
there exists a unique
such that
is true. Then there exists a set
whose elements are all those
. We write this as the set
.
- Power set:

- Infinity: There exists an inductive set. An inductive set is one that contains an empty set, and if it contains
, then it contains
.
Note that in the Infinity axiom, we said that the inductive set contains `an' empty set. We will soon see that there is in fact a unique empty set, so we can change our definition of an inductive set to one that contains `the' empty set.