HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
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 premises ...
and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a
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 ...
to
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 beliefs, ...
, which in
classical logic Classical logic (or standard logic or Frege-Russell logic) is the intensively studied and most widely used class of deductive logic. Classical logic has had much influence on analytic philosophy. Characteristics Each logical system in this class ...
has only two possible values (''
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 * ...
'' or '' false'').


Computing

In some programming languages, any
expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, ...
can be evaluated in a context that expects a
Boolean data type In computer science, the Boolean (sometimes shortened to Bool) is a data type that has one of two possible values (usually denoted ''true'' and ''false'') which is intended to represent the two truth values of logic and Boolean algebra. It is name ...
. Typically (though this varies by programming language) expressions like the number
zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usuall ...
, the
empty string In formal language theory, the empty string, or empty word, is the unique string of length zero. Formal theory Formally, a string is a finite, ordered sequence of characters such as letters, digits or spaces. The empty string is the special case ...
, empty lists, and
null Null may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Null (SQL) (or NULL), a special marker and keyword in SQL indicating that something has no value *Null character, the zero-valued ASCII character, also designated by , often used ...
evaluate to false, and strings with content (like "abc"), other numbers, and objects evaluate to true. Sometimes these classes of expressions are called "truthy" and "falsy" / "false".


Classical logic

In
classical logic Classical logic (or standard logic or Frege-Russell logic) is the intensively studied and most widely used class of deductive logic. Classical logic has had much influence on analytic philosophy. Characteristics Each logical system in this class ...
, with its intended semantics, the truth values are ''
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 * ...
'' (denoted by ''1'' or the
verum The tee (⊤, \top in LaTeX) also called down tack (as opposed to the up tack) or verum is a symbol used to represent: * The top element in lattice theory. * The truth value of being true in logic, or a sentence (e.g., formula in propositional calc ...
⊤), and '' untrue'' or '' false'' (denoted by ''0'' or the
falsum The up tack or falsum (⊥, \bot in LaTeX, U+22A5 in Unicode) is a constant symbol used to represent: * The truth value 'false', or a logical constant denoting a proposition in logic that is always false (often called "falsum" or "absurdum"). * ...
⊥); that is, classical logic is a
two-valued logic 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 calle ...
. This set of two values is also called the
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 ...
. Corresponding semantics of
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 co ...
s are
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 ...
s, whose values are expressed in the form of
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.
Logical biconditional In logic and mathematics, the logical biconditional, sometimes known as the material biconditional, is the logical connective (\leftrightarrow) used to conjoin two statements and to form the statement " if and only if ", where is known as t ...
becomes the
equality Equality may refer to: Society * Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing ** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elite ...
binary relation, and
negation In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and fals ...
becomes a
bijection In mathematics, a bijection, also known as a bijective function, one-to-one correspondence, or invertible function, is a function between the elements of two sets, where each element of one set is paired with exactly one element of the other ...
which
permutes In mathematics, a permutation of a set is, loosely speaking, an arrangement of its members into a sequence or linear order, or if the set is already ordered, a rearrangement of its elements. The word "permutation" also refers to the act or pro ...
true and false. Conjunction and disjunction are dual with respect to negation, which is expressed by
De Morgan's laws In propositional logic and Boolean algebra, De Morgan's laws, also known as De Morgan's theorem, are a pair of transformation rules that are both valid rules of inference. They are named after Augustus De Morgan, a 19th-century British mathem ...
: : ¬( : ¬(
Propositional variable In mathematical logic, a propositional variable (also called a sentential variable or sentential letter) is an input variable (that can either be true or false) of a truth function. Propositional variables are the basic building-blocks of proposit ...
s become variables in the Boolean domain. Assigning values for propositional variables is referred to as valuation.


Intuitionistic and constructive logic

In
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 o ...
, and more generally,
constructive mathematics In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find (or "construct") a specific example of a mathematical object in order to prove that an example exists. Contrastingly, in classical mathematics, one can prove th ...
, statements are assigned a truth value only if they can be given a constructive proof. It starts with a set of axioms, and a statement is true if one can build a proof of the statement from those axioms. A statement is false if one can deduce a contradiction from it. This leaves open the possibility of statements that have not yet been assigned a truth value. Unproven statements in intuitionistic logic are not given an intermediate truth value (as is sometimes mistakenly asserted). Indeed, one can prove that they have no third truth value, a result dating back to Glivenko in 1928.Proof that intuitionistic logic has no third truth value, Glivenko 1928
/ref> Instead, statements simply remain of unknown truth value, until they are either proven or disproven. There are various ways of interpreting intuitionistic logic, including the Brouwer–Heyting–Kolmogorov interpretation. See also .


Multi-valued logic

Multi-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 (such as
fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and complete ...
and
relevance logic Relevance logic, also called relevant logic, is a kind of non-classical logic requiring the antecedent and consequent of implications to be relevantly related. They may be viewed as a family of substructural or modal logics. It is generally, but ...
) allow for more than two truth values, possibly containing some internal structure. For example, on the
unit interval In mathematics, the unit interval is the closed interval , that is, the set of all real numbers that are greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 1. It is often denoted ' (capital letter ). In addition to its role in real analysis ...
such structure is a
total order In mathematics, a total or linear order is a partial order in which any two elements are comparable. That is, a total order is a binary relation \leq on some set X, which satisfies the following for all a, b and c in X: # a \leq a ( reflexi ...
; this may be expressed as the existence of various degrees of truth.


Algebraic semantics

Not all
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 are truth-valuational in the sense that logical connectives may be interpreted as truth functions. For example,
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 o ...
lacks a complete set of truth values because its semantics, the Brouwer–Heyting–Kolmogorov interpretation, is specified in terms of provability conditions, and not directly in terms of the necessary truth of formulae. But even non-truth-valuational logics can associate values with logical formulae, as is done in algebraic semantics. The algebraic semantics of intuitionistic logic is given in terms of
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 '' ...
s, compared 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 ...
semantics of classical propositional calculus.


In other theories

Intuitionistic type theory Intuitionistic type theory (also known as constructive type theory, or Martin-Löf type theory) is a type theory and an alternative foundation of mathematics. Intuitionistic type theory was created by Per Martin-Löf, a Swedish mathematician and p ...
uses
types Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Typ ...
in the place of truth values.
Topos In mathematics, a topos (, ; plural topoi or , or toposes) is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space (or more generally: on a site). Topoi behave much like the category of sets and possess a notion ...
theory uses truth values in a special sense: the truth values of a topos are the global elements of the
subobject classifier In category theory, a subobject classifier is a special object Ω of a category such that, intuitively, the subobjects of any object ''X'' in the category correspond to the morphisms from ''X'' to Ω. In typical examples, that morphism assigns "true ...
. Having truth values in this sense does not make a logic truth valuational.


See also

*
Agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
*
Bayesian probability Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification o ...
* Circular reasoning *
Degree of truth In classical logic, propositions are typically unambiguously considered as being true or false. For instance, the proposition ''one is both equal and not equal to itself'' is regarded as simply false, being contrary to the Law of Noncontradiction ...
*
False dilemma A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false ...
* *
Paradox A paradox is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically u ...
*
Semantic theory of truth A semantic theory of truth is a theory of truth in the philosophy of language which holds that truth is a property of sentences. Origin The semantic conception of truth, which is related in different ways to both the correspondence and deflatio ...
*
Slingshot argument In philosophical logic, a slingshot argument is one of a group of arguments claiming to show that all true sentences stand for the same thing. This type of argument was dubbed the "slingshot" by philosophers Jon Barwise and John Perry (1981) due ...
*
Supervaluationism In philosophical logic, supervaluationism is a semantics for dealing with irreferential singular terms and vagueness. It allows one to apply the tautologies of propositional logic in cases where truth values are undefined. According to superv ...
*
Truth-value semantics In formal semantics, truth-value semantics is an alternative to Tarskian semantics. It has been primarily championed by Ruth Barcan Marcus, H. Leblanc, and J. Michael Dunn and Nuel Belnap. It is also called the ''substitution interpretation'' (of ...
*
Verisimilitude In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be close ...


References


External links

* {{Logical truth Concepts in logic Propositions Value Value (ethics) Epistemology