LogicLogic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. It examines arguments expressed in natural language while formal logic uses formal language.
Necessity and sufficiencyIn logic and mathematics, necessity and sufficiency are terms used to describe a conditional or implicational relationship between two statements. For example, in the conditional statement: "If P then Q", Q is necessary for P, because the truth of Q is guaranteed by the truth of P. (Equivalently, it is impossible to have P without Q, or the falsity of Q ensures the falsity of P.) Similarly, P is sufficient for Q, because P being true always implies that Q is true, but P not being true does not always imply that Q is not true.
Possible worldA 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 metaphysical status has been a subject of controversy in philosophy, with modal realists such as David Lewis arguing that they are literally existing alternate realities, and others such as Robert Stalnaker arguing that they are not.
Material conditionalThe material conditional (also known as material implication) is an operation commonly used in logic. When the conditional symbol is interpreted as material implication, a formula is true unless is true and is false. Material implication can also be characterized inferentially by modus ponens, modus tollens, conditional proof, and classical reductio ad absurdum. Material implication is used in all the basic systems of classical logic as well as some nonclassical logics.
Probabilistic logicProbabilistic logic (also probability logic and probabilistic reasoning) involves the use of probability and logic to deal with uncertain situations. Probabilistic logic extends traditional logic truth tables with probabilistic expressions. A difficulty of probabilistic logics is their tendency to multiply the computational complexities of their probabilistic and logical components. Other difficulties include the possibility of counter-intuitive results, such as in case of belief fusion in Dempster–Shafer theory.
Paradoxes of material implicationThe paradoxes of material implication are a group of true formulae involving material conditionals whose translations into natural language are intuitively false when the conditional is translated as "if ... then ...". A material conditional formula is true unless is true and is false. If natural language conditionals were understood in the same way, that would mean that the sentence "If the Nazis had won World War Two, everybody would be happy" is vacuously true.
Relevance logicRelevance 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 not universally, called relevant logic by British and, especially, Australian logicians, and relevance logic by American logicians. Relevance logic aims to capture aspects of implication that are ignored by the "material implication" operator in classical truth-functional logic, namely the notion of relevance between antecedent and conditional of a true implication.
Formal proofIn 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 sequence by a rule of inference. It differs from a natural language argument in that it is rigorous, unambiguous and mechanically verifiable. If the set of assumptions is empty, then the last sentence in a formal proof is called a theorem of the formal system.
Formal systemA 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 formal system is essentially an "axiomatic system". In 1921, David Hilbert proposed to use such a system as the foundation for the knowledge in mathematics. A formal system may represent a well-defined system of abstract thought.
NegationIn logic, negation, also called the logical not or logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition to another proposition "not ", standing for " is not true", written , or . It is interpreted intuitively as being true when is false, and false when is true. Negation is thus a unary logical connective. It may be applied as an operation on notions, propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. In classical logic, negation is normally identified with the truth function that takes truth to falsity (and vice versa).
Interpretation (logic)An interpretation is an assignment of meaning to the symbols of a formal language. Many formal languages used in mathematics, logic, and theoretical computer science are defined in solely syntactic terms, and as such do not have any meaning until they are given some interpretation. The general study of interpretations of formal languages is called formal semantics. The most commonly studied formal logics are propositional logic, predicate logic and their modal analogs, and for these there are standard ways of presenting an interpretation.
If and only ifIn 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 biconditional (a statement of material equivalence), and can be likened to the standard material conditional ("only if", equal to "if ... then") combined with its reverse ("if"); hence the name. The result is that the truth of either one of the connected statements requires the truth of the other (i.
Functional completenessIn 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. A well-known complete set of connectives is { AND, NOT }. Each of the singleton sets { NAND } and { NOR } is functionally complete. However, the set { AND, OR } is incomplete, due to its inability to express NOT. A gate or set of gates which is functionally complete can also be called a universal gate / gates.
Proof theoryProof theory is a major branch of mathematical logic and theoretical computer science within which proofs are treated as formal mathematical objects, facilitating their analysis by mathematical techniques. Proofs are typically presented as inductively-defined data structures such as lists, boxed lists, or trees, which are constructed according to the axioms and rules of inference of a given logical system. Consequently, proof theory is syntactic in nature, in contrast to model theory, which is semantic in nature.
Propositional calculusPropositional 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 between propositions, including the construction of arguments based on them. Compound propositions are formed by connecting propositions by logical connectives. Propositions that contain no logical connectives are called atomic propositions.
Rule of inferenceIn philosophy of logic and 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 inference called modus ponens takes two premises, one in the form "If p then q" and another in the form "p", and returns the conclusion "q". The rule is valid with respect to the semantics of classical logic (as well as the semantics of many other non-classical logics), in the sense that if the premises are true (under an interpretation), then so is the conclusion.
Semantics of logicIn logic, the semantics of logic or formal semantics is the study of the semantics, or interpretations, of formal and (idealizations of) natural languages usually trying to capture the pre-theoretic notion of entailment. The truth conditions of various sentences we may encounter in arguments will depend upon their meaning, and so logicians cannot completely avoid the need to provide some treatment of the meaning of these sentences.
Validity (logic)In logic, specifically in deductive reasoning, an argument is valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. It is not required for a valid argument to have premises that are actually true, but to have premises that, if they were true, would guarantee the truth of the argument's conclusion. Valid arguments must be clearly expressed by means of sentences called well-formed formulas (also called wffs or simply formulas).
Tautology (logic)In mathematical logic, a tautology (from 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 true, regardless of the colour of the ball. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921, borrowing from rhetoric, where a tautology is a repetitive statement.
False (logic)In logic, false or untrue is the state of possessing negative truth value and is a nullary logical connective. In a truth-functional system of propositional logic, it is one of two postulated truth values, along with its negation, truth. Usual notations of the false are 0 (especially in Boolean logic and computer science), O (in prefix notation, Opq), and the up tack symbol . Another approach is used for several formal theories (e.g., intuitionistic propositional calculus), where a propositional constant (i.
