symbolization

8/2/08

Tutorial 1 Exercise 2

[This is a film-- press the 'play' symbol.]

7/7/12

Skills to be acquired in this tutorial:

To become familiar with the notions of argument, valid, invalid, premise, and conclusion. To learn how to symbolize atomic propositions.

Tutorial:

The main role of logic is to assess arguments-- to say whether an individual argument is valid or whether it is invalid. In logic, arguments are taken to consist of two components--premises, and a conclusion.

For example,

If it rains, I get wet.
It rains.

Therefore,

I get wet.

7/6/12

Indicative sentences in a natural language, English, for instance, are either true or false. For example, 'There are 35 State Governors in the U.S.A.' is an indicative sentence (which happens to be false). Such sentences express statements or propositions. Not all pieces of language express propositions. For example, the question 'What day is it today?' is not either true or false (although reasonable answers to it will be either true or false); again, the greeting 'Have a nice day!' is not either true or false.

7/5/12

Welcome!

These web pages provide an introduction to logic to the level of Propositional and Predicate Calculus.

The focus of the program is on arguments and the question of whether they are valid. Arguments have the form <list of premises> ∴<conclusion>. An argument is valid if and only if it is not possible for all its premises to be true and its conclusion false at one and the same time; an argument which is not valid is invalid.

2/5/08

Reading

Hausman[2007] Logic and Philosophy Chapter 10

[The core of what follows is from Leblanc and Wisdom [1972] p.117 and f.]

Symbolization using the Universal Quantifier (of non relational English)

10 Software

Reading

Hausman[2007] Logic and Philosophy Chapter 10

The Tutorial

Thus far we have considered only 'monadic' predicates-- our atomic formulas consist of a predicate followed by only one term-- for example, Fx. But in English we regularly encounter dyadic predicates or relations. For example, 'Arthur is taller than Bert' cannot be symbolized with the tools we have used so far; what is needed is a relation to represent '...is taller than ...' Txy, say, and then the proposition would be symbolized Tab.

6/18/07 10 Software

Skill to be acquired in this tutorial:

To learn how to use the Universal and Existential Quantifiers in symbolizing propositions.

Reading

Hausman[2007] Logic and Philosophy Chapter 7

The Tutorial

In Predicate Logic there are two new logical connectives, the Universal Quantifier (x) and the Existential Quantifier (∃x). These are used for symbolizing certain English constructions (they also have their own rules of inference and their own semantics, which we will learn about later).

10 Software

Reading

Hausman[2007] Logic and Philosophy Chapter 7

Tutorial

In predicate logic, many different styles of expression in English get cast into the same 'property-is-had-by-entity' form. For example,

6/14/07 10 Software

Skills to be acquired in this tutorial:

To start learning how to symbolize sentences using predicate logic.

Reading

Hausman[2007] Logic and Philosophy Chapter 7

The Tutorial:

There are many valid arguments which cannot be shown to be valid using sentential logic alone. For example,

Beryl is a philosopher.
All philosophers are wise.
Therefore
Beryl is wise.