Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...
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 premi ...
, which describes the relationship between
statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A
valid logical
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialect ...
is one in which the
conclusion is entailed by the
premises, because the conclusion is the consequence of the premises. The
philosophical analysis of logical consequence involves the questions: In what sense does a conclusion follow from its premises? and What does it mean for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises?
[Beall, JC and Restall, Greg, ]
Logical Consequence
' The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). All of
philosophical logic is meant to provide accounts of the nature of logical consequence and the nature of
logical truth.
Logical consequence is
necessary and
formal
Formal, formality, informal or informality imply the complying with, or not complying with, some set of requirements (forms, in Ancient Greek). They may refer to:
Dress code and events
* Formal wear, attire for formal events
* Semi-formal attire ...
, by way of examples that explain with
formal proof
In logic and mathematics, a formal proof or derivation is a finite sequence of sentences (called well-formed formulas in the case of a formal language), each of which is an axiom, an assumption, or follows from the preceding sentences in the sequ ...
and
models of interpretation.
A sentence is said to be a logical consequence of a set of sentences, for a given
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 me ...
,
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 bicond ...
, using only logic (i.e., without regard to any ''personal'' interpretations of the sentences) the sentence must be true if every sentence in the set is true.
[ McKeon, Matthew, ]
Logical Consequence
' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Logicians make precise accounts of logical consequence regarding a given
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 me ...
, either by constructing a
deductive system for
or by formal
intended semantics for language
. The Polish logician
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...
identified three features of an adequate characterization of entailment: (1) The logical consequence relation relies on the
logical form of the sentences: (2) The relation is
a priori
("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...
, i.e., it can be determined with or without regard to
empirical evidence
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
(sense experience); and (3) The logical consequence relation has a
modal component.
Formal accounts
The most widely prevailing view on how best to account for logical consequence is to appeal to formality. This is to say that whether statements follow from one another logically depends on the structure or
logical form of the statements without regard to the contents of that form.
Syntactic accounts of logical consequence rely on
schemes using
inference rules. For instance, we can express the logical form of a valid argument as:
: All ''X'' are ''Y''
: All ''Y'' are ''Z''
: Therefore, all ''X'' are ''Z''.
This argument is formally valid, because every
instance of arguments constructed using this scheme is valid.
This is in contrast to an argument like "Fred is Mike's brother's son. Therefore Fred is Mike's nephew." Since this argument depends on the meanings of the words "brother", "son", and "nephew", the statement "Fred is Mike's nephew" is a so-called
material consequence of "Fred is Mike's brother's son", not a formal consequence. A formal consequence must be true ''in all cases'', however this is an incomplete definition of formal consequence, since even the argument "''P'' is ''Q'''s brother's son, therefore ''P'' is ''Q'''s nephew" is valid in all cases, but is not a ''formal'' argument.
A priori property of logical consequence
If it is known that
follows logically from
, then no information about the possible interpretations of
or
will affect that knowledge. Our knowledge that
is a logical consequence of
cannot be influenced by
empirical knowledge.
Deductively valid arguments can be known to be so without recourse to experience, so they must be knowable a priori.
However, formality alone does not guarantee that logical consequence is not influenced by empirical knowledge. So the a priori property of logical consequence is considered to be independent of formality.
Proofs and models
The two prevailing techniques for providing accounts of logical consequence involve expressing the concept in terms of ''proofs'' and via ''models''. The study of the syntactic consequence (of a logic) is called (its)
proof theory whereas the study of (its) semantic consequence is called (its)
model theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories (a collection of sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a mathematical structure), and their models (those structures in which the ...
.
Syntactic consequence
A formula
is a syntactic consequence
[S. C. Kleene, ]
Introduction to Metamathematics
' (1952), Van Nostrand Publishing. p.88. within some
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 for ...
of a set
of formulas if there is a
formal proof
In logic and mathematics, a formal proof or derivation is a finite sequence of sentences (called well-formed formulas in the case of a formal language), each of which is an axiom, an assumption, or follows from the preceding sentences in the sequ ...
in
of
from the set
. This is denoted
. The turnstile symbol
was originally introduced by Frege in 1879, but its current use only dates back to Rosser and Kleene (1934--1935).
Syntactic consequence does not depend on any
interpretation of the formal system.
Semantic consequence
A formula
is a semantic consequence within some formal system
of a set of statements
if and only if there is no model
in which all members of
are true and
is false.
[ Etchemendy, John, ''Logical consequence'', The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy] This is denoted
. Or, in other words, the set of the interpretations that make all members of
true is a subset of the set of the interpretations that make
true.
Modal accounts
Modal accounts of logical consequence are variations on the following basic idea:
:
is true if and only if it is ''necessary'' that if all of the elements of
are true, then
is true.
Alternatively (and, most would say, equivalently):
:
is true if and only if it is ''impossible'' for all of the elements of
to be true and
false.
Such accounts are called "modal" because they appeal to the modal notions of
logical necessity and
logical possibility. 'It is necessary that' is often expressed as a
universal quantifier
In mathematical logic, a universal quantification is a type of quantifier, a logical constant which is interpreted as "given any" or "for all". It expresses that a predicate can be satisfied by every member of a domain of discourse. In othe ...
over
possible worlds, so that the accounts above translate as:
:
is true if and only if there is no possible world at which all of the elements of
are true and
is false (untrue).
Consider the modal account in terms of the argument given as an example above:
:All frogs are green.
:Kermit is a frog.
:Therefore, Kermit is green.
The conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises because we can't imagine a possible world where (a) all frogs are green; (b) Kermit is a frog; and (c) Kermit is not green.
Modal-formal accounts
Modal-formal accounts of logical consequence combine the modal and formal accounts above, yielding variations on the following basic idea:
:
if and only if it is impossible for an argument with the same logical form as
/
to have true premises and a false conclusion.
Warrant-based accounts
The accounts considered above are all "truth-preservational", in that they all assume that the characteristic feature of a good inference is that it never allows one to move from true premises to an untrue conclusion. As an alternative, some have proposed "
warrant-preservational" accounts, according to which the characteristic feature of a good inference is that it never allows one to move from justifiably assertible premises to a conclusion that is not justifiably assertible. This is (roughly) the account favored by
intuitionists such as
Michael Dummett.
Non-monotonic logical consequence
The accounts discussed above all yield
monotonic consequence relations, i.e. ones such that if
is a consequence of
, then
is a consequence of any superset of
. It is also possible to specify non-monotonic consequence relations to capture the idea that, e.g., 'Tweety can fly' is a logical consequence of
:
but not of
:.
See also
*
Abstract algebraic logic
In mathematical logic, abstract algebraic logic is the study of the algebraization of deductive systems
arising as an abstraction of the well-known Lindenbaum–Tarski algebra, and how the resulting algebras are related to logical systems.Font, 2 ...
*
Ampheck
*
Boolean algebra (logic)
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 ...
*
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 logic
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 in e ...
*
Causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...
*
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be fal ...
*
Logic gate
A logic gate is an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Depending on the context, the term may refer to an ideal logic gat ...
*
Logical graph
*
Peirce's law
*
Probabilistic logic
*
Propositional calculus
Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. 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 ...
*
Sole sufficient operator
*
Strict conditional In logic, a strict conditional (symbol: \Box, or ⥽) is a conditional governed by a modal operator, that is, a logical connective of modal logic. It is logically equivalent to the material conditional of classical logic, combined with the necessi ...
*
Tautology (logic)
In mathematical logic, a tautology (from el, ταυτολογία) is a formula or assertion that is true in every possible interpretation. An example is "x=y or x≠y". Similarly, "either the ball is green, or the ball is not green" is always ...
*
Tautological consequence
*
Therefore sign
*
Turnstile (symbol)
*
Double turnstile
In logic, the symbol ⊨, ⊧ or \models is called the double turnstile. It is often read as " entails", " models", "is a semantic consequence of" or "is stronger than". It is closely related to the turnstile symbol \vdash, which has a single bar a ...
*
Validity
Notes
Resources
* .
* London: College Publications. Series
Mathematical logic and foundations
* .
* 1st edition, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA. 2nd edition, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 2003.
* . Papers include those by
Gödel,
Church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chris ...
,
Rosser,
Kleene, and
Post.
* .
* in Lou Goble (ed.), ''The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic''.
* in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
* .
* .
* 365–409.
*
* in Goble, Lou, ed., ''The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic''. Blackwell.
* (1st ed. 1950), (2nd ed. 1959), (3rd ed. 1972), (4th edition, 1982).
* in D. Jacquette, ed., ''A Companion to Philosophical Logic''. Blackwell.
* Reprinted in Tarski, A., 1983. ''Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics'', 2nd ed.
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
. Originally published in
Polish and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
.
*
* A paper on 'implication' from math.niu.edu
Implication
* A definition of 'implicant
External links
*
*
*
*
*
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Philosophical logic
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Concepts in logic
Syntax (logic)
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