Propositional calculus is a branch of
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes
zeroth-order logic. It deals with
propositions (which can be true or false) and relations between propositions, including the construction of arguments based on them. Compound propositions are formed by connecting propositions by
logical connective
In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator, sentential connective, or sentential operator) is a logical constant. They can be used to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of propositional logic, the binary ...
s. Propositions that contain no logical connectives are called atomic propositions.
Unlike
first-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
, propositional logic does not deal with non-logical objects, predicates about them, or
quantifiers. However, all the machinery of propositional logic is included in first-order logic and higher-order logics. In this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic and higher-order logic.
Explanation
Logical connectives are found in natural languages. In English for example, some examples are "and" (
conjunction
Conjunction may refer to:
* Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech
* Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator
** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic
* Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...
), "or" (
disjunction
In logic, disjunction is a logical connective typically notated as \lor and read aloud as "or". For instance, the English language sentence "it is raining or it is snowing" can be represented in logic using the disjunctive formula R \lor S ...
), "not" (
negation) and "if" (but only when used to denote
material conditional
The material conditional (also known as material implication) is an operation commonly used in logic. When the conditional symbol \rightarrow is interpreted as material implication, a formula P \rightarrow Q is true unless P is true and Q i ...
).
The following is an example of a very simple inference within the scope of propositional logic:
:Premise 1: If it's raining then it's cloudy.
:Premise 2: It's raining.
:Conclusion: It's cloudy.
Both premises and the conclusion are propositions. The premises are taken for granted, and with the application of
modus ponens (an
inference rule
In the philosophy of logic, a rule of inference, inference rule or transformation rule is a logical form consisting of a function which takes premises, analyzes their syntax, and returns a conclusion (or conclusions). For example, the rule of ...
), the conclusion follows.
As propositional logic is not concerned with the structure of propositions beyond the point where they can't be decomposed any more by logical connectives, this inference can be restated replacing those ''atomic'' statements with statement letters, which are interpreted as variables representing statements:
:Premise 1:
:Premise 2:
:Conclusion:
The same can be stated succinctly in the following way:
:
When is interpreted as "It's raining" and as "it's cloudy" the above symbolic expressions can be seen to correspond exactly with the original expression in natural language. Not only that, but they will also correspond with any other inference of this ''form'', which will be valid on the same basis this inference is.
Propositional logic may be studied through a
formal system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
in which
formulas
In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...
of a
formal language
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules.
The alphabet of a formal language consists of sy ...
may be
interpreted to represent
propositions. A
system of
axioms and
inference rules allows certain formulas to be derived. These derived formulas are called
theorem
In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proved, or can be proved. The ''proof'' of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to establish that the theorem is a logical consequence of t ...
s and may be interpreted to be true propositions. A constructed sequence of such formulas is known as a ''
derivation
Derivation may refer to:
Language
* Morphological derivation, a word-formation process
* Parse tree or concrete syntax tree, representing a string's syntax in formal grammars
Law
* Derivative work, in copyright law
* Derivation proceeding, a proc ...
'' or ''proof'' and the last formula of the sequence is the theorem. The derivation may be interpreted as proof of the proposition represented by the theorem.
When a formal system is used to represent formal logic, only statement letters (usually capital roman letters such as
,
and
) are represented directly. The natural language propositions that arise when they're interpreted are outside the scope of the system, and the relation between the formal system and its interpretation is likewise outside the formal system itself.
In classical truth-functional propositional logic, formulas are interpreted as having precisely one of two possible
truth value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false'').
Computing
In some pro ...
s, the truth value of ''true'' or the truth value of ''false''. The
principle of bivalence
In logic, the semantic principle (or law) of bivalence states that every declarative sentence expressing a proposition (of a theory under inspection) has exactly one truth value, either true or false. A logic satisfying this principle is called ...
and the
law of excluded middle
In logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) states that for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true. It is one of the so-called three laws of thought, along with the law of noncontradi ...
are upheld. Truth-functional propositional logic defined as such and systems
isomorphic to it are considered to be
zeroth-order logic. However, alternative propositional logics are also possible. For more, see
Other logical calculi below.
History
Although propositional logic (which is interchangeable with propositional calculus) had been hinted by earlier philosophers, it was developed into a formal logic (
Stoic logic
Stoic logic is the system of propositional logic developed by the Stoic philosophers in ancient Greece.
It was one of the two great systems of logic in the classical world. It was largely built and shaped by Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoi ...
) by
Chrysippus in the 3rd century BC and expanded by his successor
Stoics. The logic was focused on
proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
s. This advancement was different from the traditional
syllogistic logic, which was focused on
terms. However, most of the original writings were lost and the propositional logic developed by the Stoics was no longer understood later in antiquity. Consequently, the system was essentially reinvented by
Peter Abelard in the 12th century.
Propositional logic was eventually refined using
symbolic logic. The 17th/18th-century mathematician
Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...
has been credited with being the founder of symbolic logic for his work with the
calculus ratiocinator
The ''calculus ratiocinator'' is a theoretical universal logical calculation framework, a concept described in the writings of Gottfried Leibniz, usually paired with his more frequently mentioned ''characteristica universalis'', a universal conce ...
. Although his work was the first of its kind, it was unknown to the larger logical community. Consequently, many of the advances achieved by Leibniz were recreated by logicians like
George Boole
George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...
and
Augustus De Morgan—completely independent of Leibniz.
Just as propositional logic can be considered an advancement from the earlier syllogistic logic,
Gottlob Frege's predicate logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
can be also considered an advancement from the earlier propositional logic. One author describes predicate logic as combining "the distinctive features of syllogistic logic and propositional logic." Consequently, predicate logic ushered in a new era in logic's history; however, advances in propositional logic were still made after Frege, including
natural deduction In logic and proof theory, natural deduction is a kind of proof calculus in which logical reasoning is expressed by inference rules closely related to the "natural" way of reasoning. This contrasts with Hilbert-style systems, which instead use ax ...
,
truth trees and
truth tables
A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argume ...
. Natural deduction was invented by
Gerhard Gentzen
Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen (24 November 1909 – 4 August 1945) was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died ...
and
Jan Łukasiewicz
Jan Łukasiewicz (; 21 December 1878 – 13 February 1956) was a Polish logician and philosopher who is best known for Polish notation and Łukasiewicz logic His work centred on philosophical logic, mathematical logic and history of logic. ...
. Truth trees were invented by
Evert Willem Beth
Evert Willem Beth (7 July 1908 – 12 April 1964) was a Dutch philosopher and logician, whose work principally concerned the foundations of mathematics. He was a member of the Significs Group.
Biography
Beth was born in Almelo, a small ...
. The invention of truth tables, however, is of uncertain attribution.
Within works by Frege
[Truth in Frege](_blank)
/ref> and Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
, are ideas influential to the invention of truth tables. The actual tabular structure (being formatted as a table), itself, is generally credited to either Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
or Emil Post
Emil Leon Post (; February 11, 1897 – April 21, 1954) was an American mathematician and logician. He is best known for his work in the field that eventually became known as computability theory.
Life
Post was born in Augustów, Suwałki Gove ...
(or both, independently). Besides Frege and Russell, others credited with having ideas preceding truth tables include Philo, Boole, Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
, and Ernst Schröder. Others credited with the tabular structure include Jan Łukasiewicz
Jan Łukasiewicz (; 21 December 1878 – 13 February 1956) was a Polish logician and philosopher who is best known for Polish notation and Łukasiewicz logic His work centred on philosophical logic, mathematical logic and history of logic. ...
, Alfred North Whitehead, William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 183513 August 1882) was an English economist and logician.
Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method in ec ...
, John Venn
John Venn, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, FSA (4 August 1834 – 4 April 1923) was an English mathematician, logician and philosopher noted for introducing Venn diagrams, which are used in l ...
, and Clarence Irving Lewis
Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964), usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logic ...
. Ultimately, some have concluded, like John Shosky, that "It is far from clear that any one person should be given the title of 'inventor' of truth-tables.".
Terminology
In general terms, a calculus is a formal system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
that consists of a set of syntactic expressions (''well-formed formula
In mathematical logic, propositional logic and predicate logic, a well-formed formula, abbreviated WFF or wff, often simply formula, is a finite sequence of symbols from a given alphabet that is part of a formal language. A formal language can ...
s''), a distinguished subset of these expressions (axioms), plus a set of formal rules that define a specific binary relation, intended to be interpreted as logical equivalence
In logic and mathematics, statements p and q are said to be logically equivalent if they have the same truth value in every model. The logical equivalence of p and q is sometimes expressed as p \equiv q, p :: q, \textsfpq, or p \iff q, depending o ...
, on the space of expressions.
When the formal system is intended to be a logical system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
, the expressions are meant to be interpreted as statements, and the rules, known to be ''inference rules'', are typically intended to be truth-preserving. In this setting, the rules, which may include axioms
An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...
, can then be used to derive ("infer") formulas representing true statements—from given formulas representing true statements.
The set of axioms may be empty, a nonempty finite set, or a countably infinite set (see axiom schema In mathematical logic, an axiom schema (plural: axiom schemata or axiom schemas) generalizes the notion of axiom.
Formal definition
An axiom schema is a formula in the metalanguage of an axiomatic system, in which one or more schematic variables ap ...
). A formal grammar
In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) describes how to form strings from a language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe ...
recursively defines the expressions and well-formed formulas of the language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
. In addition a semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...
may be given which defines truth and valuations (or interpretations).
The language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
of a propositional calculus consists of
# a set of primitive symbols, variously referred to as ''atomic formula
In mathematical logic, an atomic formula (also known as an atom or a prime formula) is a formula with no deeper propositional structure, that is, a formula that contains no logical connectives or equivalently a formula that has no strict subformu ...
s'', ''placeholders'', ''proposition letters'', or ''variables'', and
# a set of operator symbols, variously interpreted as ''logical operator
In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical operator, sentential connective, or sentential operator) is a logical constant. They can be used to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of propositional logic, the binary ...
s'' or ''logical connectives''.
A ''well-formed formula
In mathematical logic, propositional logic and predicate logic, a well-formed formula, abbreviated WFF or wff, often simply formula, is a finite sequence of symbols from a given alphabet that is part of a formal language. A formal language can ...
'' is any atomic formula, or any formula that can be built up from atomic formulas by means of operator symbols according to the rules of the grammar.
Mathematicians sometimes distinguish between propositional constants, propositional variables, and schemata. Propositional constants represent some particular proposition, while propositional variables range over the set of all atomic propositions. Schemata, however, range over all propositions. It is common to represent propositional constants by , , and , propositional variables by , , and , and schematic letters are often Greek letters, most often , , and .
Basic concepts
The following outlines a standard propositional calculus. Many different formulations exist which are all more or less equivalent, but differ in the details of:
# their language (i.e., the particular collection of primitive symbols and operator symbols),
# the set of axioms, or distinguished formulas, and
# the set of inference rules.
Any given proposition may be represented with a letter called a 'propositional constant', analogous to representing a number by a letter in mathematics (e.g., ). All propositions require exactly one of two truth-values: true or false. For example, let be the proposition that it is raining outside. This will be true () if it is raining outside, and false otherwise ().
*We then define truth-functional
In logic, a truth function is a function that accepts truth values as input and produces a unique truth value as output. In other words: The input and output of a truth function are all truth values; a truth function will always output exactly one ...
operators, beginning with negation. represents the negation of , which can be thought of as the denial of . In the example above, expresses that it is not raining outside, or by a more standard reading: "It is not the case that it is raining outside." When is true, is false; and when is false, is true. As a result, always has the same truth-value as .
*Conjunction is a truth-functional connective which forms a proposition out of two simpler propositions, for example, and . The conjunction of and is written , and expresses that each are true. We read as " and ". For any two propositions, there are four possible assignments of truth values:
*# is true and is true
*# is true and is false
*# is false and is true
*# is false and is false
:The conjunction of and is true in case 1, and is false otherwise. Where is the proposition that it is raining outside and is the proposition that a cold-front is over Kansas, is true when it is raining outside ''and'' there is a cold-front over Kansas. If it is not raining outside, then is false; and if there is no cold-front over Kansas, then is also false.
*Disjunction resembles conjunction in that it forms a proposition out of two simpler propositions. We write it , and it is read " or ". It expresses that either or is true. Thus, in the cases listed above, the disjunction of with is true in all cases—except case 4. Using the example above, the disjunction expresses that it is either raining outside, or there is a cold front over Kansas. (Note, this use of disjunction is supposed to resemble the use of the English word "or". However, it is most like the English inclusive "or", which can be used to express the truth of at least one of two propositions. It is not like the English exclusive "or", which expresses the truth of exactly one of two propositions. In other words, the exclusive "or" is false when both and are true (case 1), and similarly is false when both and are false (case 4). An example of the exclusive or is: You may have a bagel or a pastry, but not both. Often in natural language, given the appropriate context, the addendum "but not both" is omitted—but implied. In mathematics, however, "or" is always inclusive or; if exclusive or is meant it will be specified, possibly by "xor".)
*Material conditional also joins two simpler propositions, and we write , which is read "if then ". The proposition to the left of the arrow is called the antecedent, and the proposition to the right is called the consequent. (There is no such designation for conjunction or disjunction, since they are commutative
In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name of ...
operations.) It expresses that is true whenever is true. Thus is true in every case above except case 2, because this is the only case when is true but is not. Using the example, if then expresses that if it is raining outside, then there is a cold-front over Kansas. The material conditional is often confused with physical causation. The material conditional, however, only relates two propositions by their truth-values—which is not the relation of cause and effect. It is contentious in the literature whether the material implication represents logical causation.
*Biconditional joins two simpler propositions, and we write , which is read " if and only if ". It expresses that and have the same truth-value, and in cases 1 and 4. ' is true if and only if ' is true, and is false otherwise.
It is very helpful to look at the truth table
A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argumen ...
s for these different operators, as well as the method of analytic tableaux
In proof theory, the semantic tableau (; plural: tableaux, also called truth tree) is a decision procedure for sentential and related logics, and a proof procedure for formulae of first-order logic. An analytic tableau is a tree structure computed ...
.
Closure under operations
Propositional logic is closed under truth-functional connectives. That is to say, for any proposition , is also a proposition. Likewise, for any propositions and , is a proposition, and similarly for disjunction, conditional, and biconditional. This implies that, for instance, is a proposition, and so it can be conjoined with another proposition. In order to represent this, we need to use parentheses to indicate which proposition is conjoined with which. For instance, is not a well-formed formula, because we do not know if we are conjoining with or if we are conjoining with . Thus we must write either to represent the former, or to represent the latter. By evaluating the truth conditions, we see that both expressions have the same truth conditions (will be true in the same cases), and moreover that any proposition formed by arbitrary conjunctions will have the same truth conditions, regardless of the location of the parentheses. This means that conjunction is associative, however, one should not assume that parentheses never serve a purpose. For instance, the sentence does not have the same truth conditions of , so they are different sentences distinguished only by the parentheses. One can verify this by the truth-table method referenced above.
Note: For any arbitrary number of propositional constants, we can form a finite number of cases which list their possible truth-values. A simple way to generate this is by truth-tables, in which one writes , , ..., , for any list of propositional constants—that is to say, any list of propositional constants with entries. Below this list, one writes rows, and below one fills in the first half of the rows with true (or T) and the second half with false (or F). Below one fills in one-quarter of the rows with T, then one-quarter with F, then one-quarter with T and the last quarter with F. The next column alternates between true and false for each eighth of the rows, then sixteenths, and so on, until the last propositional constant varies between T and F for each row. This will give a complete listing of cases or truth-value assignments possible for those propositional constants.
Argument
The propositional calculus then defines an '' argument'' to be a list of propositions. A valid argument is a list of propositions, the last of which follows from—or is implied by—the rest. All other arguments are invalid. The simplest valid argument is modus ponens, one instance of which is the following list of propositions:
:
This is a list of three propositions, each line is a proposition, and the last follows from the rest. The first two lines are called premises, and the last line the conclusion. We say that any proposition follows from any set of propositions , if must be true whenever every member of the set is true. In the argument above, for any and , whenever and are true, necessarily is true. Notice that, when is true, we cannot consider cases 3 and 4 (from the truth table). When is true, we cannot consider case 2. This leaves only case 1, in which is also true. Thus is implied by the premises.
This generalizes schematically. Thus, where and may be any propositions at all,
:
Other argument forms are convenient, but not necessary. Given a complete set of axioms (see below for one such set), modus ponens is sufficient to prove all other argument forms in propositional logic, thus they may be considered to be a derivative. Note, this is not true of the extension of propositional logic to other logics like first-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
. First-order logic requires at least one additional rule of inference in order to obtain completeness.
The significance of argument in formal logic is that one may obtain new truths from established truths. In the first example above, given the two premises, the truth of is not yet known or stated. After the argument is made, is deduced. In this way, we define a deduction system to be a set of all propositions that may be deduced from another set of propositions. For instance, given the set of propositions , we can define a deduction system, , which is the set of all propositions which follow from . Reiteration is always assumed, so . Also, from the first element of , last element, as well as modus ponens, is a consequence, and so . Because we have not included sufficiently complete axioms, though, nothing else may be deduced. Thus, even though most deduction systems studied in propositional logic are able to deduce , this one is too weak to prove such a proposition.
Generic description of a propositional calculus
A propositional calculus is a formal system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
, where:
The ''language'' of , also known as its set of ''formulas'', ''well-formed formula
In mathematical logic, propositional logic and predicate logic, a well-formed formula, abbreviated WFF or wff, often simply formula, is a finite sequence of symbols from a given alphabet that is part of a formal language. A formal language can ...
s'', is inductively defined by the following rules:
# Base: Any element of the alpha set is a formula of .
# If are formulas and is in , then is a formula.
# Closed: Nothing else is a formula of .
Repeated applications of these rules permits the construction of complex formulas. For example:
* By rule 1, is a formula.
* By rule 2, is a formula.
* By rule 1, is a formula.
* By rule 2, is a formula.
Example 1. Simple axiom system
Let , where , , , are defined as follows:
* The set , the countably infinite set of symbols that serve to represent logical propositions:
*:
* The functionally complete set of logical operators (logical connectives and negation) is as follows. Of the three connectives for conjunction, disjunction, and implication (, and ), one can be taken as primitive and the other two can be defined in terms of it and negation ().[Wernick, William (1942) "Complete Sets of Logical Functions," ''Transactions of the American Mathematical Society'' 51, pp. 117–132.] Alternatively, all of the logical operators may be defined in terms of a sole sufficient operator In logic, a functionally complete set of logical connectives or Boolean operators is one which can be used to express all possible truth tables by combining members of the set into a Boolean expression.. ("Complete set of logical connectives").. ( ...
, such as the Sheffer stroke
In Boolean functions and propositional calculus, the Sheffer stroke denotes a logical operation that is equivalent to the negation of the conjunction operation, expressed in ordinary language as "not both". It is also called nand ("not and") ...
(nand). The biconditional () can of course be defined in terms of conjunction and implication as . Adopting negation and implication as the two primitive operations of a propositional calculus is tantamount to having the omega set partition as follows:
*:
*:
Then is defined as , and is defined as .
* The set (the set of initial points of logical deduction, i.e., logical axioms) is the axiom system proposed by Jan Łukasiewicz
Jan Łukasiewicz (; 21 December 1878 – 13 February 1956) was a Polish logician and philosopher who is best known for Polish notation and Łukasiewicz logic His work centred on philosophical logic, mathematical logic and history of logic. ...
, and used as the propositional-calculus part of a Hilbert system
:''In mathematical physics, ''Hilbert system'' is an infrequently used term for a physical system described by a C*-algebra.''
In logic, especially mathematical logic, a Hilbert system, sometimes called Hilbert calculus, Hilbert-style deductive s ...
. The axioms are all substitution instance Substitution is a fundamental concept in logic.
A substitution is a syntactic transformation on formal expressions.
To apply a substitution to an expression means to consistently replace its variable, or placeholder, symbols by other expressions.
...
s of:
**
**
**
* The set of transformation rules (rules of inference) is the sole rule modus ponens (i.e., from any formulas of the form and , infer ).
This system is used in Metamath
Metamath is a formal language and an associated computer program (a proof checker) for archiving, verifying, and studying mathematical proofs. Several databases of proved theorems have been developed using Metamath covering standard results in ...
br>set.mm
formal proof database.
Example 2. Natural deduction system
Let , where , , , are defined as follows:
* The alpha set , is a countably infinite set of symbols, for example:
*:
* The omega set partitions as follows:
*:
*:
In the following example of a propositional calculus, the transformation rules are intended to be interpreted as the inference rules of a so-called '' natural deduction system''. The particular system presented here has no initial points, which means that its interpretation for logical applications derives its theorem
In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proved, or can be proved. The ''proof'' of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to establish that the theorem is a logical consequence of t ...
s from an empty axiom set.
* The set of initial points is empty, that is, .
* The set of transformation rules, , is described as follows:
Our propositional calculus has eleven inference rules. These rules allow us to derive other true formulas given a set of formulas that are assumed to be true. The first ten simply state that we can infer certain well-formed formulas from other well-formed formulas. The last rule however uses hypothetical reasoning in the sense that in the premise of the rule we temporarily assume an (unproven) hypothesis to be part of the set of inferred formulas to see if we can infer a certain other formula. Since the first ten rules don't do this they are usually described as ''non-hypothetical'' rules, and the last one as a ''hypothetical'' rule.
In describing the transformation rules, we may introduce a metalanguage symbol . It is basically a convenient shorthand for saying "infer that". The format is , in which is a (possibly empty) set of formulas called premises, and is a formula called conclusion. The transformation rule means that if every proposition in is a theorem (or has the same truth value as the axioms), then is also a theorem. Note that considering the following rule Conjunction introduction
Conjunction introduction (often abbreviated simply as conjunction and also called and introduction or adjunction) is a valid rule of inference of propositional logic. The rule makes it possible to introduce a conjunction into a logical proof. I ...
, we will know whenever has more than one formula, we can always safely reduce it into one formula using conjunction. So for short, from that time on we may represent as one formula instead of a set. Another omission for convenience is when is an empty set, in which case may not appear.
; Negation introduction: From and , infer .
: That is, .
; Negation elimination: From , infer .
: That is, .
; Double negation elimination
In propositional logic, double negation is the theorem that states that "If a statement is true, then it is not the case that the statement is not true." This is expressed by saying that a proposition ''A'' is logically equivalent to ''not (not ...
: From , infer .
: That is, .
; Conjunction introduction
Conjunction introduction (often abbreviated simply as conjunction and also called and introduction or adjunction) is a valid rule of inference of propositional logic. The rule makes it possible to introduce a conjunction into a logical proof. I ...
: From and , infer .
: That is, .
; Conjunction elimination
In propositional logic, conjunction elimination (also called ''and'' elimination, ∧ elimination, or simplification)Hurley is a valid immediate inference, argument form and rule of inference which makes the inference that, if the conjunction ' ...
: From , infer .
: From , infer .
: That is, and .
; Disjunction introduction
Disjunction introduction or addition (also called or introduction) is a rule of inference of propositional logic and almost every other deduction system. The rule makes it possible to introduce disjunctions to logical proofs. It is the infer ...
: From , infer .
: From , infer .
: That is, and .
; Disjunction elimination
In propositional logic, disjunction elimination (sometimes named proof by cases, case analysis, or or elimination), is the valid argument form and rule of inference that allows one to eliminate a disjunctive statement from a logical proof. It ...
: From and and , infer .
: That is, .
; Biconditional introduction
In propositional calculus, propositional logic, biconditional introductionCopi and Cohen is a Validity (logic), valid rule of inference. It allows for one to inference, infer a Logical biconditional, biconditional from two Material conditional, ...
: From and , infer .
: That is, .
;Biconditional elimination
Biconditional elimination is the name of two valid rules of inference of propositional logic. It allows for one to infer a conditional from a biconditional. If P \leftrightarrow Q is true, then one may infer that P \to Q is true, and also th ...
: From , infer .
: From , infer .
: That is, and .
; Modus ponens (conditional elimination) : From and , infer .
: That is, .
; Conditional proof
A conditional proof is a proof that takes the form of asserting a conditional, and proving that the antecedent of the conditional necessarily leads to the consequent.
Overview
The assumed antecedent of a conditional proof is called the conditio ...
(conditional introduction) : From ccepting allows a proof of infer .
: That is, .
Basic and derived argument forms
Proofs in propositional calculus
One of the main uses of a propositional calculus, when interpreted for logical applications, is to determine relations of logical equivalence between propositional formulas. These relationships are determined by means of the available transformation rules, sequences of which are called ''derivations'' or ''proofs''.
In the discussion to follow, a proof is presented as a sequence of numbered lines, with each line consisting of a single formula followed by a ''reason'' or ''justification'' for introducing that formula. Each premise of the argument, that is, an assumption introduced as an hypothesis of the argument, is listed at the beginning of the sequence and is marked as a "premise" in lieu of other justification. The conclusion is listed on the last line. A proof is complete if every line follows from the previous ones by the correct application of a transformation rule. (For a contrasting approach, see proof-trees).
Example of a proof in natural deduction system
* To be shown that .
* One possible proof of this (which, though valid, happens to contain more steps than are necessary) may be arranged as follows:
Interpret as "Assuming , infer ". Read as "Assuming nothing, infer that implies ", or "It is a tautology that implies ", or "It is always true that implies ".
Example of a proof in a classical propositional calculus system
We now prove the same theorem in the axiomatic system by Jan Łukasiewicz
Jan Łukasiewicz (; 21 December 1878 – 13 February 1956) was a Polish logician and philosopher who is best known for Polish notation and Łukasiewicz logic His work centred on philosophical logic, mathematical logic and history of logic. ...
described above, which is an example of a Hilbert-style deductive system
:''In mathematical physics, ''Hilbert system'' is an infrequently used term for a physical system described by a C*-algebra.''
In logic, especially mathematical logic, a Hilbert system, sometimes called Hilbert calculus, Hilbert-style deductive ...
for the classical propositional calculus.
The axioms are:
:(A1)
:(A2)
:(A3)
And the proof is as follows:
# (instance of (A1))
# (instance of (A2))
# (from (1) and (2) by modus ponens)
# (instance of (A1))
# (from (4) and (3) by modus ponens)
Soundness and completeness of the rules
The crucial properties of this set of rules are that they are ''sound
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...
'' and ''complete''. Informally this means that the rules are correct and that no other rules are required. These claims can be made more formal as follows.
Note that the proofs for the soundness and completeness of the propositional logic are not themselves proofs in propositional logic ; these are theorems in ZFC used as a metatheory
A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is theory itself, aiming to describe existing theory in a systematic way. In mathematics and mathematical logic, a metatheory is a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. ...
to prove properties of propositional logic.
We define a ''truth assignment'' as a function
Function or functionality may refer to:
Computing
* Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards
* Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system
* Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
that maps propositional variables to true or false. Informally such a truth assignment can be understood as the description of a possible state of affairs (or possible world
A possible world is a complete and consistent way the world is or could have been. Possible worlds are widely used as a formal device in logic, philosophy, and linguistics in order to provide a semantics for intensional and modal logic. Their me ...
) where certain statements are true and others are not. The semantics of formulas can then be formalized by defining for which "state of affairs" they are considered to be true, which is what is done by the following definition.
We define when such a truth assignment satisfies a certain well-formed formula
In mathematical logic, propositional logic and predicate logic, a well-formed formula, abbreviated WFF or wff, often simply formula, is a finite sequence of symbols from a given alphabet that is part of a formal language. A formal language can ...
with the following rules:
* satisfies the propositional variable if and only if
In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false.
The connective is b ...
* satisfies if and only if does not satisfy
* satisfies if and only if satisfies both and
* satisfies if and only if satisfies at least one of either or
* satisfies if and only if it is not the case that satisfies but not
* satisfies if and only if satisfies both and or satisfies neither one of them
With this definition we can now formalize what it means for a formula to be implied by a certain set of formulas. Informally this is true if in all worlds that are possible given the set of formulas the formula also holds. This leads to the following formal definition: We say that a set of well-formed formulas ''semantically entails'' (or ''implies'') a certain well-formed formula if all truth assignments that satisfy all the formulas in also satisfy .
Finally we define ''syntactical entailment'' such that is syntactically entailed by if and only if we can derive it with the inference rules that were presented above in a finite number of steps. This allows us to formulate exactly what it means for the set of inference rules to be sound and complete:
Soundness: If the set of well-formed formulas ''syntactically'' entails the well-formed formula then ''semantically'' entails .
Completeness: If the set of well-formed formulas ''semantically'' entails the well-formed formula then ''syntactically'' entails .
For the above set of rules this is indeed the case.
Sketch of a soundness proof
(For most logical system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A form ...
s, this is the comparatively "simple" direction of proof)
Notational conventions: Let be a variable ranging over sets of sentences. Let and range over sentences. For " syntactically entails " we write " proves ". For " semantically entails " we write " implies ".
We want to show: (if proves , then implies ).
We note that " proves " has an inductive definition, and that gives us the immediate resources for demonstrating claims of the form "If proves , then ...". So our proof proceeds by induction.
Notice that Basis Step II can be omitted for natural deduction In logic and proof theory, natural deduction is a kind of proof calculus in which logical reasoning is expressed by inference rules closely related to the "natural" way of reasoning. This contrasts with Hilbert-style systems, which instead use ax ...
systems because they have no axioms. When used, Step II involves showing that each of the axioms is a (semantic) logical truth
Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic. Broadly speaking, a logical truth is a statement which is true regardless of the truth or falsity of its constituent propositions. In other words, a logical truth is a statement whic ...
.
The Basis steps demonstrate that the simplest provable sentences from are also implied by , for any . (The proof is simple, since the semantic fact that a set implies any of its members, is also trivial.) The Inductive step will systematically cover all the further sentences that might be provable—by considering each case where we might reach a logical conclusion using an inference rule—and shows that if a new sentence is provable, it is also logically implied. (For example, we might have a rule telling us that from "" we can derive " or ". In III.a We assume that if is provable it is implied. We also know that if is provable then " or " is provable. We have to show that then " or " too is implied. We do so by appeal to the semantic definition and the assumption we just made. is provable from , we assume. So it is also implied by . So any semantic valuation making all of true makes true. But any valuation making true makes " or " true, by the defined semantics for "or". So any valuation which makes all of true makes " or " true. So " or " is implied.) Generally, the Inductive step will consist of a lengthy but simple case-by-case analysis of all the rules of inference, showing that each "preserves" semantic implication.
By the definition of provability, there are no sentences provable other than by being a member of , an axiom, or following by a rule; so if all of those are semantically implied, the deduction calculus is sound.
Sketch of completeness proof
(This is usually the much harder direction of proof.)
We adopt the same notational conventions as above.
We want to show: If implies , then proves . We proceed by contraposition
In logic and mathematics, contraposition refers to the inference of going from a conditional statement into its logically equivalent contrapositive, and an associated proof method known as proof by contraposition. The contrapositive of a stateme ...
: We show instead that if does not prove then does not imply . If we show that there is a model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
where does not hold despite being true, then obviously does not imply . The idea is to build such a model out of our very assumption that does not prove .
Thus every system that has modus ponens as an inference rule, and proves the following theorems (including substitutions thereof) is complete:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The first five are used for the satisfaction of the five conditions in stage III above, and the last three for proving the deduction theorem.
Example
As an example, it can be shown that as any other tautology, the three axioms of the classical propositional calculus system described earlier can be proven in any system that satisfies the above, namely that has modus ponens as an inference rule, and proves the above eight theorems (including substitutions thereof). Out of the eight theorems, the last two are two of the three axioms; the third axiom, , can be proven as well, as we now show.
For the proof we may use the hypothetical syllogism theorem (in the form relevant for this axiomatic system), since it only relies on the two axioms that are already in the above set of eight theorems.
The proof then is as follows:
# (instance of the 7th theorem)
# (instance of the 7th theorem)
# (from (1) and (2) by modus ponens)
# (instance of the hypothetical syllogism theorem)
# (instance of the 5th theorem)
# (from (5) and (4) by modus ponens)
# (instance of the 2nd theorem)
# (instance of the 7th theorem)
# (from (7) and (8) by modus ponens)
#
#:: (instance of the 8th theorem)
# (from (9) and (10) by modus ponens)
# (from (3) and (11) by modus ponens)
# (instance of the 8th theorem)
# (from (12) and (13) by modus ponens)
# (from (6) and (14) by modus ponens)
Verifying completeness for the classical propositional calculus system
We now verify that the classical propositional calculus system described earlier can indeed prove the required eight theorems mentioned above. We use several lemmas proven here
Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to:
Software
* Here Technologies, a mapping company
* Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here
Television
* Here TV (form ...
:
: (DN1) - Double negation
In propositional logic, double negation is the theorem that states that "If a statement is true, then it is not the case that the statement is not true." This is expressed by saying that a proposition ''A'' is logically equivalent to ''not (not ...
(one direction)
: (DN2) - Double negation (another direction)
: (HS1) - one form of Hypothetical syllogism
In classical logic, a hypothetical syllogism is a valid argument form, a syllogism with a conditional statement for one or both of its premises.
An example in English:
:If I do not wake up, then I cannot go to work.
:If I cannot go to work, then ...
: (HS2) - another form of Hypothetical syllogism
: (TR1) - Transposition
:(TR2) - another form of transposition.
:(L1)
:(L3)
We also use the method of the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem as a shorthand for several proof steps.
* - proof:
*# (instance of (A1))
*# (instance of (TR1))
*# (from (1) and (2) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
*# (instance of (DN1))
*# (instance of (HS1))
*# (from (4) and (5) using modus ponens)
*# (from (3) and (6) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
* - proof:
*# (instance of (HS1))
*# (instance of (L3))
*# (instance of (HS1))
*# (from (2) and (3) by modus ponens)
*# (from (1) and (4) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
*# (instance of (TR2))
*# (instance of (HS2))
*# (from (6) and (7) using modus ponens)
*# (from (5) and (8) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
* - proof:
*# (instance of (A1))
*# (instance of (A1))
*# (from (1) and (2) using modus ponens)
* - proof:
*# (instance of (L1))
*# (instance of (TR1))
*# (from (1) and (2) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
* - proof:
*# (instance of (A1))
*# (instance of (A3))
*# (from (1) and (2) using the hypothetical syllogism metatheorem)
* - proof given in the proof example above
* - axiom (A1)
* - axiom (A2)
Another outline for a completeness proof
If a formula is a tautology, then there is a truth table
A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argumen ...
for it which shows that each valuation yields the value true for the formula. Consider such a valuation. By mathematical induction on the length of the subformulas, show that the truth or falsity of the subformula follows from the truth or falsity (as appropriate for the valuation) of each propositional variable in the subformula. Then combine the lines of the truth table together two at a time by using "( is true implies ) implies (( is false implies ) implies )". Keep repeating this until all dependencies on propositional variables have been eliminated. The result is that we have proved the given tautology. Since every tautology is provable, the logic is complete.
Interpretation of a truth-functional propositional calculus
An interpretation of a truth-functional propositional calculus is an assignment
Assignment, assign or The Assignment may refer to:
* Homework
* Sex assignment
* The process of sending National Basketball Association players to its development league; see
Computing
* Assignment (computer science), a type of modification to ...
to each propositional symbol of of one or the other (but not both) of the truth value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false'').
Computing
In some pro ...
s truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
(T) and falsity
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
(F), and an assignment to the connective symbols of of their usual truth-functional meanings. An interpretation of a truth-functional propositional calculus may also be expressed in terms of truth tables
A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argume ...
.
For distinct propositional symbols there are distinct possible interpretations. For any particular symbol , for example, there are possible interpretations:
# is assigned T, or
# is assigned F.
For the pair , there are possible interpretations:
# both are assigned T,
# both are assigned F,
# is assigned T and is assigned F, or
# is assigned F and is assigned T.
Since has , that is, denumerably many propositional symbols, there are , and therefore uncountably many distinct possible interpretations of .
Interpretation of a sentence of truth-functional propositional logic
If and are formulas
In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...
of and is an interpretation of then the following definitions apply:
* A sentence of propositional logic is ''true under an interpretation'' if assigns the truth value T to that sentence. If a sentence is true
True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality.
True may also refer to:
Places
* True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States
* True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States
* ...
under an interpretation, then that interpretation is called a ''model'' of that sentence.
* is ''false under an interpretation'' if is not true under .
* A sentence of propositional logic is ''logically valid'' if it is true under every interpretation.
*: means that is logically valid.
* A sentence of propositional logic is a ''semantic consequence
Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...
'' of a sentence if there is no interpretation under which is true and is false.
* A sentence of propositional logic is ''consistent
In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...
'' if it is true under at least one interpretation. It is inconsistent if it is not consistent.
Some consequences of these definitions:
* For any given interpretation a given formula is either true or false.
* No formula is both true and false under the same interpretation.
* is false for a given interpretation is true for that interpretation; and is true under an interpretation is false under that interpretation.
* If and are both true under a given interpretation, then is true under that interpretation.
* If and , then .
* is true under is not true under .
* is true under either is not true under or is true under .
* A sentence of propositional logic is a semantic consequence of a sentence is logically valid, that is, .
Alternative calculus
It is possible to define another version of propositional calculus, which defines most of the syntax of the logical operators by means of axioms, and which uses only one inference rule.
Axioms
Let , , and stand for well-formed formulas. (The well-formed formulas themselves would not contain any Greek letters, but only capital Roman letters, connective operators, and parentheses.) Then the axioms are as follows:
*Axiom may be considered to be a "distributive property of implication with respect to implication."
*Axioms and correspond to "conjunction elimination". The relation between and reflects the commutativity of the conjunction operator.
*Axiom corresponds to "conjunction introduction."
*Axioms and correspond to "disjunction introduction." The relation between and reflects the commutativity of the disjunction operator.
*Axiom corresponds to "reductio ad absurdum."
*Axiom says that "anything can be deduced from a contradiction."
*Axiom is called " tertium non-datur" (Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: "a third is not given") and reflects the semantic valuation of propositional formulas: a formula can have a truth-value of either true or false. There is no third truth-value, at least not in classical logic. Intuitionistic logic
Intuitionistic logic, sometimes more generally called constructive logic, refers to systems of symbolic logic that differ from the systems used for classical logic by more closely mirroring the notion of constructive proof. In particular, systems ...
ians do not accept the axiom .
Inference rule
The inference rule is modus ponens:
:.
Meta-inference rule
Let a demonstration be represented by a sequence, with hypotheses to the left of the turnstile
A turnstile (also called a turnpike, gateline, baffle gate, automated gate, turn gate in some regions) is a form of gate which allows one person to pass at a time. A turnstile can be configured to enforce one-way human traffic. In addition, a ...
and the conclusion to the right of the turnstile. Then the deduction theorem In mathematical logic, a deduction theorem is a metatheorem that justifies doing conditional proofs—to prove an implication ''A'' → ''B'', assume ''A'' as an hypothesis and then proceed to derive ''B''—in systems that do not have an ...
can be stated as follows:
: ''If the sequence''
::
: ''has been demonstrated, then it is also possible to demonstrate the sequence''
::.
This deduction theorem (DT) is not itself formulated with propositional calculus: it is not a theorem of propositional calculus, but a theorem about propositional calculus. In this sense, it is a meta-theorem
In logic, a metatheorem is a statement about a formal system proven in a metalanguage. Unlike theorems proved within a given formal system, a metatheorem is proved within a metatheory, and may reference concepts that are present in the metatheo ...
, comparable to theorems about the soundness or completeness of propositional calculus.
On the other hand, DT is so useful for simplifying the syntactical proof process that it can be considered and used as another inference rule, accompanying modus ponens. In this sense, DT corresponds to the natural conditional proof
A conditional proof is a proof that takes the form of asserting a conditional, and proving that the antecedent of the conditional necessarily leads to the consequent.
Overview
The assumed antecedent of a conditional proof is called the conditio ...
inference rule which is part of the first version of propositional calculus introduced in this article.
The converse of DT is also valid:
: ''If the sequence''
::
: ''has been demonstrated, then it is also possible to demonstrate the sequence''
::
in fact, the validity of the converse of DT is almost trivial compared to that of DT:
: ''If''
::
: ''then''
:: 1:
:: 2:
: ''and from (1) and (2) can be deduced''
:: 3:
: ''by means of modus ponens, Q.E.D.''
The converse of DT has powerful implications: it can be used to convert an axiom into an inference rule. For example, by axiom AND-1 we have,
:
which can be transformed by means of the converse of the deduction theorem into
:
which tells us that the inference rule
:
is admissible. This inference rule is conjunction elimination
In propositional logic, conjunction elimination (also called ''and'' elimination, ∧ elimination, or simplification)Hurley is a valid immediate inference, argument form and rule of inference which makes the inference that, if the conjunction ' ...
, one of the ten inference rules used in the first version (in this article) of the propositional calculus.
Example of a proof
The following is an example of a (syntactical) demonstration, involving only axioms and :
Prove: (Reflexivity of implication).
Proof:
#
#: Axiom with
#
#: Axiom with
#
#: From (1) and (2) by modus ponens.
#
#: Axiom with
#
#: From (3) and (4) by modus ponens.
Equivalence to equational logics
The preceding alternative calculus is an example of a Hilbert-style deduction system
:''In mathematical physics, ''Hilbert system'' is an infrequently used term for a physical system described by a C*-algebra.''
In logic, especially mathematical logic, a Hilbert system, sometimes called Hilbert calculus, Hilbert-style deductive s ...
. In the case of propositional systems the axioms are terms built with logical connectives and the only inference rule is modus ponens. Equational logic as standardly used informally in high school algebra is a different kind of calculus from Hilbert systems. Its theorems are equations and its inference rules express the properties of equality, namely that it is a congruence on terms that admits substitution.
Classical propositional calculus as described above is equivalent to Boolean algebra
In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas i ...
, while intuitionistic propositional calculus is equivalent to Heyting algebra In mathematics, a Heyting algebra (also known as pseudo-Boolean algebra) is a bounded lattice (with join and meet operations written ∨ and ∧ and with least element 0 and greatest element 1) equipped with a binary operation ''a'' → ''b'' of '' ...
. The equivalence is shown by translation in each direction of the theorems of the respective systems. Theorems of classical or intuitionistic propositional calculus are translated as equations of Boolean or Heyting algebra respectively. Conversely theorems of Boolean or Heyting algebra are translated as theorems of classical or intuitionistic calculus respectively, for which is a standard abbreviation. In the case of Boolean algebra can also be translated as , but this translation is incorrect intuitionistically.
In both Boolean and Heyting algebra, inequality can be used in place of equality. The equality is expressible as a pair of inequalities and . Conversely the inequality is expressible as the equality , or as . The significance of inequality for Hilbert-style systems is that it corresponds to the latter's deduction or entailment
Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...
symbol . An entailment
::
is translated in the inequality version of the algebraic framework as
::
Conversely the algebraic inequality is translated as the entailment
::.
The difference between implication and inequality or entailment
Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...
or is that the former is internal to the logic while the latter is external. Internal implication between two terms is another term of the same kind. Entailment as external implication between two terms expresses a metatruth outside the language of the logic, and is considered part of the metalanguage. Even when the logic under study is intuitionistic, entailment is ordinarily understood classically as two-valued: either the left side entails, or is less-or-equal to, the right side, or it is not.
Similar but more complex translations to and from algebraic logics are possible for natural deduction systems as described above and for the sequent calculus
In mathematical logic, sequent calculus is a style of formal logical argumentation in which every line of a proof is a conditional tautology (called a sequent by Gerhard Gentzen) instead of an unconditional tautology. Each conditional tautology i ...
. The entailments of the latter can be interpreted as two-valued, but a more insightful interpretation is as a set, the elements of which can be understood as abstract proofs organized as the morphisms of a category
Category, plural categories, may refer to:
Philosophy and general uses
*Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally
* Category of being
* ''Categories'' (Aristotle)
* Category (Kant)
* Categories (Peirce) ...
. In this interpretation the cut rule of the sequent calculus corresponds to composition in the category. Boolean and Heyting algebras enter this picture as special categories having at most one morphism per homset, i.e., one proof per entailment, corresponding to the idea that existence of proofs is all that matters: any proof will do and there is no point in distinguishing them.
Graphical calculi
It is possible to generalize the definition of a formal language from a set of finite sequences over a finite basis to include many other sets of mathematical structures, so long as they are built up by finitary means from finite materials. What's more, many of these families of formal structures are especially well-suited for use in logic.
For example, there are many families of graphs that are close enough analogues of formal languages that the concept of a calculus is quite easily and naturally extended to them. Many species of graphs arise as '' parse graphs'' in the syntactic analysis of the corresponding families of text structures. The exigencies of practical computation on formal languages frequently demand that text strings be converted into pointer structure
In computer science, a pointer is an object in many programming languages that stores a memory address. This can be that of another value located in computer memory, or in some cases, that of memory-mapped computer hardware. A pointer ''re ...
renditions of parse graphs, simply as a matter of checking whether strings are well-formed formulas or not. Once this is done, there are many advantages to be gained from developing the graphical analogue of the calculus on strings. The mapping from strings to parse graphs is called ''parsing
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from L ...
'' and the inverse mapping from parse graphs to strings is achieved by an operation that is called '' traversing'' the graph.
Other logical calculi
Propositional calculus is about the simplest kind of logical calculus in current use. It can be extended in several ways. ( Aristotelian "syllogistic" calculus, which is largely supplanted in modern logic, is in ''some'' ways simpler – but in other ways more complex – than propositional calculus.) The most immediate way to develop a more complex logical calculus is to introduce rules that are sensitive to more fine-grained details of the sentences being used.
First-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
(a.k.a. first-order predicate logic) results when the "atomic sentences" of propositional logic are broken up into terms, variable
Variable may refer to:
* Variable (computer science), a symbolic name associated with a value and whose associated value may be changed
* Variable (mathematics), a symbol that represents a quantity in a mathematical expression, as used in many ...
s, predicates
Predicate or predication may refer to:
* Predicate (grammar), in linguistics
* Predication (philosophy)
* several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic:
**Predicate (mathematical logic)
**Propositional function
**Finitary relation, ...
, and quantifiers, all keeping the rules of propositional logic with some new ones introduced. (For example, from "All dogs are mammals" we may infer "If Rover is a dog then Rover is a mammal".) With the tools of first-order logic it is possible to formulate a number of theories, either with explicit axioms or by rules of inference, that can themselves be treated as logical calculi. Arithmetic is the best known of these; others include set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly conce ...
and mereology. Second-order logic
In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory.
First-order logic quantifies on ...
and other higher-order logic
mathematics and logic, a higher-order logic is a form of predicate logic that is distinguished from first-order logic by additional quantifiers and, sometimes, stronger semantics. Higher-order logics with their standard semantics are more express ...
s are formal extensions of first-order logic. Thus, it makes sense to refer to propositional logic as ''"zeroth-order logic"'', when comparing it with these logics.
Modal logic also offers a variety of inferences that cannot be captured in propositional calculus. For example, from "Necessarily " we may infer that . From we may infer "It is possible that ". The translation between modal logics and algebraic logics concerns classical and intuitionistic logics but with the introduction of a unary operator on Boolean or Heyting algebras, different from the Boolean operations, interpreting the possibility modality, and in the case of Heyting algebra a second operator interpreting necessity (for Boolean algebra this is redundant since necessity is the De Morgan dual of possibility). The first operator preserves 0 and disjunction while the second preserves 1 and conjunction.
Many-valued logic
Many-valued logic (also multi- or multiple-valued logic) refers to a propositional calculus in which there are more than two truth values. Traditionally, in Aristotle's logical calculus, there were only two possible values (i.e., "true" and "false ...
s are those allowing sentences to have values other than ''true'' and ''false''. (For example, ''neither'' and ''both'' are standard "extra values"; "continuum logic" allows each sentence to have any of an infinite number of "degrees of truth" between ''true'' and ''false''.) These logics often require calculational devices quite distinct from propositional calculus. When the values form a Boolean algebra (which may have more than two or even infinitely many values), many-valued logic reduces to classical logic; many-valued logics are therefore only of independent interest when the values form an algebra that is not Boolean.
Solvers
Deciding satisfiability of propositional logic formulas is an NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when:
# it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by trying ...
problem. However, practical methods exist (e.g., DPLL algorithm
In logic and computer science, the Davis–Putnam–Logemann–Loveland (DPLL) algorithm is a complete, backtracking-based search algorithm for deciding the satisfiability of propositional logic formulae in conjunctive normal form, i.e. for solvi ...
, 1962; Chaff algorithm
Chaff is an algorithm for solving instances of the Boolean satisfiability problem in programming. It was designed by researchers at Princeton University. The algorithm is an instance of the DPLL algorithm with a number of enhancements for efficient ...
, 2001) that are very fast for many useful cases. Recent work has extended the SAT solver
The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schola ...
algorithms to work with propositions containing arithmetic expressions; these are the SMT solver
In computer science and mathematical logic, satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) is the problem of determining whether a mathematical formula is satisfiable. It generalizes the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) to more complex formulas involvi ...
s.
See also
Higher logical levels
* First-order logic
First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...
* Second-order propositional logic
A second-order propositional logic is a propositional logic extended with quantification over propositions. A special case are the logics that allow second-order Boolean propositions, where quantifiers may range either just over the Boolean truth ...
* Second-order logic
In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory.
First-order logic quantifies on ...
* Higher-order logic
mathematics and logic, a higher-order logic is a form of predicate logic that is distinguished from first-order logic by additional quantifiers and, sometimes, stronger semantics. Higher-order logics with their standard semantics are more express ...
Related topics
* Boolean algebra (logic)
* Boolean algebra (structure)
* Boolean algebra topics
This is a list of topics around Boolean algebra and propositional logic.
Articles with a wide scope and introductions
* Algebra of sets Talk:Algebra of sets,
* Boolean algebra (structure) Talk:Boolean algebra (structure),
* Boolean algebra ...
* Boolean domain
In mathematics and abstract algebra, a Boolean domain is a set consisting of exactly two elements whose interpretations include ''false'' and ''true''. In logic, mathematics and theoretical computer science, a Boolean domain is usually written as ...
* Boolean function
In mathematics, a Boolean function is a function whose arguments and result assume values from a two-element set (usually , or ). Alternative names are switching function, used especially in older computer science literature, and truth function ...
* Boolean-valued function
A Boolean-valued function (sometimes called a predicate or a proposition) is a function of the type f : X → B, where X is an arbitrary set and where B is a Boolean domain, i.e. a generic two-element set, (for example B = ), whose elements are i ...
* Categorical logic
__NOTOC__
Categorical logic is the branch of mathematics in which tools and concepts from category theory are applied to the study of mathematical logic. It is also notable for its connections to theoretical computer science.
In broad terms, categ ...
* Combinational logic
In automata theory, combinational logic (also referred to as time-independent logic or combinatorial logic) is a type of digital logic which is implemented by Boolean circuits, where the output is a pure function of the present input only. This ...
* Combinatory logic
* Conceptual graph
A conceptual graph (CG) is a formalism for knowledge representation. In the first published paper on CGs, John F. Sowa used them to represent the conceptual schemas used in database systems. The first book on CGs applied them to a wide range o ...
* Disjunctive syllogism
In classical logic, disjunctive syllogism (historically known as ''modus tollendo ponens'' (MTP), Latin for "mode that affirms by denying") is a valid argument form which is a syllogism having a disjunctive statement for one of its premise ...
* Entitative graph
An entitative graph is an element of the diagrammatic syntax for logic that Charles Sanders Peirce developed under the name of qualitative logic beginning in the 1880s, taking the coverage of the formalism only as far as the propositional or ...
* Equational logic First-order equational logic consists of Quantification (logic), quantifier-free terms of ordinary first-order logic, with equality as the only predicate symbol. The model theory of this logic was developed into universal algebra by Garrett Birkhoff ...
* Existential graph
An existential graph is a type of diagrammatic or visual notation for logical expressions, proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who wrote on graphical logic as early as 1882,Peirce, C. S., " n Junctures and Fractures in Logic (editors' title for ...
* Frege's propositional calculus
In mathematical logic, Frege's propositional calculus was the first axiomatization of propositional calculus. It was invented by Gottlob Frege, who also invented predicate calculus, in 1879 as part of his second-order predicate calculus (although ...
* Implicational propositional calculus In mathematical logic, the implicational propositional calculus is a version of classical propositional calculus which uses only one connective, called implication or conditional. In formulas, this binary operation is indicated by "implies", "i ...
* Intuitionistic propositional calculus
* Jean Buridan
Jean Buridan (; Latin: ''Johannes Buridanus''; – ) was an influential 14th-century French philosopher.
Buridan was a teacher in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris for his entire career who focused in particular on logic and the wor ...
* ''Laws of Form
''Laws of Form'' (hereinafter ''LoF'') is a book by G. Spencer-Brown, published in 1969, that straddles the boundary between mathematics and philosophy. ''LoF'' describes three distinct logical systems:
* The "primary arithmetic" (described in C ...
''
* List of logic symbols
In logic, a set of symbols is commonly used to express logical representation. The following table lists many common symbols, together with their name, how they should be read out loud, and the related field of mathematics. Additionally, the subs ...
* Logical graph A logical graph is a special type of diagrammatic structure in any one of several systems of graphical syntax that Charles Sanders Peirce developed for logic.
In his papers on '' qualitative logic'', '' entitative graphs'', and '' existential grap ...
* Logical NOR
* Logical value
In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values (''true'' or '' false'').
Computing
In some progra ...
* Mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...
* Operation (mathematics)
In mathematics, an operation is a function which takes zero or more input values (also called "'' operands''" or "arguments") to a well-defined output value. The number of operands is the arity of the operation.
The most commonly studied opera ...
* Paul of Venice
Paul of Venice (or Paulus Venetus; 1369–1429) was a Catholic philosopher, theologian, logician and metaphysician of the Order of Saint Augustine.
Life
Paul was born, according to the chroniclers of his order, at Udine, about 1369 and died at V ...
* Peirce's law
In logic, Peirce's law is named after the philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce. It was taken as an axiom in his first axiomatisation of propositional logic. It can be thought of as the law of excluded middle written in a form that i ...
* Peter of Spain (author)
__NOTOC__
Peter of Hispania ( la, Petrus Hispanus; Portuguese and es, Pedro Hispano; century) was the author of the ', later known as the ', an important medieval university textbook on Aristotelian logic. As the Latin ''Hispania'' was consider ...
* Propositional formula
In propositional logic, a propositional formula is a type of syntactic formula which is well formed and has a truth value. If the values of all variables in a propositional formula are given, it determines a unique truth value. A propositional for ...
* Symmetric difference
In mathematics, the symmetric difference of two sets, also known as the disjunctive union, is the set of elements which are in either of the sets, but not in their intersection. For example, the symmetric difference of the sets \ and \ is \.
Th ...
* Tautology (rule of inference)
* Truth function
In logic, a truth function is a function that accepts truth values as input and produces a unique truth value as output. In other words: The input and output of a truth function are all truth values; a truth function will always output exactly o ...
* Truth table
A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argumen ...
* Walter Burley
Walter Burley (or Burleigh; 1275 – 1344/45) was an English scholastic philosopher and logician with at least 50 works attributed to him. He studied under Thomas WiltonHarjeet Singh Gill, ''Signification in language and culture'', Indian Inst ...
* William of Sherwood
William of Sherwood or William Sherwood (Latin: ''Guillielmus de Shireswode''; ), with numerous variant spellings, was a medieval English scholastic philosopher, logician, and teacher. Little is known of his life, but he is thought to have studied ...
References
Further reading
* Brown, Frank Markham (2003), ''Boolean Reasoning: The Logic of Boolean Equations'', 1st edition, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA. 2nd edition, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY.
* Chang, C.C. and Keisler, H.J. (1973), ''Model Theory'', North-Holland, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
* Kohavi, Zvi (1978), ''Switching and Finite Automata Theory'', 1st edition, McGraw–Hill, 1970. 2nd edition, McGraw–Hill, 1978.
* Korfhage, Robert R. (1974), ''Discrete Computational Structures'', Academic Press, New York, NY.
* Lambek, J. and Scott, P.J. (1986), ''Introduction to Higher Order Categorical Logic'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
* Mendelson, Elliot (1964), ''Introduction to Mathematical Logic'', D. Van Nostrand Company.
Related works
*
External links
* Klement, Kevin C. (2006), "Propositional Logic", in James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (eds.), '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
Eprint
Formal Predicate Calculus
contains a systematic formal development along the lines of Alternative calculus
*
forall x: an introduction to formal logic
', by P.D. Magnus, covers formal semantics and proof theory for sentential logic.
Chapter 2 / Propositional Logic
fro
Logic In Action
Propositional sequent calculus prover
on Project Nayuki. (''note'': implication can be input in the form !X, Y
, and a sequent can be a single formula prefixed with >
and having no commas)
Propositional Logic - A Generative Grammar
{{Authority control
Systems of formal logic
Logical calculi
Boolean algebra
Classical logic
Analytic philosophy