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Single Idea 9538

[filed under theme 4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 3. Truth Tables ]

Full Idea

A truth-table test is entirely mechanical, ..and in propositional logic we can even generate proofs mechanically for tautological sequences, ..but this mechanical approach breaks down with predicate calculus, and proof-discovery is an imaginative process.

Gist of Idea

A truth-table test is entirely mechanical, but this won't work for more complex logic

Source

E.J. Lemmon (Beginning Logic [1965], 2.5)

Book Ref

Lemmon,E.J.: 'Beginning Logic' [Nelson 1979], p.91


The 9 ideas with the same theme [displaying logical relations in terms of true and false]:

Truth tables give prior conditions for logic, but are outside the system, and not definitions [Tarski]
Truth-tables are good for showing invalidity [Lemmon]
A truth-table test is entirely mechanical, but this won't work for more complex logic [Lemmon]
Truth-tables are dubious in some cases, and may be a bad way to explain connective meaning [Dummett]
Until the 1960s the only semantics was truth-tables [Enderton]
Each line of a truth table is a model [Fitting/Mendelsohn]
Truth tables assume truth functionality, and are just pictures of truth functions [Sider]
In classical/realist logic the connectives are defined by truth-tables [Friend]
Boolean connectives are interpreted as functions on the set {1,0} [Walicki]