Formal

Logic
The Basics

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 Rationality

Humans are rational. We often reason

with ourselves and we reason with
others.
We argue with each other and we
analyse each other’s arguments.
We seek the best reasons for our
beliefs. 2
 Logos
The Greek word “logos” meant
speech or account (or beguiling
story, as in Homer) but came to
mean “reason” later on, as in Plato. It
is from this word that we can say the
word “Logic” derives its origin.
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What do we do in Logic
To reason properly, we need to
have an idea what a good reason is
and what a bad reason is.
When we reason, we give
arguments. So, roughly, logic
distinguishes the good arguments
from the bad arguments.
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 Some Arguments
Here is an argument
1) If I prepare for exams, I will pass
2) I passed the exams
3) Therefore, I prepared for the exams
This argument cannot be right because
you can pass by cheating or by sheer luck.

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 Another example
1) If an asteroid hits the earth, then many
people will die
2) Many people died
3) Therefore, an asteroid hit the earth
This argument is wrong, because many
people may die by other causes (say, a
pandemic)
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 A familiar argument
1) Every effect has a cause
2) Every cause is itself an effect
3) There cannot be an infinite number of causes
4) Therefore, there must be a first cause of the world
5) This first cause is God.
Is this argument Good or Bad? We don’t know for sure!!!
Sometimes we get arguments where it is hard to say
whether it is good or bad. It requires a lot of thinking
to figure it out.

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 A good argument
1) Either I will go to the cinema today or I will study
today
2) I won’t go to the cinema today
3) Therefore, I will study today
This is a good argument. Why? The conclusion follows
from the premisses. Here, the premisses are (1)
and (2) and the conclusion is marked by
“therefore”.

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Premise and Conclusion
As you can see, when we give arguments or
reasons, we make statements.

Some of these statement are called premisses

and some are called conclusions. The individual
statements are called propositions. All logic is
propositional, since it deals with the relations
between propositions.
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 Entailment
Premisses and conclusions are related to
each other. But how? What is this
relation?
If the conclusion must follow from the
premisses, we say that the premisses
entail the conclusion.
Logicians study what entails what

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 Form and Content
Logicians distinguish form of arguments from the
content of arguments. The reason for that is that we
cannot study the content of the arguments ( “what is
said “) of every subject. Then we have to be experts
in all subjects!!!
How should we proceed then? What a logician has to
do is to spot those forms of arguments that are good
from those that are bad.

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 Validity
A valid argument is one where if the premisses
are true then the conclusion must be true.
That is, there is no way the conclusion can be
false if the premisses are true.
Or, it is impossible for the conclusion to be false
and the premisses are true.
Notice, that we did not say: the premisses are
true. We are saying: If the premisses are true.
That is, the premisses in reality can be false, but
that does not matter to the logician
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 Invalid arguments
If the premisses are true but the conclusion is false then the
argument is invalid.
Example:
1) Either we will die by climate change or we will die by
nuclear catastrophe
2) We will die by climate change
Therefore, we will die by nuclear catastrophe
Here, if the premisses are true, the conclusion is false
(because if we died from climate change, then we cannot die
from nuclear catastrophe as well). Hence, the argument is
invalid. 13
 An example
Here is a valid argument
1) All rocks are edible
2) All edible things are delicious
Therefore, all rocks are delicious
This argument is valid. For, if the premisses are
true, then the conclusion must be true.
A sound argument is one where the premisses
are true and it is valid. The above argument is
not sound but it is valid. 14
 Letters and Constants
To get a better handle on the form of argument
we need to formalize.
So, we can represent individual
statements/propositions with the letters p, q, r…
And we need what are called LOGICAL
CONSTANTS. These are AND, OR, IF-THEN, NOT, IF
and ONLY IF. And we need truth values. We have
two truth values: T and F (for True and False)
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 Truth Values
Every proposition must be given a
value of being either true or false.
There are logics where the
propositions can be given more
truth values, but we won’t study
such logics in our course.
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 LOGICAL CONSTANTS
Logical constants take individual propositions and
concatenate them and get new propositions.
So, if we have p, q as propositions then we get, not-
p, p and q, If p then q, p if and only if q, p or q. We
can even get very complicated ones, like, not (p and
q), if (p and q) then not p, etc. We will get to these
complex ones later.

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Decision procedures
But how do we know which argument is
valid and which is not? Sometimes this is
intuitive. So, if I say, if p then p, this is
valid, for if the premise is true, the
conclusion must be true. But sometimes
intuition does not work. Consider, [(if p
then q), then (not q then not p)]. Is that
valid? It is, but how do we know this? We
need a decision procedure.
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TRUTH TABLES (NOT)
P -P
T F
F T
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 AND (&, . )
P Q P&Q

T T T
T F F
F T F
F F F
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 OR (v)
P Q PVQ
T T T
T F T
F T T
F F F
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IF – THEN (⊃)
P Q P⊃Q
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T
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IF and only If (≡)
P Q P≡Q
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F T
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Use of Truth Tables
Truth tables can help us decide
whether an argument is valid or
invalid.
We will see how next time.

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Thanks

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