Bokai Yao is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy at Peking University. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Notre Dame under the supervision of Joel David Hamkins and Daniel Nolan.

His main research areas are set theory, philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. In set theory, he studies set theory with urelements, especially focusing on the axiomatization of urelement set theory, forcing, choice principles, and large cardinal axioms in the context of urelement set theory. In philosophy of mathematics, he is interested in philosophical justifications for axioms of set theory, abstraction principles and the relationship between mereology and set theory. 

Selected Publications:

Abstraction Principles and the Size of Reality. Forthcoming. Review of Symbolic Logic.

Axiomatization and Forcing in Set Theory with Urelements. Journal of Symbolic Logic. Published online 2024:1-27. doi:10.1017/jsl.2024.58

Boolean-valued Models of Set Theory with Urelements, with Xinhe Wu. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic. 65 (2):203-227. 2024.

Reflection in Second-Order Set Theory with Abundant Urelements Bi-Interprets a Supercompact Cardinal, with Joel David Hamkins. Journal of Symbolic Logic. 89 (3):1007-1043. 2024.

Reflective Mereology. Journal of Philosophical Logic 52(4): 1171-1196. 2023. 

Reflection Principles and Second-Order Choice Principles with Urelements. Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 173 (4):103073. 2022.