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Sentential Logic

1.1. Deductive Reasoning and Logical Connectives

As we saw in the introduction, proofs play a central role in mathematics, and

deductive reasoning is the foundation on which proofs are based. Therefore,
we begin our study of mathematical reasoning and proofs by examining how
deductive reasoning works.

Example 1.1.1. Here are three examples of deductive reasoning:

1. It will either rain or snow tomorrow.

It’s too warm for snow.
Therefore, it will rain.
2. If today is Sunday, then I don’t have to go to work today.
Today is Sunday.
Therefore, I don’t have to go to work today.
3. I will go to work either tomorrow or today.
I’m going to stay home today.
Therefore, I will go to work tomorrow.

In each case, we have arrived at a conclusion from the assumption that

some other statements, called premises, are true. For example, the premises in
argument 3 are the statements “I will go to work either tomorrow or today”
and “I’m going to stay home today.” The conclusion is “I will go to work
tomorrow,” and it seems to be forced on us somehow by the premises.
But is this conclusion really correct? After all, isn’t it possible that I’ll stay
home today, and then wake up sick tomorrow and end up staying home again?
If that happened, the conclusion would turn out to be false. But notice that in
that case the first premise, which said that I would go to work either tomorrow
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Deductive Reasoning and Logical Connectives 9

or today, would be false as well! Although we have no guarantee that the
conclusion is true, it can only be false if at least one of the premises is also
false. If both premises are true, we can be sure that the conclusion is also true.
This is the sense in which the conclusion is forced on us by the premises, and
this is the standard we will use to judge the correctness of deductive reasoning.
We will say that an argument is valid if the premises cannot all be true without
the conclusion being true as well. All three of the arguments in our example
are valid arguments.
Here’s an example of an invalid deductive argument:

Either the butler is guilty or the maid is guilty.

Either the maid is guilty or the cook is guilty.
Therefore, either the butler is guilty or the cook is guilty.
The argument is invalid because the conclusion could be false even if both
premises are true. For example, if the maid were guilty, but the butler and the
cook were both innocent, then both premises would be true and the conclusion
would be false.
We can learn something about what makes an argument valid by compar-
ing the three arguments in Example 1.1.1. On the surface it might seem that
arguments 2 and 3 have the most in common, because they’re both about
the same subject: attendance at work. But in terms of the reasoning used,
arguments 1 and 3 are the most similar. They both introduce two possibili-
ties in the first premise, rule out the second one with the second premise, and
then conclude that the first possibility must be the case. In other words, both
arguments have the form:

P or Q.
not Q.
Therefore, P.
It is this form, and not the subject matter, that makes these arguments valid.
You can see that argument 1 has this form by thinking of the letter P as standing
for the statement “It will rain tomorrow,” and Q as standing for “It will snow
tomorrow.” For argument 3, P would be “I will go to work tomorrow,” and Q
would be “I will go to work today.”
Replacing certain statements in each argument with letters, as we have in
stating the form of arguments 1 and 3, has two advantages. First, it keeps us
from being distracted by aspects of the arguments that don’t affect their validity.
You don’t need to know anything about weather forecasting or work habits to
recognize that arguments 1 and 3 are valid. That’s because both arguments have
the form shown earlier, and you can tell that this argument form is valid without
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10 Sentential Logic
even knowing what P and Q stand for. If you don’t believe this, consider the
following argument:
Either the framger widget is misfiring, or the wrompal mechanism is out of
alignment.
I’ve checked the alignment of the wrompal mechanism, and it’s fine.
Therefore, the framger widget is misfiring.
If a mechanic gave this explanation after examining your car, you might still
be mystified about why the car won’t start, but you’d have no trouble following
his logic!
Perhaps more important, our analysis of the forms of arguments 1 and 3
makes clear what is important in determining their validity: the words or and
not. In most deductive reasoning, and in particular in mathematical reasoning,
the meanings of just a few words give us the key to understanding what makes
a piece of reasoning valid or invalid. (Which are the important words in ar-
gument 2 in Example 1.1.1?) The first few chapters of this book are devoted
to studying those words and how they are used in mathematical writing and
reasoning.
In this chapter, we’ll concentrate on words used to combine statements to
form more complex statements. We’ll continue to use letters to stand for state-
ments, but only for unambiguous statements that are either true or false. Ques-
tions, exclamations, and vague statements will not be allowed. It will also be
useful to use symbols, sometimes called connective symbols, to stand for some
of the words used to combine statements. Here are our first three connective
symbols and the words they stand for:
Symbol Meaning
∨ or
∧ and
¬ not
Thus, if P and Q stand for two statements, then we’ll write P ∨ Q to stand
for the statement “P or Q,” P ∧ Q for “P and Q,” and ¬P for “not P” or
“P is false.” The statement P ∨ Q is sometimes called the disjunction of P
and Q, P ∧ Q is called the conjunction of P and Q, and ¬P is called the
negation of P.

Example 1.1.2. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:

1. Either John went to the store, or we’re out of eggs.

2. Joe is going to leave home and not come back.
3. Either Bill is at work and Jane isn’t, or Jane is at work and Bill isn’t.
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Deductive Reasoning and Logical Connectives 11

Solutions
1. If we let P stand for the statement “John went to the store” and Q stand for
“We’re out of eggs,” then this statement could be represented symbolically
as P ∨ Q.
2. If we let P stand for the statement “Joe is going to leave home” and Q stand
for “Joe is not going to come back,” then we could represent this statement
symbolically as P ∧ Q. But this analysis misses an important feature of the
statement, because it doesn’t indicate that Q is a negative statement. We
could get a better analysis by letting R stand for the statement “Joe is going
to come back” and then writing the statement Q as ¬R. Plugging this into
our first analysis of the original statement, we get the improved analysis
P ∧ ¬R.
3. Let B stand for the statement “Bill is at work” and J for the statement “Jane is
at work.” Then the first half of the statement, “Bill is at work and Jane isn’t,”
can be represented as B ∧ ¬J . Similarly, the second half is J ∧ ¬B. To
represent the entire statement, we must combine these two with or, forming
their disjunction, so the solution is (B ∧ ¬J ) ∨ (J ∧ ¬B).

Notice that in analyzing the third statement in the preceding example, we

added parentheses when we formed the disjunction of B ∧ ¬J and J ∧ ¬B
to indicate unambiguously which statements were being combined. This is
like the use of parentheses in algebra, in which, for example, the product
of a + b and a − b would be written (a + b) · (a − b), with the parentheses
serving to indicate unambiguously which quantities are to be multiplied. As
in algebra, it is convenient in logic to omit some parentheses to make our
expressions shorter and easier to read. However, we must agree on some con-
ventions about how to read such expressions so that they are still unambigu-
ous. One convention is that the symbol ¬ always applies only to the state-
ment that comes immediately after it. For example, ¬P ∧ Q means (¬P) ∧ Q
rather than ¬(P ∧ Q). We’ll see some other conventions about parentheses
later.

Example 1.1.3. What English sentences are represented by the following

expressions?

1. (¬S ∧ L) ∨ S, where S stands for “John is stupid” and L stands for “John is
lazy.”
2. ¬S ∧ (L ∨ S), where S and L have the same meanings as before.
3. ¬(S ∧ L) ∨ S, with S and L still as before.
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12 Sentential Logic
Solutions
1. Either John isn’t stupid and he is lazy, or he’s stupid.
2. John isn’t stupid, and either he’s lazy or he’s stupid. Notice how the place-
ment of the word either in English changes according to where the paren-
theses are.
3. Either John isn’t both stupid and lazy, or John is stupid. The word
both in English also helps distinguish the different possible positions of
parentheses.

It is important to keep in mind that the symbols ∧, ∨, and ¬ don’t really

correspond to all uses of the words and, or, and not in English. For example,
the symbol ∧ could not be used to represent the use of the word and in the
sentence “John and Bill are friends,” because in this sentence the word and is
not being used to combine two statements. The symbols ∧ and ∨ can only be
used between two statements, to form their conjunction or disjunction, and the
symbol ¬ can only be used before a statement, to negate it. This means that
certain strings of letters and symbols are simply meaningless. For example,
P¬ ∧ Q, P ∧/∨ Q, and P¬Q are all “ungrammatical” expressions in the
language of logic. “Grammatical” expressions, such as those in Examples 1.1.2
and 1.1.3, are sometimes called well-formed formulas or just formulas. Once
again, it may be helpful to think of an analogy with algebra, in which the
symbols +, −, ·, and ÷ can be used between two numbers, as operators, and
the symbol − can also be used before a number, to negate it. These are the
only ways that these symbols can be used in algebra, so expressions such as
x − ÷y are meaningless.
Sometimes, words other than and, or, and not are used to express the mean-
ings represented by ∧, ∨, and ¬. For example, consider the first statement in
Example 1.1.3. Although we gave the English translation “Either John isn’t
stupid and he is lazy, or he’s stupid,” an alternative way of conveying the same
information would be to say “Either John isn’t stupid but he is lazy, or he’s
stupid.” Often, the word but is used in English to mean and, especially when
there is some contrast or conflict between the statements being combined. For
a more striking example, imagine a weather forecaster ending his forecast with
the statement “Rain and snow are the only two possibilities for tomorrow’s
weather.” This is just a roundabout way of saying that it will either rain or
snow tomorrow. Thus, even though the forecaster has used the word and, the
meaning expressed by his statement is a disjunction. The lesson of these ex-
amples is that to determine the logical form of a statement you must think
about what the statement means, rather than just translating word by word into
symbols.
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Deductive Reasoning and Logical Connectives 13

Sometimes logical words are hidden within mathematical notation. For ex-
ample, consider the statement 3 ≤ π . Although it appears to be a simple
statement that contains no words of logic, if you read it out loud you will
hear the word or. If we let P stand for the statement 3 < π and Q for the
statement 3 = π, then the statement 3 ≤ π would be written P ∨ Q. In this
example the statements represented by the letters P and Q are so short that it
hardly seems worthwhile to abbreviate them with single letters. In cases like
this we will sometimes not bother to replace the statements with letters, so we
might also write this statement as (3 < π ) ∨ (3 = π ).
For a slightly more complicated example, consider the statement 3 ≤ π < 4.
This statement means 3 ≤ π and π < 4, so once again a word of logic has
been hidden in mathematical notation. Filling in the meaning that we just
worked out for 3 ≤ π, we can write the whole statement as [(3 < π ) ∨ (3 =
π)] ∧ (π < 4). Knowing that the statement has this logical form might be
important in understanding a piece of mathematical reasoning involving this
statement.

Exercises

∗
1. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) We’ll have either a reading assignment or homework problems, but we
won’t have both homework problems and a test.
(b) You
√ won’t go skiing, or you will and there won’t be any snow.
(c) 7 ≤ 2.
2. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) Either John and Bill are both telling the truth, or neither of them is.
(b) I’ll have either fish or chicken, but I won’t have both fish and mashed
potatoes.
(c) 3 is a common divisor of 6, 9, and 15.
3. Analyze the logical forms of the following statements:
(a) Alice and Bob are not both in the room.
(b) Alice and Bob are both not in the room.
(c) Either Alice or Bob is not in the room.
(d) Neither Alice nor Bob is in the room.
4. Which of the following expressions are well-formed formulas?
(a) ¬(¬P ∨ ¬¬R).
(b) ¬(P, Q, ∧R).
(c) P ∧ ¬P.
(d) (P ∧ Q)(P ∨ R).
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14 Sentential Logic
∗
5. Let P stand for the statement “I will buy the pants” and S for the statement
“I will buy the shirt.” What English sentences are represented by the fol-
lowing expressions?
(a) ¬(P ∧ ¬S).
(b) ¬P ∧ ¬S.
(c) ¬P ∨ ¬S.
6. Let S stand for the statement “Steve is happy” and G for “George is happy.”
What English sentences are represented by the following expressions?
(a) (S ∨ G) ∧ (¬S ∨ ¬G).
(b) [S ∨ (G ∧ ¬S)] ∨ ¬G.
(c) S ∨ [G ∧ (¬S ∨ ¬G)].
7. Identify the premises and conclusions of the following deductive argu-
ments and analyze their logical forms. Do you think the reasoning is valid?
(Although you will have only your intuition to guide you in answering
this last question, in the next section we will develop some techniques for
determining the validity of arguments.)
(a) Jane and Pete won’t both win the math prize. Pete will win either
the math prize or the chemistry prize. Jane will win the math prize.
Therefore, Pete will win the chemistry prize.
(b) The main course will be either beef or fish. The vegetable will be either
peas or corn. We will not have both fish as a main course and corn as a
vegetable. Therefore, we will not have both beef as a main course and
peas as a vegetable.
(c) Either John or Bill is telling the truth. Either Sam or Bill is lying.
Therefore, either John is telling the truth or Sam is lying.
(d) Either sales will go up and the boss will be happy, or expenses will go
up and the boss won’t be happy. Therefore, sales and expenses will not
both go up.

1.2. Truth Tables

We saw in Section 1.1 that an argument is valid if the premises cannot all be
true without the conclusion being true as well. Thus, to understand how words
such as and, or, and not affect the validity of arguments, we must see how they
contribute to the truth or falsity of statements containing them.
When we evaluate the truth or falsity of a statement, we assign to it one of
the labels true or false, and this label is called its truth value. It is clear how the
word and contributes to the truth value of a statement containing it. A statement
of the form P ∧ Q can only be true if both P and Q are true; if either P or Q
is false, then P ∧ Q will be false too. Because we have assumed that P and