Propositional and

First-Order Logic
Propositional
Logic
 Propositional logic
• Logical constants: true, false
• Propositional symbols: P, Q, S, ... (atomic sentences)
• Wrapping parentheses: ( … )
• Sentences are combined by connectives:
...and [conjunction]
 ...or [disjunction]
...implies [implication / conditional]
..is equivalent [biconditional]
 ...not [negation]
• Literal: atomic sentence or negated atomic sentence
 Examples of PL sentences
• P means “It is hot.”
• Q means “It is humid.”
• R means “It is raining.”
• (P  Q)  R
“If it is hot and humid, then it is raining”
• QP
“If it is humid, then it is hot”
• A better way:
Hot = “It is hot”
Humid = “It is humid”
Raining = “It is raining”
 Propositional logic (PL)
• A simple language useful for showing key ideas and definitions
• User defines a set of propositional symbols, like P and Q.
• User defines the semantics of each propositional symbol:
– P means “It is hot”
– Q means “It is humid”
– R means “It is raining”
• A sentence (well formed formula) is defined as follows:
– A symbol is a sentence
– If S is a sentence, then S is a sentence
– If S is a sentence, then (S) is a sentence
– If S and T are sentences, then (S  T), (S  T), (S  T), and (S ↔ T) are
sentences
– A sentence results from a finite number of applications of the above rules
 Some terms

• The meaning or semantics of a sentence determines its

interpretation.
• Given the truth values of all symbols in a sentence, it can be
“evaluated” to determine its truth value (True or False).
• A model for a KB is a “possible world” (assignment of truth
values to propositional symbols) in which each sentence in the
KB is True.
 More terms
• A valid sentence or tautology is a sentence that is True
under all interpretations, no matter what the world is
actually like or how the semantics are defined. Example:
“It’s raining or it’s not raining.”
• An inconsistent sentence or contradiction is a sentence
that is False under all interpretations. The world is never
like what it describes, as in “It’s raining and it’s not
raining.”
• P entails Q, written P |= Q, means that whenever P is True,
so is Q. In other words, all models of P are also models of
Q.
Truth tables
 Truth tables II
The five logical connectives:

A complex sentence:
Models of complex sentences
 Inference rules
• Logical inference is used to create new sentences that
logically follow from a given set of predicate calculus
sentences (KB).
• An inference rule is sound if every sentence X produced by
an inference rule operating on a KB logically follows from
the KB. (That is, the inference rule does not create any
contradictions)
• An inference rule is complete if it is able to produce every
expression that logically follows from (is entailed by) the
KB. (Note the analogy to complete search algorithms.)
 Proving things
• A proof is a sequence of sentences, where each sentence is either a
premise or a sentence derived from earlier sentences in the proof
by one of the rules of inference.
• The last sentence is the theorem (also called goal or query) that
we want to prove.
• Example for the “weather problem” given above.
1 Humid Premise “It is humid”

2 HumidHot Premise “If it is humid, it is hot”

3 Hot Modus Ponens(1,2) “It is hot”

4 (HotHumid)Rain Premise “If it’s hot & humid, it’s raining”

5 HotHumid And Introduction(1,2) “It is hot and humid”

6 Rain Modus Ponens(4,5) “It is raining”

Propositional logic is a weak language
• Hard to identify “individuals” (e.g., Mary, 3)
• Can’t directly talk about properties of individuals or
relations between individuals (e.g., “Bill is tall”)
• Generalizations, patterns, regularities can’t easily be
represented (e.g., “all triangles have 3 sides”)
• First-Order Logic (abbreviated FOL or FOPC) is expressive
enough to concisely represent this kind of information
FOL adds relations, variables, and quantifiers, e.g.,
• “Every elephant is gray”:  x (elephant(x) → gray(x))
• “There is a white alligator”:  x (alligator(X) ^ white(X))
 Example
• Consider the problem of representing the following
information:
– Every person is mortal.
– Gynendra is a person.
– Gynendra is mortal.
• How can these sentences be represented so that we can infer
the third sentence from the first two?
 Example II
• In PL we have to create propositional symbols to stand for all or
part of each sentence. For example, we might have:
P = “person”; Q = “mortal”; R = “Confucius”
• so the above 3 sentences are represented as:
P  Q; R  P; R  Q
• Although the third sentence is entailed by the first two, we needed
an explicit symbol, R, to represent an individual, Gynendra, who
is a member of the classes “person” and “mortal”
• To represent other individuals we must introduce separate
symbols for each one, with some way to represent the fact that all
individuals who are “people” are also “mortal”
 Summary
• The process of deriving new sentences from old one is called inference.
• If an implication sentence can be shown to be valid, then—given its
premise—its consequent can be derived
• Different logics make different commitments about what the world is
made of and what kind of beliefs we can have regarding the facts
– Logics are useful for the commitments they do not make because lack of
commitment gives the knowledge base engineer more freedom
• Propositional logic commits only to the existence of facts that may or may
not be the case in the world being represented
– It has a simple syntax and simple semantics. It suffices to illustrate the process
of inference
– Propositional logic quickly becomes impractical, even for very small worlds
First-Order Logic
 Outline
• First-order logic
– Properties, relations, functions, quantifiers, …
– Terms, sentences, axioms, theories, proofs, …
• Extensions to first-order logic
• Logical agents
– Reflex agents
– Representing change: situation calculus, frame problem
– Preferences on actions
– Goal-based agents
 First-order logic
• First-order logic (FOL) models the world in terms of
– Objects, which are things with individual identities
– Properties of objects that distinguish them from other objects
– Relations that hold among sets of objects
– Functions, which are a subset of relations where there is only one
“value” for any given “input”
• Examples:
– Objects: Students, lectures, companies, cars ...
– Relations: Brother-of, bigger-than, outside, part-of, has-color,
occurs-after, owns, visits, precedes, ...
– Properties: blue, oval, even, large, ...
– Functions: father-of, best-friend, second-half, one-more-than ...
 User provides
• Constant symbols, which represent individuals in the world
– Mary
–3
– Green
• Function symbols, which map individuals to individuals
– father-of(Mary) = John
– color-of(Sky) = Blue
• Predicate symbols, which map individuals to truth values
– greater(5,3)
– green(Grass)
– color(Grass, Green)
 FOL Provides
• Variable symbols
– E.g., x, y, foo
• Connectives
– Same as in PL: not (), and (), or (), implies (), if and
only if (biconditional )
• Quantifiers
– Universal x or (Ax)
– Existential x or (Ex)
 Sentences are built from terms and atoms

• A term (denoting a real-world individual) is a constant symbol, a

variable symbol, or an n-place function of n terms.
x and f(x1, ..., xn) are terms, where each xi is a term.
A term with no variables is a ground term
• An atomic sentence (which has value true or false) is an n-place
predicate of n terms
• A complex sentence is formed from atomic sentences connected
by the logical connectives:
P, PQ, PQ, PQ, PQ where P and Q are sentences
• A quantified sentence adds quantifiers  and 
• A well-formed formula (wff) is a sentence containing no “free”
variables. That is, all variables are “bound” by universal or
existential quantifiers.
(x)P(x,y) has x bound as a universally quantified variable, but y is free.
 Quantifiers
• Universal quantification
– (x)P(x) means that P holds for all values of x in the
domain associated with that variable
– E.g., (x) dolphin(x)  mammal(x)
• Existential quantification
– ( x)P(x) means that P holds for some value of x in the
domain associated with that variable
– E.g., ( x) mammal(x)  lays-eggs(x)
– Permits one to make a statement about some object
without naming it
 Quantifiers
• Universal quantifiers are often used with “implies” to form “rules”:
(x) student(x)  smart(x) means “All students are smart”
• Universal quantification is rarely used to make blanket statements about
every individual in the world:
(x)student(x)smart(x) means “Everyone in the world is a student and is smart”
• Existential quantifiers are usually used with “and” to specify a list of
properties about an individual:
(x) student(x)  smart(x) means “There is a student who is smart”
• A common mistake is to represent this English sentence as the FOL
sentence:
(x) student(x)  smart(x)
– But what happens when there is a person who is not a student?
 Quantifier Scope
• Switching the order of universal quantifiers does not change
the meaning:
– (x)(y)P(x,y) ↔ (y)(x) P(x,y)
• Similarly, you can switch the order of existential
quantifiers:
– (x)(y)P(x,y) ↔ (y)(x) P(x,y)
• Switching the order of universals and existentials does
change meaning:
– Everyone likes someone: (x)(y) likes(x,y)
– Someone is liked by everyone: (y)(x) likes(x,y)
 Semantics of FOL
• Domain M: the set of all objects in the world (of interest)
• Interpretation I: includes
– Assign each constant to an object in M
– Define each function of n arguments as a mapping M n => M
– Define each predicate of n arguments as a mapping M n => {T, F}
– Therefore, every ground predicate with any instantiation will have a
truth value
– In general there is an infinite number of interpretations because |M| is
infinite
• Define logical connectives: ~, ^, , =>, <=> as in PL
• Define semantics of (x) and (x)
– (x) P(x) is true iff P(x) is true under all interpretations
– (x) P(x) is true iff P(x) is true under some interpretation
• Model: an interpretation of a set of sentences such that every
sentence is True
• A sentence is
– satisfiable if it is true under some interpretation
– valid if it is true under all possible interpretations
– inconsistent if there does not exist any interpretation under which the
sentence is true
• Logical consequence: S |= X if all models of S are also
models of X