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Logic Basic Notions

The document outlines the basics of symbolic logic, including its language composed of propositional variables and connectives such as negation, disjunction, conjunction, conditional, and biconditional. It explains the concept of well-formed formulas (wffs) and how truth values are assigned using truth tables, highlighting the importance of tautologies. Additionally, it discusses logical implication and validity of arguments based on the relationship between formulas.

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11 views

Logic Basic Notions

The document outlines the basics of symbolic logic, including its language composed of propositional variables and connectives such as negation, disjunction, conjunction, conditional, and biconditional. It explains the concept of well-formed formulas (wffs) and how truth values are assigned using truth tables, highlighting the importance of tautologies. Additionally, it discusses logical implication and validity of arguments based on the relationship between formulas.

Uploaded by

dragonguard999
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LOGIC - BASIC NOTIONS

I. Symbolic logic has its own language. This language consists of well-formed formulas
(wffs), which are made out of propositional variables and connectives. Propositional
variables (P, Q, R, ...) denote the simplest propositions, and connectives enable us to join
propositional variables together in order to build more complex formulas. We distinguish the
following connectives: negation (), disjunction (), conjunction (), conditional (),
biconditional (). Here are the most simple complex formulas:

P stands for „Not P”


PQ stands for „P or Q”
PQ stands for „P and Q”
PQ stands for „If P, then Q” (P – antecedent, Q – consequent)
PQ stands for „P if and only if Q”

The definition of the set of well-formed formulas is as follows.

1. Propositional variables (P, Q, R, ...) are well formed formulas.


2. If A and B are well formed formulas, then A, A  B, A  B, A  B, A  B are well
formed formulas.
There are no other well-formed formulas.

II. In classical logic we consider only those propositions that are either true or false. In order
to assign the truth values to more complex wffs, we need the so-called truth tables. The truth
values of complex formulas are determined by the truth values of their components. The
symbol 1 stands for the true proposition and the symbol 0 stands for the false proposition.

P Q P P Q P Q P  Q P Q
1 1 0 1 1 1 1
1 0 0 1 0 0 0
0 1 1 1 0 1 0
0 0 1 0 0 1 1

There are formulas that always take the value 1, regardless the values taken by their
component variables. Such formulas (that are always true) are called tautologies.

III. We say that a formula C logically follows from (or is implied by) the formulas P1, P2,
..., Pn, if and only if any assignment of truth values to the component variables that makes all
the formulas P1, P2, ..., Pn true, also makes the formula C true.
A formula C does not follow logically from (is not implied by) the formulas P1, P2,
..., Pn, if and only if there is an assignment of truth values to the component variables that
makes all the formulas P1, P2, ..., Pn true and the formula C false.
If the implication holds (C logically follows from the formulas P1, P2, ..., Pn) we say
that the pattern of argument P1, P2, ..., Pn / C is valid, otherwise we call it invalid.

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