Logic and Critical Thinking Dr. Rogelio Dávila Pérez ITESM, Campus Guadalajara rdav90@gmail.com http://www.rogeliodavila.com

“Good sense is the best shared-out thing in the world; for everyone thinks he has such a good supply of it …” René Descartes (1596-1650) “The Discourse of the method”

Why is it important to study logic? Learning logic helps you to support your own arguments. When your arguments are not well supported your proposal is week.

Why is it important to study logic? (ii) Learning logic helps you to improve your ability to analyse others’ arguments. Once you know how to construct arguments and to distinguish bad-formed arguments, it is easer to realise that we are exposed to many week assertations.

Why is it important to study logic? (iii) Learning logic improves your ability to write papers and to build propposals. Understanding logic helps you tu justify your arguments and to express in clearer form our ideas. Your presentations will be more consistent and solid in your proposals.

Why is it important to study logic? Typical sentences: “Do not buy in XX buy in YYY” “The car that you need is WWW” “Do not vote for YYY but for” “Invest in RRR and not in TTT” etc. but … ¿are this information is enough?

Why is it important to study logic? Being able to recognize invalid arguments has the following adventages: Accepting an argument as valid allowes you to understand and defend it. Rejecting an argument as invalid, give us the knowledge to show others its inconsistency. .

Logic Logic is related with the concepts of truth and inference, that is, to determine: a). The conditions that make a proposition true. b). The conditions under which a proposition can be drawn from premises.

What is an argument? Consider the following arguments: a). Rose lives in Puebla or lives in Guadalajara Rose is not living in Puebla Hence, Rose lives in Guadalajara b). If Mike has hepatyties then his sking is yellow The skin of Mike is yellow Hence, Mike has hepatyties

What is an argument? Arguments are made by propositions. A proposition is a declarative sentence, an affirmation of certain facts. Examples: London is the capital of England. Humans are the only animals that use language. Hernán Cortés conquered México. … A declarative sentence is the minimal unit of language that can be associated a truth value. We can say for a certain sentence that it is true or is false.

What is an argument? Logic is the study of valid arguments. A valid argument is the one in which true premises give us always true conclusions. The validity of an argument do not depend on the truth of the premises but with the fact that if someone accepts the truth of the premises he/she must accept the conclusion. If someone does not accept the premises, he/she wont accept the conclusions but this does not invalidate the argument.

What is an argument? a). Rosa lives in Puebla or lives in Guadalajara Rosa is not living in Puebla Hence, Rosa lives in Guadalajara b). If Mike has hepatytis his skin is yellow the skin of Mike is yellow hence, Mike has hepatytis Valid Argument Invalid Argument

What is an argument? An argument consists of three components: All Greeks are philosophers Socrates is Greek Hence, Socrates is philosopher The process by which we arrive from premises to conclusion is called inference. Premises Conclusion

What is an argument? Premises Evidence that supports the conclusion Premises are always assumed to be true Are introduced by phrases like: “because …”, “obviously …”, etc. The “obviously” expression should be analysed carefully as generlly it is used as an intimidatory argument.

What is an argument? Conclusion Is a proposition that is drawn from the premises. Most of the times it occurs by the end of the argumentation. It is frecuently introduced with phrases as: “hence …”, “concluding …”, “then we know …”, etc.

What is an argument? Inference Process that allows us to go from premises to conclusions. From propositions already accepted generates a conclusion. There are different types of inference, not all of them are logically valid.

What is an argument? Activity 2. a). Comics analysis b). Text analysis

Logical constants George Bool in his book, “Laws of Though” [1847], present an analysis of sentence connectors using expressions like: Conjunction: AND, “”. Disjunction: OR, “”. Negation: “it is not true that”, NOT, “”. Conditional: “if … then”,“” Biconditional, “if and only if”, iff, “”

Logical constants  P = It is not true that Tom study law If we have two propositions, to say: P = Tom study law Q = Laura plays golf These propositions may be combined as follows: P  Q = Tom study law and Laura plays golf P  Q = Tom study law or Laura plays golf  P = It is not true that Tom study law P  Q = If Tom study law then Laura plays golf P  Q = Tom study law if and only if Laura plays golf

Logical constants P Meaning of logic constants (0-false, 1-true): 1 P Q PQ PQ P PQ PQ 1

Example (a) P  Q  P  Q P Q PQ   P  1

Propositional Logic I. Syntax Vocabulary: The language of propositional logic has an alphabet consisting in: Propositional variables: Pi, Qi, Ri (i  N) Logical constants:  Logical connectors: , , ,  Auxiliary symbols: “(“, “)”, “,” Well-formed formulas (wffs) If  is a propositional variable, then  is a wff.  is called contradiction an is a wff. If  and  are wffs, then ,  ,  ,    are also wffs. Nothing else is a wff.

Propositional Logic II. Rules of Inference (Natural Deduction [Gentsen, 60s]) Conjunction Rules -Intro -Elim              Conditional Rules  -Intro  -Elim (modus ponens rule)     …      

Propositional Logic Contradiction Rules -Intro -Elim          Negation Rules  -Intro  -Elim (Double negation rule)     …    

Propositional Logic Disjunction Rules -Intro -Elim                

Propositional Logic An axiomatic system for propositional logic Axiom schemata (A1) (X  (Y  X)) (A2) ((X  (Y  Z))  ((X  Y)  (X  Z))) (A3) ((X  Y)  ((X  Y)  X)) Inference rules (MP) If X and (X  Y) are both theorems then Y is a theorem. We can use the equivalences              (    )

Propositional Logic A traditional way of characterizing validity and logical consequence is in terms of derivation, or proof, and inference rules. This may be accomplished either by an axiomatic system or, through a natural deduction system. Some definitions: Def. An axiom is a statement considered as valid. Def. An inference rule is a machinery for producing new valid statements from previously obtained ones. Def. An axiomatic system consists of a set of axioms (or axioms schemata) and a set of inference rules. Def. In an axiomatic system, valid statements produced by the system are called theorems.

Propositional Logic Def. A derivation or proof of a theorem is the ordered list of axioms, theorems and statements produced by the application of inference rules on previously obtained theorems. Def. For an axiomatic system, derivability or provability, of a formula  is written: |—  ( is a theorem) Def. If  is a set of formulas, the expression  |—  means that  is derivable from . In this case the formulas in  are considered as hypotheses. Def. Two formulas  and  are logically equivalent (  ),if each of them is provable from the other.

Propositional Logic Disjunctive Syllogism p v q ~p q Resolution rule [Robinson, 1965] p v q1 v q2 v … v qn ~p v r1 v r2 v … v rm q1 v … v qn v r1 v … v rm

Propositional Logic (semantics) The purpose of semantics is to assign meaning to all the well-formed formulas in the language. Definition. An interpretation of a formula of PL consists in assigning a truth value (0-false, 1-true), to each propositional symbol in the formula. The logical connectors are said to be truth-functional as their meaning is a function of the meanings of its constituents. It is common to express the meaning of logical connectors through a truth-table.

Propositional Logic (semantics) Truth tables     ¬   1

Propositional Logic (semantics) Definition. An interpretation that makes a formula true (=1) is a model of that formula. Definition. A formula is consistent, sound or satisfiable, if it has a model. Definition. A non consistent formula is called inconsistent or unsatisfiable. Definition. A formula is valid when every interpretation of it is a model. This formula is called a tautology. Definition . A formula is contingent when it is not valid, but consistent. Some relations between the concepts: If  is valid then ¬ is inconsistent If  is consistent then ¬ is not valid.

Propositional Logic (semantics) Definition. Two wffs  and  are equivalent,   , if both of them yield the same true values for any interpretation. Propositional logical equivalences (also called logical identities): (a)       v  (b) Contraposition Law:          (c) Distributive Laws: (i)  v (  )  ( v )  ( v ) (ii)   ( v )  (  ) v (  ) (e) DeMorgan’s Laws: (i)  ( v )       (ii)  (  )    v  

Propositional Logic (semantics) Definition. An interpretation function or interpretation is a function that assigns a truth value to each propositional variable in the formula. Definition. A mapping v: PROP  {0,1} is a interpretation if: v(  ) = min(v(), v()) v(  ) = max(v(), v()) v(  ) = 0 iff v()=1 and v()=0 v(  ) = 1 iff v()=v() v() = 1 - v()

Propositional Logic Definition. (i)  is a tautology if v() = 1 for all interpretations v, (ii) |= stands for ‘ p is a tautology’ Definition. A set of wffs  is consistent, sound, or satisfiable, if all their elements admit the same model. Otherwise it is said to be inconsistent. Definition. Let  be a set of wffs and  a wff, we say that  entails , or that  is a logical consequence of ,  |= , iff every model of  is a model of . Definition.  is a logical consequence of , iff    is a tautology.

Propositional Logic Soundness and Completeness There are two important definitions that connect inference with entailment: If, for any set of wffs, , and wff  ,  |—  implies that  |= , we say that the set of inference rules, , is sound. If, for any set of wffs, , and wff , it is the case that whenever  |= , there exists a proof of  from ,  |— , using the set of inference rules, , we say that  is complete.

Propositional Logic PSAT Problem The problem of finding at least one model of the set of formulas  that is also a model of the formula , is known as the propositonal satisfiability (PSAT) problem. An exhaustive procedure for solving the PSAT problem is to try systematically all of the ways to assign True and False to the atoms in the formula, checking the assignment to see if all formulas have value True under that assignment. If there are n atoms in the formula, there are 2n different assignments, so for large n, the exhaustive procedure is computationally infeasible, thus the general PSAT problem is NP-complete.

Inference Rules (  I) (  E) … P Q Q P  Q  R ( I) ( E) P Q P  Q P  Q P  Q P Q ( I) ( E) P P  Q … P Q Q P  Q ( I) ( E) P P  P P ( I) ( E) P P v Q P  Q P R Q ( I) ( E) P  P   R

Logical identities (  )     (e) Idempotency      (a) Conmutativity     (  )     (  ) (b) Asociativity   (  )  (  )     (  )  (  )   (c) Distributives Laws   (  )  (  )  (  )   (  )  (  )  (  ) (d) DeMorgan Laws (  )     (  )     (e) Idempotency           (f) Contraposition Law       (e) …       

Inference Rules (ii)  (  )    v   Transforming to Conjunctive Normal Form 1. Elimination of conditional symbols () using the identity:       v  2. Negation introduction: reduce the scope of the negation symbol applying the deMorgan Laws. (i)  ( v )       (ii)  (  )    v   3. Transform the formula to Conjunctive Normal Form applying the Distribution Laws: (i)  v (  )  ( v )  ( v ) (ii)   ( v )  (  ) v (  ) 4. Elimination of conjuctive symbols (). Put the expression in clauses.