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Introduction to Logic
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Tools for Thought
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Here are some logical sentences pertaining to our sorority world. The first sentence is straightforward; it tells us directly that Dana likes Cody. The second and third sentences tell us what is not true without saying what is true. The fourth sentence says that one condition holds or another but does not say which. The fifth sentence gives a general fact about the girls Abby likes. The sixth sentence expresses a general fact about Cody's likes. The last sentence says something about everyone.
Dana likes Cody. |
Abby does not like Dana. |
Dana does not like Abby. |
Bess likes Cody or Dana. |
Abby likes everyone that Bess likes. |
Cody likes everyone who likes her. |
Nobody likes herself |
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Sentences like these constrain the possible ways the world could be. Each sentence divides the set of possible worlds into two subsets, those in which the sentence is true and those in which the sentence is false, as suggested by the following figure. Believing a sentence is tantamount to believing that the world is in the first set.
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Given two sentences, we know the world must be in the intersection of the set of worlds in which the first sentence is true and the set of worlds in which the second sentence is true. Ideally, when we have enough sentences, we know exactly how things stand.
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Effective communication requires a language that allows us to express what we know, no more and no less. If we know the state of the world, then we should write enough sentences to communicate this to others. If we do not know which of various ways the world could be, we need a language that allows us to express only what we know. The beauty of Logic is that it gives us a means to express incomplete information when that is all we have and to express complete information when full information is available.
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