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Revision in response to early comments

Circular, or missing, definition in set theory?

Revision in response to early comments. Users of set theory need an implementation (in case "model" means something different) of the axioms. I would expect something like this:

An implementation consists of a "collection-of-elements" $X$, and a relation (logical pairing) $E:X\times X\to \{0,1\}$. A logical function $h:X\to\{0,1\}$ is a set if it is of the form $x\mapsto E[x,a]$ for some $a\in X$. Sets are required to satisfy the following axioms: ....

The background "collection-of-elements" needs some properties to even get started. For instance "of the form $x\mapsto E[x,a]$" needs first-order quantification. Mathematical standards of precision seem to require some discussion, but so far I haven't seen anything like this. The first version of this question got answers like $X$ is "the domain of discourse" (philosophy??), "everything" (naive set theory?) and "a set" (circular). Is this a missing definition? Taking it seriously seems to give a rather fruitful perspective.