Introduction to

Propositional Logic

R. Nealega

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Propositional Logic
Propositional logic is the study of propositions (true or false
statements) and ways of combining them (logical operators) to
get new propositions.
It is effectively an algebra of propositions. In this algebra, the
variables stand for unknown propositions (instead of unknown
real numbers).
The operators are:
and, or, not, implies, and if and only if
(rather than plus, minus, negative, times, and divided by

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Propositional Logic
The Two Elements of Symbolic Logic:

Propositions

◦A proposition is a statement with a truth value. That is, it

is a statement that is true or else a false statement.

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Propositional Logic
The Two Elements of Symbolic Logic: Propositions

◦Mathematics Building is in the mathematics department at the

University of the Philippines. (true)

◦The main campus of the Far Eastern University is in Fairview, Q.C.

(false)

◦Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate. (Again, the statement is

certainly true or false, even though many people stand on both
sides of the question.)

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Propositional Logic
The Two Elements of Symbolic Logic: Propositions

◦ It will rain in Manila tomorrow. (We cannot know the truth of this
statement today, but it is certainly either true or false.)

◦ I am beautiful. (Either true or fals)

◦ 2+2=4 (true)

◦ 2+2=19 (false)
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Propositional Logic
Examples of expressions that are not propositions:

Where is the Senior High Building? (This is neither true nor false. It is a
question.)

Find the National Museum! (This is neither true nor false. It is a

command.)

Blue is the best color to paint a house. (This is a matter of opinion, not
truth. It may be your favorite color, but it is not objective truth.)

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Propositional Logic
Examples of expressions that are not propositions:

◦ Coffee tastes better than tea. (Again, this is a matter of taste, not
truth.)

◦ The integer n is even. (Since n has no value, this statement is

neither true nor false. If n is given a value, this statement
becomes a proposition.
Later we will call such statements predicates or propositional functions.
They are not propositions, but they become propositions when their
variables are assigned values.)

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Propositional Logic
The Two Elements of Symbolic Logic: Logical Operators

◦ Arithmetic operators (operations) such as addition, subtraction,

multiplication, division, and negation act on numbers to give new numbers.
◦ Logical operators such as conjunction (and), disjunction (or), and negation
(not) act on propositions to give new (compound) propositions.
◦ Logical operators should be truth-functional; that is, the truth value of the
compound proposition should depend only on the truth value of the
component propositions. This makes it easy to specify the effect of a logical
operator: we simply list the truth value of the compound proposition for
every combination of truth values of the component compositions. Such a
list is called a truth table.

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators

◦ Conjunction (and): The conjunction of propositions p and q is the

compound proposition “p and q”. We denote it p  q .

◦ It is true if p and q are both true and false otherwise.

For instance, the compound proposition “2+2=4 and Sunday is the

first day of the week” is true, but “3+3=7 and the freezing point of
water is 32 degrees in Fahrenheit” false.

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The truth table that defines conjunction is:

p q pq

T T T

T F F

F T F

F F F

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators
◦ Disjunction (or): In English, the word or has two senses: inclusive and
exclusive.

◦ The inclusive sense means “either or both” as in “to be admitted to the

university you must have a composite score of at least 17 or a high school
GPA of at least 2.5.” The exclusive sense means “one or the other but not
both” as in “for dinner, I will have a sirloin steak or the fried shrimp platter”
or “Is the capital of Manila or Makati?”

◦ In mathematics and logic, the word or always has the inclusive sense;
exceptions require alarm bells and warning lights.

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators
◦The disjunction of propositions p and q is the compound
proposition “p or q”. We denote it p  q .

It is true if p is true, q is true, or both. For instance, the

compound proposition “2+2=4 or Sunday is the first day of the
week” is true, and “3+3=7 or the freezing point of water is 32
degrees” is also true, but “2+2=5 or Laguna is in Manila” is
false.

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The truth table that defines disjunction is

p q pq
T T T

T F T

F T T

F F F

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators

◦ Negation (not): The negation of a proposition p is “not p”.

◦ It is true if p is false and vice versa. T

This differs from the previous operators in that it is a unary operator, acting on a
single proposition rather than a pair (the others are binary operators).
Sometimes there are several ways of expressing a negation in English, and you
should be careful to choose a clear one.

For instance, if p is the proposition “2<5”, then reasonable statements of ~p are

“it is not the case that 2<5” and “2 is not less than 5” and “ ”.

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The truth table that defines negation is

p ~p

T F

F T

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators: Conditional (implies, if-then)

◦ An implication is a compound proposition of the form “if p then q” or “p

implies q”. In English, this phrase carries many meanings.
◦ Sometimes it means that p causes q as in “if you eat too much you will get fat.”
◦ Sometimes it means that p guarantees q and vice versa as in “if you write a
book report, I will give you five points extra credit” (tacitly assuring you that if
you do not write it, I certainly will not give you extra credit).
◦ Sometimes it takes a very weak sense, simply asserting that the truth of p
guarantees the truth of q as in “if you resign the chess game, you will lose” (but
of course, if you play on in a bad position, you will probably lose anyway —
continued play does not guarantee to win).

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators: Conditional (implies, if-then)

◦ Mathematics and logic always use implication in this weakest sense.

Why? Because this is the very least that implication means in English.
It makes our claims as conservative as possible.

◦ If we take “if-then” in this very weak sense, then we will never

assume the phrase means more than it should. We denote the
compound proposition “p implies q” by p → q .

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The truth table implies is

p q p→q
T T T

T F F

F T T

F F T

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators: Conditional (implies, if-then) p → q
◦ Thus, an implication is true unless its antecedent p is true, and its consequent q is
false.

For instance, suppose I say, “If I win the lottery, I will give each of you Php5000.”
If I win the lottery and give you Php5000, I will keep my word.

Similarly, if I do not win and I do not give you Php5000, I have kept my word.
What if I do not win but I still give you Php5000(here p is false, and q is true)? In
our technical use of implies, I have still kept my word; my promise is still kept.
The point is that I made a promise only about what I would do if I did win the
lottery. If I do not win the lottery, I am free to do as I will. The only way I can
break my word is to win the lottery but not give you Php5000.

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators:
Conditional (implies, if-then)

◦Similarly, conditionals like “if 2+2=5, then all prime

numbers are even” are true, even if their usefulness is
not immediately apparent.

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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators: Conditional (implies, if-then)

The implication has many phrasings in English. It is helpful to be well

acquainted with the possibilities as some of them are
counterintuitive.

Here are some examples:

◦ if p then q
◦ p implies q
◦ p is sufficient for q
◦ q is necessary for p
◦ q, if p
◦ p only if q (unexpected but correct)
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Propositional Logic
The Common Logical Operators: Biconditional (if and only if):
◦The biconditional of propositions p and q is the compound
proposition “p if and only if q” or “p is necessary and sufficient
for q”.
◦It is true if p and q have the same truth value (both true or
both false). It is, in fact, one of the stronger senses of the
phrase “if…then…” in everyday English as mentioned above.

The biconditional “2+2=4 if and only if Sunday is the first day

of the week” is true, and “3+3=7 or the freezing point of
water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit” is false, but “2+2=5 or UT is
in Oklahoma” is true.

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The truth table that defines the biconditional is

p q pq
T T T

T F F

F T F

F F T

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