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PALGRAVE PHILOSOPHY TODAY
Symbolic Logic
Odysseus Makridis
Palgrave Philosophy Today
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Philosophy
University College Cork Philosophy
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Odysseus Makridis
Symbolic Logic
Odysseus Makridis
Literature, Languages, and Philosophy
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Madison, NJ, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-67395-6 ISBN 978-3-030-67396-3 (eBook)

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Contents
1 What Logic Studies�� 1

2 Concepts of Deductive Reasoning�� 57
3 Formal Logic of Sentences, Sentential Logic (also called Sentential
Logic and Statement Logic)�� 81
4 Sentential Logic Languages ∑�� 115
5 Formal Predicate Logic (also called First-Order Logic) ∏ �� 289
6 Translations from English into ∏πφ= (also called Symbolizations,
Formalizations)�� 331
7 Semantic Models for ∏: ∏⧉�� 351
8 Proof-Theoretical System for Predicate Logic: ∏πφ=�� 373
9 Definite Descriptions: ∏πφ=⍳�� 397
10 Basics of Set Theory�� 405
Glossary �� 459
References�� 481
Index�� 485
v
Chapter 1
What Logic Studies
To preempt misunderstanding, we start with enumerating some common usages of

the word “logic,” which are not relevant to our present task.
1. By “logic” we do not mean prudence – as the word is used in the sentence “it is
not logical to make this investment.”
2. We don’t mean by “logic” an assessment of what works and what doesn’t work
when making decisions or developing effective strategies, as in the sentence
“everyone has her own logic when it comes to what needs to be done.” More
broadly, we don’t have in mind any practical, strategic, efficiency-related or
pragmatic subject.
3. We don’t use the word “logic” to refer to value assessment – as in the sentence,
“the logic of the natives compels them to value a supposed afterlife more highly
than the present life.” There are no moral connotations attaching to the meaning
of “logic” as we use it. The use of the word in the sentence “logic works differ-
ently across different cultures” may often refer to the value systems of the cul-
tures, but this is not the sense of the word “logic” we will busy ourselves about.
4. Nor is the word “logic” referring to characteristics or the internal mechanics of
certain institutional arrangements and established practices – as in the sentence
“the logic of the Constitution dictates separation of powers.”
By “logic” we mean the study of certain characteristic properties which are – as
one would expect – themselves logical properties. Evidently, we have not provided
a definition yet since we need to specify what we mean by “logical properties.” This
will be done shortly. Alternatively, we may speak of logic as the study of logical
consequence – which is the structural relationship between the premises and the
conclusion of a logically correct argument (with the intuitive notion of “correct-
ness” as it applies in this field requiring appropriate elucidation). Another definition
we may venture defines logic as the study of logical truths. This definition too
requires a prior definition of the concept of the term “logical truth,” which will be
undertaken shortly.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
O. Makridis, Symbolic Logic, Palgrave Philosophy Today,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67396-3_1
2 1 What Logic Studies
To give a definition of logic promptly, without navigating through related con-

cepts, we can say something like this: Logic is the study of what works and what
does not work in reasoning. This definition is ambiguous and vague because it talks
about what “works” without specifying the criteria for relevant success (or the
degree to which results are considered successful) and it also uses the concept “rea-
soning” which seems to be synonymous with “logic.”
We can do better: Logic is the study of correct reasoning. Now, we still use in our
definition the concept of reasoning but we have added “correct” which has an intui-
tive appeal about it. We are signaling already, significantly, that reasoning can be
correct or incorrect: the criteria are not a matter of subjective evaluation, preference
or taste, or provided by communal or institutional practices. The concept of correct-
ness definitionally implies the availability of relevant standards by reference to
which correctness is assessed. The word “reasoning”, although we have not defined
it, also has some initial intuitive resonance. We can get more precise: evaluation of
proofs is – not the only one but – a major subject of Logic. We can define Logic as
the study of proofs (and of other subjects, to be specified). Many texts stake the defi-
nition of the basic concept on the role arguments play in logic. An urgent clarifica-
tion is in order: “argument”, as logicians use the term, does not mean anything about
disagreement or any activity of “arguing” in the sense of fighting or even in the
sense of debating. We will have a lot to say about this term but it can safely be
thought of as having something to do with proving, with proofs and with construct-
ing proofs. When we think of proofs, intuitively, we should think of “proving,”
“supporting” or “making inferences” to conclusions from given assumptions.
Without training in the study of Logic, we cannot depend on our common sense to
figure out if proofs are “correct” in the sense that the connection between premises
and conclusions is sufficiently effective (in the appropriate sense) so that the proof
“works,” is “correct” or is “acceptable.”
It is crucial to specify that the inferences to conclusion and the correctness and
acceptability we are talking about are not psychological notions! It may well be that
the word “inference” has psychological connotations and is, as such, dubious in the
present context but there is logic practice of using this word and, accordingly, so
will we.
An incorrect proof is one that should not be accepted – even if we don’t realize
that there is lack of proper support from the premises for the conclusion. We do not
acquire, either by natural intuitions or even by scholastic training in various sub-
jects, the skills needed to assess proofs; instead, there is an imperative to study this
subject. It is promising, however, that this study is possible as a systematic
endeavor – and, in fact, it is one of the ancient disciplines – and has exploded in
modern times thanks to certain developments in areas of Mathematics: this study,
broadly, is what we call Logic.
The importance of engaging in this subject can be seen from reflecting on obser-
vations like this: if we wrongly accept conclusions that do not follow from the prem-
ises in given proofs, then we add as new “truths” claims that may well be false:
learning and progress are undermined and we risk catastrophic setbacks to our
quest for increasing the stock of knowledge. The immense advancement of the
1 What Logic Studies 3
human species is critically dependent on throwing out conclusions that have been
drawn incorrectly and retaining conclusions that have been proved correctly by
proofs that “work” or are correct. Even though this assessment does not come natu-
rally and is – as it turns out – an inherently technical matter, correct evaluation of
proofs is vital, and rather overlooked in educational settings, because it is the accre-
tion of added truths, drawn as conclusions, that makes the characteristically expo-
nential progress in knowledge possible.
A last preliminary remark is that the standards of what counts as a correct proof
depend on what kind of proof it is – what kind of logic is at play: reasoning comes
in two varieties – we cannot discern any deeper reason as to why it is exactly two
varieties – which are Deductive Logic and Inductive Logic. Deductive arguments
are judged differently – they are, by their nature, different from – inductive argu-
ments. We devote no space to the examination of Inductive Logic in this text as the
business of formal or symbolic logic – and the field in which mathematical instru-
ments are available in logic – is Deductive Logic. In either case – whether it be
deductive or inductive – a proof (or, as we will call it, technically, an argument) has
premises from which a conclusion is derived and the claim is presented that, as we
may say colloquially, the conclusion “follows from” the premises or is correctly
proven from the premises or is sufficiently supported by the premises. There is a
common tendency to regard the collection of the premises in a proof as “evidence”
and this is also referred to as “the facts” but meaningful sentences do not have to be
factual or descriptive. A sentence like “all people are equal before the law” is not a
descriptive sentence if it states the principle (not the legal fact); we take it, of course,
to be a meaningful sentence. Accordingly, the word “evidence” should not be used
in the context of focused technical study of proofs.
In addition to the study of proofs, technically called “arguments,” logic also stud-
ies such logical properties as consistency, which is a property of a collection of
meaningful sentences taken all together, and the logical status of a meaningful sen-
tence, which refers to whether a sentence is a necessary truth or necessary falsehood
or logically indeterminate. We will be examining these notions in detail in the pres-
ent text.
Sometimes the term “logic” is used to refer to a logical system or structure rather
than to the study of proofs or of logical characteristics and related subjects. If we ask
the question about what constitutes a logical system, we can define such a system in
different ways that parallel the definitions we gave above: a logical system (or, a
“logic”, not in the sense of studying logic but in the sense of a “logic” as a structure)
can thus be defined on the basis of its so-called consequence relation (also, logical
consequence relation) or as a collection of all its logical truths or as a system that
generates proven theses out of a small number of given postulates (or axioms) and
with the assistance of implementing specified rules. It is a deep philosophic matter
whether we should define logic, or a logical system, one way or another, but this
will not concern us in the present text. To remove any ambiguity, we point out that
in this text logic refers to the study, not to a system or structure but, at the same time,
we can say that we are engaged in logic as the study of logics-as-systems. The sys-
tems we investigate are limited to the basic logics (in the sense of “system” or
structure): thus, we will study the standard sentential and standard predicate (or
first-order) logic but we do not have the space to undertake further excursions that
would transfer us to such areas as the terrain of modal logics or alternative non-
standard logics, with the exception of forays we will be taking into what is known
as Intuitionistic Logic. Nor are we at liberty to indulge in explorations of fascinating
problems in the philosophic themes and problems associated with the philosophy of
logic, except availing ourselves of opportunities that arise occasionally – including
selected exercises that accompany sections.
Based on the preceding remarks, there is some remaining ambiguity – which
cannot be tolerated in the study of any subject, let alone in one so technically pre-
cise – between: logic understood, on the one hand, as a formal (mathematically
facilitated) study of logical structures or forms and other abstract objects (which
may or may not be mathematical, regardless as to whether such objects are thought
to exist independently of the human mind thinking about them); and, on the other
hand, as a motivated investigation of the rules of reasoning as these rules govern,
and normatively constrain, actual transaction in reasoning (possibly dictated by the
workings of linguistic conventions.) This distinction parallels that between pure and
applied geometry – a parallelism that has been drawn many times and has been
subjected to multiple critiques. Although geometry too was once considered moti-
vated by the imperatives of investigating and managing understanding of the actual
physical world, we should rather think of the subject of geometry as the study of
abstract structures and associated abstract objects while, on the other hand, the
claim that there is a fit between a geometrical system and the physical universe is an
empirical matter.
According to the pluralistic view of logic, there is no one correct logic; this
seems to be at variance with the case of geometry, for which it appears that – what-
ever the “correct” geometry of the physical universe may be, there has to be one
such applicable geometry; on the other hand, the “correctness” of the applicable
logic may be dependent on the area of application. Nevertheless, a parallel consid-
eration emerges in the case of geometry: for instance, certain tasks are better carried
out by application of the classical Euclidean geometry whereas other tasks require
a non-Euclidean geometry for dispatch. Nor is this a pragmatic issue since deeper
considerations about justifying such fitting applications arise. Our purpose is not to
discourse on the parallels, and arguable disanalogies between geometry and logic,
but to elucidate certain difficult observations about logic, which we need to raise
even at the preliminary level. The moral of the story is that a distinction can be
drawn between Abstract or Pure Logic (understood as the mathematical examina-
tion of the relevant abstract objects) and Applied Logic (which is not “pure” in the
sense defined but can be subjected to considerations or desiderata about the proper
fit between the mathematical or formal system and the intended area of application.)
For our current purposes, a bulk of what we examine is inevitably instigated by
applicability considerations – with recurrent references to linguistic operations and
the normative requirements of reasoning as encoded in linguistic operations. But
when we turn to the exploration of properties of the formal systems (the formal
languages and their specified grammars, the devices that are constructed and
implemented for decision procedures, then we will be engaged in transactions that

evoke the meaning of logic as the study of abstract objects. (Certainly, there is also
a meaning of “logic” that denotes those abstract structures themselves rather than
their study but it is trusted that the overall context makes it clear that we are inter-
ested in the study.)
Another technical and longstanding dispute has existed as to whether logic
should be studying logical truths (a notion that has some initial intuitive appeal) or
such relations, which involve truth and falsehood, as validity of arguments and con-
sistency or satisfiability. The final verdict may have emerged in support of the latter.
Earlier in this section, we referred to the notion of logical consequence: there is
sufficiently broad agreement that this is the proper notion for logic to study. Indeed,
if one adopts the pluralist view according to which there is no universally and abso-
lutely correct logic, the plurality of abstract structures to be studied as multiple
logics are variably and correspondingly, and adequately, characterized by their spe-
cific relations of logical consequence. In fact, there are non-standard logics – alter-
native logics to the standard logic – which lack logical truths (because they include
a truth value whose assignment to the individual components of sentences results,
given the definitions of the logical operations, in an overall value for the whole for-
mula, which is not a species of truth.) Nevertheless, such logics still have character-
istic logical consequence relations, and could not fail to have such relations if they
are to be accepted as logical systems at all. The logical consequence relation obtains
between what we call in everyday parlance the premises and the conclusion of an
argument or proof. This is not a technically precise definition but only a preliminary
stab at appealing to basic intuitions and practices. In the technical sense, the prem-
ises constitute sentences that are members of sets (more precisely, multisets because
repetition or multiple instances of a sentence are allowed and can be eliminated by
specific rules;) the conclusion is usually one sentence but it can also be a set of sen-
tences. The key notion to note is this: the relation that we call logical consequence
is about preservation or transmission of truth between or from the premises and the
conclusion. As we will be repeating ad nauseam, this relation obtains (and, consider
the parallel notion of validity of a deductive argument) if and only if: given that all
premises are true, it is logically impossible for the conclusion to be false (or for all
the conclusions to be false in case of multiple consequences.) We see that a variety
of logical concepts are involved in this: logical possibility and impossibility, truth as
a logical value to which meaningful sentences refer, and the decisive notion of pres-
ervation of truth in the sense that, as it is often put in introductory texts, the truth of
the premises logically ensures or necessitates the truth of the conclusion in a valid
deductive argument. We will devote systematic and, as needed, repeated attention to
all these elements, beginning with intuitive presentations and progressively ascend-
ing to more technical and precise constructions.
The present text is technical and aims to introduce Logic as the systematic
endeavor of studying the subject to a beginner. It is difficult to attain a poised and
stable balance between explaining too much and not explaining enough when pre-
senting the subject – while aiming for pedagogical effectiveness as well as for
required accuracy and completeness. In this text, we tolerate repetitions – motivated
by a method we may use to facilitate learning – even though this is to be frowned

upon in many obvious ways: but our objective is pedagogical and repetition serves
a purpose in enabling and consolidating learning.
Something else that we should point out, and then bracket it, is this: we could
think of our tasks as consisting in learning how to systematically manipulate sym-
bolic resources; we can also think of making our symbolic systems be “interpreted”
or equipped with a discourse about meaningful things that are being talked about.
The first approach we can call syntactical and we can also call it procedural or
proof-theoretical. Both approaches take positions as to how logical meaning is
defined but the syntactical approaches posit that the proper understanding of the
subject consists in tracing the manner in which symbolic resources are permissibly
managed. The nature of the game is to move symbolic items around and to attain
certain objectives specified by the setup of the game. The second approach we men-
tioned can be called semantic because, in that approach, we are able to talk about
things (although those things are also abstract) in such a way that an attached narra-
tive we have available allows us to evaluate appropriate entities as true or false. In
the semantic approach, we deploy truth values that we take as the proper logical
meanings and as the abstract items to which meaningful sentences refer. There is no
point in this text arguing as to which approach gets it “right.” Fortunately, in the case
of the standard logic of sentences, the two approaches harmonize so that the results
we can accomplish in the one type of game are provably guaranteed to match the
parallel results attained by using the other method. There are profound philosophic
issues about this but we will not pursue those in this text.
To gain a firmer grip on this distinction, think of the following: if we think that
our study of logic will be about meanings of sentences – as we have in the lan-
guage – which are true or false, this is the semantic approach. This is usually the
impression gained through introductory books. Interestingly, however, there is
ineluctably, and beneficially, a unit in introductory textbooks that is called usually
“natural deduction” or “proof method” or something along those lines – and this fits
into the syntactic approach which is like a game that pushes symbols around in
accordance with rules. Accordingly, when we learn truth tables in following chap-
ters, we are in the territory of the semantic approach and when we study a variety of
proof methods we are in the realm of the proof-theoretic approach. In the remarks
that follow, we do not dwell on this distinction; but it should be understood that
when words like “true” and “false” are used, that is a semantic approach – and,
intuitively, true and false presuppose speaking of certain things rather than thinking
that our game is moving symbols around (although, of course, we do push symbols
around in both approaches.) On the other hand, a proof-theoretic approach should
not speak of true and false but, instead, it uses such concepts as “given premises”
and “assumed premises”, line-derivation, and rule-application; instead of validity
(which, as we will find out, is defined by using the concepts of true and false and is,
therefore, a semantic category), the proof-theoretic approach speaks of derivability;
logical truths are on the semantic side while the proof-theoretic side has to speak of
theses or theorems.
The logical characteristics – studied by logic and characterizing logical sys-

tems – include validity of argument forms, consistency of collections of sentences,
and the logical status of the meanings of meaningful sentences. There are deep
underlying connections running through these concepts. The logical status of a sen-
tence (more properly, the meaning expressed by a sentence that can be correctly
used in making an assertion) can be one of three kinds: a logical truth, a logical
falsehood, or neither (and we will have special terms to use in each case). As you
progress in your studies, you should at some point be able to explain how validity
of argument forms is related to consistency/inconsistency and to the status of being
a logical truth. These logical properties are abstract but assessing them is a practical
and essential matter, urgent for the assessment of everyday claims and arguments; it
is crucial for correct reasoning. Without studying Logic in a sustained and system-
atic way, we lack the requisite trained skills for evaluating whether the reasoning we
are presented with – or our own reasoning – is correct or not. It can be shown experi-
mentally that positive accomplishments in learning and erudite expertise do not
fortify us against logical error.
The study of Logic is a fundamental task – in the sense also that it is, not only
significant, but foundational. By this we mean that one should study Logic regard-
less of what subject one may be an expert on: when experts draw conclusions, even
if it is within their own field of expertise, they are arriving at a sentence – the con-
clusion – that is new and not already known; this new sentence, the derived conclu-
sion, is presumably to be accepted as true on the basis of the premises or assumptions
that have been used. If it were otherwise, if this sentence were considered known
and established in the field of expertise, then we would not need to obtain this sen-
tence as a conclusion of a proof (argument). But, if this is a new sentence, even to
the expert, then it is not known or ensured by the available expertise; the expert is
now to succeed or fail as the inference to the conclusion is “correct” or not – and
this is the task of Logic to evaluate. Thus, the expert, surprisingly perhaps, is acting
as an agent who makes logical inferences – not covered by the expertise – and
knowledge and skills honed within the field of expertise do not ensure that the
expert will also prove to be an adept logician. It is clear, then, that in the foundations
of all learning we find Logic. One would expect that the study of Logic should be
mandated and universal, given the high stakes, but this is not the case. Even though
the study of Logic looms as an indispensable task that cannot be replaced by some
other training, the difficulties can also be formidable. It was relatively late in the
western tradition, when Aristotle emerged as the originator of the systematic study
of Logic: this rather ominous delay alerts us to the fact that there is something elu-
sive and even counterintuitive lurking in this subject – especially in the case of the
species of reasoning known as deductive.
Validity, consistency and logical truth-falsehood are terms we will need to study
systematically. In terms of common sense, we can think of an argument as a struc-
tured proof, with a conclusion inferred from the premises or assumptions that are
given. Attention is needed because the term “argument” is technical and not to be
confused in its meaning with other senses of the word “argument”: the logician’s
argument is not an act, it is not a contest or a fight or a disputation: it is an abstract
item, a proof that has a completed structure which has to include at least one prem-
ise and one conclusion. It is unusual to examine argument structures with more than
one conclusion – but it should be pointed out that there is no technical difficulty in
doing that. An initial difficulty in the study of deductive logic consists in this: try to
think of an argument as an instance in which a pattern is exemplified (or instanti-
ated) in the way in which enforcement of the rule “three-strikes and you are out” is
always a particular and concrete exemplification of this rule of baseball (with the
rule itself never concretely available to us, and with only its specific enforcement-
applications available to us.) The correctness of a deductive argument (called tech-
nically “validity”) depends completely, sufficiently, and exhaustively on this
instantiated pattern, which logicians are wont to call “argument form.” The surprise
is that the content of what is being talked about in the argument plays role in the
assessment of the validity. This is an immediate and early difficulty that we should
be ready to confront.
When we make arguments in language, those are understood to be arguments in
accordance with the definition we have given. Strictly speaking, in Symbolic or
Formal Logic, we are not directly examining everyday arguments delivered by lin-
guistic means. The catch is this: if arguments in language are deductive (with the
same definition of deductive argument applied always), then the logical validity of
this argument is a matter of whether this argument has a valid argument form or
pattern. Our study of logic attends to the study of those patterns. We are fortunate in
modern times to have mathematical instruments available to us – something that
was denied to Aristotle and to subsequent generations of logicians in the western
tradition. It is not our present concern to go over historical details about what revo-
lutionary developments in Mathematics made this possible. From a practical point
of view, the speaker or writer who has made a deductive argument is – whether she
or he knows it or not – playing a game over which the rules of deductive reasoning
have binding force; assessment of the “correctness” or validity of the argument
according to those rules is an objective matter. Whether a given argument is invalid –
because it has an invalid pattern, an invalid argument form – is a matter of normative
significance: an invalid argument is bad, wrong, incorrect, to be rejected – not in a
moral sense of “bad”, of course, but it is still normative in the sense that we are deal-
ing with binding and correcting valuations and orders like “you should not accept.”
It is comforting to know that subjective views or cultural variations are not grounds
for raising objections or imposing conditions on logical assessment: it is better to
think of our activity as similar to the linguistic activity that involves judgments and
assessments of correct-incorrect grammar. Of course, languages vary across the
world, but to show that the logic is also different would require a specific examina-
tion of what forms are valid and it is not something to accept instantly. Even if logic
were to vary across different linguistic groups (which we can put aside), still, within
each relevant community the logic would be compelling, ordering, and not a matter
that is left to subjective evaluation. I can be rightly corrected for wrong grammar
and the normative aspect is that I should, obviously, also enforce correct grammar.
There are objective and binding (“ordering”) rules that constrain and guide and
whose violations constitute corrigible (correctable) offenses. Notice that, if some
other idiom or local variation of the language encloses a different grammar, I still
cannot plead that it is all subjective – it is not, and, in that other localized context
where the grammar is different, I will be corrected and rightly so. What happens
with an invalid argument is somewhat like the example of the correct grammar. But
it is vital to realize – without receiving a proof at this point – that the grammar of a
language does not help us see how the logic works. Even if trained thoroughly in the
grammatical details, we cannot depend on the grammar to determine validity of an
argument. Thus, once again, we reach the ineluctable realization that logic needs to
be studied as a distinct subject.
In some languages, the premises of an argument are called expressly “assump-
tions”. A point to notice and keep in mind is that an argument does not guarantee
that the premises are true. Nor does the logical correctness – validity – of a deduc-
tive argument depend on whether the premises are actually true. This seems surpris-
ing to beginning students. This is also related to the other point we will have to
grasp: in deductive logic, argument validity is not a matter of content or of what is
being talked about. It is a matter of form. Inductive logic – which we do not study
in the present text – does not have this dependence on logical pattern or form; in
Inductive Logic, content evaluation from a logical point of view arises as a relevant
evaluative issue but in Deductive Logic, think of what we do in evaluating argu-
ments as a matter of assessing a relation (the relation or connection between all the
premises taken together and the conclusion) regardless of the content. For instance,
Jill is the daughter of Mary and Jackie is the daughter of Jill: our attention is focused
now on the relation “daughter-of.” If we go on and replace the used names in the
above examples with other names, claiming always the relation of daughter-of, we
can proceed – but the variability of the content depending on what names are used,
whom we are talking about, is not our business insofar as we are strictly interested
in the relation daughter-of. For instance, we might notice that, as a relation, daugh-
ter-of is not transitive: the daughter of the daughter of x is not the daughter of x (she
is the grand-daughter of x!) This is important for us in investigating the relation we
denote by “daughter-of.” But content (whose daughter we are talking about) is not
important in the study of logic. The content does not affect the logical characteris-
tics of the relation (like transitivity, in the preceding example.)
Let us return to the concept of argument and, bearing the above in mind, let us
think of an argument as a relation between: a) the premises (all of them taken
together conjunctively – connected by “and”, each premise to the next and to the
next all the way to the end); and b) the conclusion. The claim in presenting an argu-
ment is that this relation works. The technical term in assessing the premises-
conclusion relation as logically correct in deductive reasoning is validity. A
deductive argument is valid if and only if it has a valid argument-form (a pattern,
structure, with more to say about this.) An argument form is valid if and only if:
if all the premises are true, then the conclusion is necessarily true. (This is the
case of a deductive argument; for an inductive argument, the connection between
premises and conclusions is a matter of probability – and, thus, a matter of relative
strength and not a matter of logically guaranteeing that the conclusion is true if the
premises are true. But in that case too, of inductive arguments, the object of our
inquiry is again a relation between all the premises taken together and the conclu-
sion. This is key!) The deductive argument form – exemplified by a given argu-
ment – is valid if and only if: the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the
conclusion (notice the relation between premises and conclusion and notice the role
played by what we may call “truth preservation.”) We can say this in other ways,
and we will have opportunities to continue presenting this central concept: in a
valid argument form, it is logically impossible to have all the premises true and
the conclusion false. We need to alert ourselves that, in the definition of validity, we
are using some concepts that are themselves inherently difficult to grasp: we speak
of if-then – if the premises are all true, then the conclusion is logically guaranteed
to be true in a valid argument form. We also speak of “logical necessity” and “logi-
cal possibility:” it is logically necessary in a valid argument, and only in a valid
argument, that, if the premises are true then the conclusion is necessarily true. It
is logically impossible in a valid argument that we can have all the premises true
but (and) a false conclusion. Sometimes, it can be put as follows: in a valid argu-
ment, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is necessarily true. This, however,
is not a proper way of putting it because the conclusion of a valid deductive argu-
ment does not have to be a logical truth (a logically necessarily true sentence.)
Sentences that are logically indeterminate or, as we say, logically contingent (they
are possibly true and, in other contexts, possibly false), may well be conclusions of
valid deductive arguments.
A last preliminary point to make is this. Occasionally, a definition that is given of
the concept of deductive argument is: an argument whose premises provide absolute
(logically necessary) support for the conclusion. This, however, prevents drawing a
distinction between valid and invalid deductive arguments. You will notice that this
last definition, given about deductive arguments, is the same as the definition we
gave earlier of valid deductive arguments. If we adopt this as the definition of a
deductive argument as such, then we accept that all deductive arguments are valid
and that invalid arguments are not properly to be considered as arguments at all.
This is an unorthodox view and we bypass it after we have briefly mentioned it.
The concept of argument is related to the concept of implication (and it is an
implication we state when we state an “if-then” sentence, which can be called an
implicative sentence.) The untrained person faces difficulties when it comes to
grasping the meaning of and assessing “if-then” sentences. The notion of inference
studied by Logic – logical inference – is not psychological: we are not interested in
subjective actions or impressions pertaining to drawing inferences from given
assumptions. It is an objective matter as to whether an inference is correct or incor-
rect. Similarly, for assessing whether a collection of sentences – a theory, we may
call it – is consistent or holds together logically, we need to know if it is logically
possible for all the given sentences (and those that can be correctly inferred from the
given sentences) to be true together. Lastly, whether a sentence expresses a logical
truth or a logical falsehood – or neither – is a matter that transcends our daily intu-
itions and requires systematic inquiry to learn. Surveying again the terms we have
already brought up so far: try to appreciate the kind of difficulty we will be facing.
We have mentioned terms that are not familiar from everyday discourse. We have
also intimated that something like the validity or correctness of a proof or com-
pleted inference is actually a relation – between given premises/assumptions and the
conclusion that is claimed to be following form those premises. A concept like
“relation” is also one that is not immediately transparent to our intuitions. Also,
speaking of consistency as the logical possibility that all given sentences are true
together – we need to grasp in this case another concept which is rather difficult and
not immediately accessible to our common sense (the concept of “logical possibil-
ity.”) Lastly, we have also intimated already that logical truth, and logical falsehood,
are concepts that cannot be understood based on our raw abilities to use “true” and
“false” in everyday conversations.
We can think of a language like English as having a logic, or many logics per-
haps, embedded in it; in the same way that there is a structured and regulative gram-
mar for every language, it is also the case that there is a logical grammar. In older
times, it was said that there is something called Reason and this is what Logic ulti-
mately investigates; or, perhaps, there is a certain way in which the mind works and
logic has that subject as its subject matter. For even more ancient thinkers, like the
father of logic, Aristotle, there is an ultimate foundation in the way nature is consti-
tuted, which determines how logic itself works. Aristotle would state logical laws
fist by referring to how things are and can possibly be, by nature, but he would then
proceed to provide additional formulations of the logical law. Aristotle understood
something about deductive reasoning, which is one of the causes of difficulty in a
course in Logic. Aristotle’s references to nature can be omitted without harm to his
logical studies. The updated version of what the objects studied by logic are talks
about how language itself works. Any “natural” language has many words and
expressions – which we can call logic-words – whose meanings determine the logic
of the language. Some students of logic think that the deeper foundation of those
meanings lies in the logical rules that allow us to accept a logic-word in a sentence
and also to remove it from a sentence. Whether the buck stops with the meanings of
words or with the rules that govern their usage in language, this whole issue is
clearly an objective matter. There is no room here for declamations to the effect that
it “depends” on what someone thinks subjectively. The parallelism to linguistic
grammar helps to bring this out. In the same way a language has a grammar, it also
has a logical grammar. The two do not cooperate, so to speak: the linguistic gram-
mar does not necessarily help us see clearly what the logical grammar is. If you
reflect on this, you can appreciate, again, how urgent it is to study Logic. But is it is
hard subject; you should be prepared for that.
It would be surprising to proponents of older philosophic schools that language
plays such a role in determining the logic; this is a subject of interest to philosophy
and philosophy of logic and we don’t need to dwell on it longer. What you should
pay attention to is that logic is an objective matter – and you can draw the compari-
son to grammar to see that. There is something normative – something that gives us
orders and regulates how we ought to think – in logic. In the same way that it is
wrong, incorrect, to violate the grammar – this ought to be trivially obvious – it is
also objectively wrong to commit logical errors. Thus, it does not depend on opinion
if the logic of an argument is correct or a theory is free of logical pathologies like
inconsistency. We cannot say that different people have different logics – this is
nonsensical unless the word “logic” is used in some other sense but we are not inter-
ested in that.
Logic is not an easy subject to study. Evolutionary advantages have been con-
ferred on us all over long biological millennia but those advantages do not include
facility to study logic. Apparently, our biological ancestors benefited from a propen-
sity toward fight and flight, for instance, but they did not survive and reproduce
thanks to being able to make logical inferences with facility. Fleeing when perceiv-
ing danger might have been unnecessary in most cases – an inference might have
shown that there is no need to flee – but the flight strategy worked also for those
fateful and crucial situations in which survival was at stake. Thus, we are commonly
prone to anxiety conditions but logic is a hard subject for the considerable majority
of students.
We will not be studying language in this course; we will be constructing artificial
or formal languages and we will be working with them. Of course, the motivation
may well be to fathom the logic of the language but this is an incidental matter: the
formal systems we construct are what we study and if such systems “get it right”
what the logic of language is, then that is an extra bonus. It is like geometry:
Einstein’s physics uses a different geometry, not the classical Euclidean one; this
does not undermine the Euclidean geometry itself but only shows that the geometry
of our universe is not Euclidean after all. Similarly, if our formal system does not
match the logic or logics of our language, that is a limitation on the usefulness or
applicability of our formal system but not an invalidation of this system. As you will
find out, we will be translating English sentences into our formal languages and we
will be working with those translations toward determining logical characteristics.
It is a sound assumption that significant fragments of language have logics that are
captured by the formal systems we study in this course. The benefit, then, consists
in having tools – apparatus – that allows us to figure out if certain logical character-
istics obtain or not. We will see now what these characteristics are – which also
shows us what subjects are studied by Logic. We should make it clear that the appli-
cation of formal techniques is possible only for deductive reasoning and this is our
demarcated territory in this text.
As we embark on our exploration of our subject, let us make clear, in a prelimi-
nary way, how we are using certain terms. We speak of sentences a lot in this text.
By “sentence” we mean, to be precise, the meaning that is expressed by a grammati-
cally articulated sentence of a language like English. Notice that in the preceding …
sentence I wrote, the word “sentence” occurs twice with two different meanings.
Our sense of “sentence” is different from that of the grammatical definition of “sen-
tence.” To simplify things, let us focus on the word “meaning”, of which we should
have some intuitive notion to begin with. The sentences of logic are the meanings.
Much fuss is made, philosophically, about the status of such meanings: what kinds
of things are we talking about? Do such things exist independently of being thought?
We are not interested in such issues, given our present interests. We need to clarify,
though, that “meaning” is understood here to be the kind of thing – whatever thing
it is – that is capable of being true or false. We say that meanings have truth
values – true or false. Nothing else has truth value. Thus, since we are using the
word “sentence” indifferently and to stand for meaning, it is correct to say that what
we are talking about as sentences are the only things that can be true or false. It
would be more precise to distinguish the grammatically articulated sentences from
the meanings. We simplify by ignoring this distinction – but it should be understood
that there is such a distinction. You can think of this in the following way: to express
the same meaning, we can use many different written or spoken, grammatically cor-
rect, sentences. We can even translate a sentence to another language. The original
sentence and the one that translates that original sentence are both expressing the
same meaning: one meaning, two sentences. Accordingly, we can see that sentences
and meanings are not the same thing!
Our sentences are true or false; they are the only things we admit as capable of
being true or false; they have to be either true or false; they cannot fail to be true or
false; and they cannot be both true and false. Strictly, what was just said applies to
the meanings (while the sentences ought to be regarded as being grammatically cor-
rect or incorrect.) Our decision to speak of sentences in a broad way blurs this dis-
tinction. It is unfortunate that we need to go over this ground – creating what comes
across as confusion in the process – but there are certain serious philosophic dis-
putes and issues in the background. For our purposes here, let it be stressed that our
sentences are capable of being true or false and this is the key notion we need to
retain. A few other details should be added. Our sentences are considered to have
packed in them sufficient content – not obvious to the naked eye, so to speak – that
ensures that whatever truth value (true or false) they take, it is not variable! We will
use an example to explicate this.
I am driving to work.
This apparent sentence has the ambiguous pronoun in it, “I,” and also its verb-
ending “-ing” alludes to a temporal context in which this is supposed to be happen-
ing. If different persons uttered this sentence, it can be true in some cases and false
in other cases. Depending on what time contexts, and place-context and other pos-
sible contextual elements, this could be a true or a false sentence. But we cannot
tolerate such variability depending on context. We have to have sentences whose
meanings are settled: whether true or false, it doesn’t matter in this case, but we
have to insist on our sentence units not having truth values (true or false) which are
variable depending on how we specify who utters the sentence or contextual cir-
cumstances surrounding such utterance. Thus, our sentences are like the following –
to continue with the same example as above:
I, −---(name) --- drive to work ---at such and such a time and date ----…
We leave open spaces also to indicate that every possible contextual or other vari-
able circumstances are specified precisely. Our sentences are either true or false: it
is not true in some contexts and false in other contexts. We need to undertake all
this, complicated-sounding, ado for technical reasons. This is how our formal tools,
given how they are constructed, can be used properly.
Every meaningful sentence of a language like English can be used to make an
assertion. What is asserted is the meaning of the sentence, which we may call “state-
ment.” An open-ended number of sentences can be used to assert the same meaning
or express the same statement. Conversely, a meaning or statement can be expressed

by any one of an open-ended number of sentences all of which can be used to make
the same meaning. Think of translating a sentence into a foreign language: the ini-
tial sentence and its translation convey or make or assert the same meaning even
though they are sentences of different languages. The meaning is separate from the
sentence; the sentence is used to express the meaning. The sentence can be gram-
matically correct and yet fail to assert a meaning – it can be meaningless, in other
words. From the standpoint of the basic logic of statements, a meaning can be true
or false; nothing else can be true or false. Every statement can be true or false; it
cannot be both true and false in the same context of use (it cannot be true and false,
since we have a fixed context as we have seen); it has to be either true or false (it
cannot be true neither true nor false insofar as it is an assertable meaning.)
1.1 General Characteristics of Logic
There are controversies surrounding tendentious claims about what characterizes

logic but the list of overall candidate attributes is not long. There is even a view that
argues against the exceptionalist status of logic that emerges from the following
comments. For our current purposes, what follows is merely a compendious presen-
tation of certain characteristics that have been commonly claimed for logic. By
“logic” we are referring not to the enterprise of studying the subject but to the sub-
ject itself.
1. Universality: Regardless of linguistic application, regardless of what subject is
being talked about, regardless of what discipline is pursued, the logic is the
same. An argument cannot be valid when used in mathematics while an argu-
ment with the same logical form is invalid in literary criticism. It is not the case
that there is one logic for one subject of discourse but another for some other
area of studies or discourse. On the other hand, however, complications may
arise under certain circumstances: for instance, one eligible approach to avoid-
ing an overly complicated presentation of Quantum Physics requires that we
adopt an alternative, non-classical logic (a logic for which a certain distributive
law does not hold): this seems to suggest that the subject matter may play a role
in fixing the logic. It could be argued that the logic of Quantum Physics is non-
classical, which, again, intimates a certain sense of dependence of logic on
subject. Another challenge arises from a view that regards logic as dependent
on natural language with the prospect arising of variable logics matching differ-
ent natural languages or fragments of languages. Added insult is raised by such
challenges in that logic not only lacks universality, on such views but it is also
ultimately an empirical and factually discoverable enterprise. Such views are at
odds with the classical and standard view of what logic is, according to which
logic is universal across languages and subjects as well as a priori or not empiri-
cally based (on which more follows.) Nevertheless, our focus for determining
1.1 General Characteristics of Logic 15
what logic is ought to exclude the motivation for selecting a formal logical
system. If, for instance, a Quantum Logic is adopted, then it is that logic that
should be thought of as being in force and this notion should be held in isolation
from competing claims about different domains that may generate different
selections of formal logical systems. Given this last remark, universality is
weakened and preserved rather in a negative sense: whatever the logic is, it is
absurd to claim that a competing logic also holds.
2. Topic-Neutrality: The validity of arguments, the definitions of the logic-words
or connectives, and assessments of consistency of theories are independent
entirely of the subject matter. For instance, all sentences of the pattern “X and
Y” are true if the statements X and Y are both true regardless of what sentences
are put in for X and Y, and, therefore, regardless of what the contents or specific
subjects of those statements are. This characteristic overlaps with the preceding
one as we characterized it above. We may confine universality to the claim that
logic is the same across languages, so that it is actually presupposed for any
meaningful linguistic system including the case of natural languages. In that
case, topic neutrality can be seen as specifically the claim that the choice of
subject matter can have no impact on, and indeed it presupposes, the universal
logic that is at work in the production of meaning in all cases.
3. Precedence: Another characteristic of logic is that its study takes precedence to
any project of reasoning or linguistic activity in the sense that it is presupposed
as a check on the correctness of any meaningful linguistic or theoretical action.
The restrictions imposed by logic, so that statements can be accepted as proven
or views accepted as consistent, are prior to, and constrain, any generation of
meaning. We can say that logic is pre-theoretical and also that, on this basis, it
cannot be scientific: logic is not science but presupposed by science; but no sci-
ence can take precedence or be prior to all sciences and, therefore, logic is not
a science on account of its characteristic of precedence. This view was advanced
by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. As Aristotle
observed in ancient times, students of all subjects ought to be first versed in
logic which is, then, one of the foundational disciplines along with the study of
reading and writing. The medieval curriculum of studies observed this founda-
tional pedagogical requirement in its imposition of an obligatory curriculum
called “the trivium” (three subjects, consisting in reading, writing and logic.)
4. Normativity: Logic enforces standards of correctness which are binding and
objective. For instance, an invalid argument is “incorrect”, as the intuitive
notion has it, and this means that one should refrain from accepting, at least
under the assumption that one is rational. More strongly, accepting an invalid
argument as valid, to continue with the same example, would be wrong under
any rational construction and its continuous acceptance would betoken not only
irrationality but would also constitute an act that is absurd and cannot be
defended.
5. Non-Self-Referentiality: Because logic is pre-theoretical, constraining any
meaning-generating, a surprising corollary is that logic cannot speak about
itself in any substantive way: logic cannot subject itself to revisions, for
instance, on pain of generating contradictions. This does not mean that we can-
not study logical systems in a metalanguage, so that we can canvass a whole
array of structural characteristics of logical systems and even detect anomalies,
which is precisely what metalogic does. The point, rather, is that the correctness
of the logical rules we use in the metalanguage, as we investigate logical sys-
tems, is presupposed and, because of that, it is not open to revision by means of
its own resources.
6. Truth-Preservativeness: The standard logic has two truth values, true and false.
In a more general way, a logic has semantic values (which can be thought of as
ways of being meaningful), as constructed semantically, and a distinction must
be imposed on those values: the distinction is between so-called designated and
non-designated value-types. For the standard logic, which has two values or is
bivalent, the value we call true is the one that is designated. Because there is
only one non-designated value, the false, this logic is elegantly symmetrical,
and has a defined connective of negation that seems intuitively appealing: thus,
if not true, a meaningful sentence has to be false and vice versa; if not valid, an
argument has to be invalid and vice versa. There are no degrees admitted in the
attributions of values. Characteristic logical properties, like validity, are defined
to be preserving the designated value, which is the true in the case of the stan-
dard logic. This means that a valid argument form cannot possibly have any
instances with all premises true and a false conclusion. In other words, the truth
of the premises, stipulated as true, must be necessarily “preserved” by the con-
clusion or, to put it differently, if all the premises are true then the conclusion
must necessarily be true. There are alternative views about what may be pre-
served from premises to conclusion so that the argument form is regarded as
valid but the view of truth-preservation is the standard one. In terms of the rela-
tion of logical consequence: if all the sentences in the set of premises are true
(taken conjunctively, or conjoined with “and”, so that the compound statement
so produced is true), then the conclusion is true and this is a matter of logical
necessity. The broader notion for logical consequence is preservation of desig-
nated value (with designated values being thought of as representing ways of
being true) but for the standard bivalent logic, this amounts exactly to preserva-
tion of the truth value true.
7. Formality: It is an inexorable staple of textbook presentations that deductive
logic is a matter of logical form. The sentence “it rains and it does not rain at
such-and-such a place and at-such-and-such a time” is a contradiction because
any sentence of the logical form “X and not-X”, with X as placeholder or vari-
able for any meaningful sentence, is false for any logically possible assignment
of truth values to the ultimate individual components (the atomic sentences) of
the compound sentence. Similarly, argument validity is a matter of logical form
which is aptly called in that case argument form: arguments are valid/invalid if
and only if they are instances (they instantiate or betoken) argument forms
which are valid in the sense that they can have no instances with all premises
true and a false conclusion. Presentation of any instance of an argument form
with all premises true and a false conclusion, which is a called a c ounterexample
to the proffered argument form, invalidates or shows or establishes invalidity

for the argument form itself. The only fixed parts of logical forms – the parts
that are not variables – are the logical components. The logical connectives
themselves may be said to correspond to logic-words in the natural language.
Aristotle had detected this profound and foundational characteristic of deduc-
tive logic, the dependence of logical characteristics on the pattern or form, and
this may well account for his credentials as the originator of the systematic
study of logic in the western tradition. The Greek word used by Aristotle means
“shape” or “figure” and it is etymologically the ancestor of the technical term
“schema” that is deployed when we speak of rules for derivations – understood
as recipes to be followed for sanctioning transitions to new generated lines in
derivations. The metaphysical status of such forms – what kinds of things we
are dealing with – is rather vexed but we can disregard it and simply note that
logical characteristics, in deductive logic, depend exclusively and exhaustively
on logical form. Anything that does not depend on form is a non-logical char-
acteristic and it is regarded as such (for instance, the predicate symbols of pred-
icate logic are appropriately called sometimes “non-logical constants.”)
8. Triviality and Vacuity: Logical truths contain – and can contain - no information
about the empirical realm of facts. The meanings of the logical words determine
that a logical truth is necessarily true regardless of any empirical context. Such
logic-words – represented through what we call logical connectives – do not
have empirical referents: we can see readily that a logic-word like “not” cannot
have anything in the world to refer to. Because of this lack of informational
content, a logical truth, or a logical falsehood, cannot be used to differentiate or
effectively describe any specific logically possible case or state of affairs. Such
are necessarily true, or necessarily false, and, as such, they are true, or false, in
every meaningfully conceivable or logically possible state of affairs. A surpris-
ing corollary, observed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his celebrated Tractatus, is
that logical formulas cannot be used properly to provide statements about how
to apply rules in moving from one line to another line in a proof. This result was
anticipated by the famous author Lewis Carroll who, in his article “What the
Tortoise Said to Achilles,” noticed that an infinite regress would result if state-
ments sanctioning rules were themselves made lines of proofs (with every such
line requiring an additional line that would sanction it.) Wittgenstein considered
this strange fact about logic to be indicative of the constitutively symbolic char-
acter of logic: the enterprise of logic consists, deep down, in a game of moves
applied to items (symbols in the formal enterprise of logic), which are governed
by non-conventional but self-validating rules; as a game, logic is learned
through playing. (The fertile use of game analogies was originated by
Wittgenstein too but after he had completed his Tractatus, but we expropriate it
anyway to make this point.)
9. Generality: Differing from the characteristic of universality, generality has to
do not with transcending linguistic or disciplinary boundaries but with the sta-
bility of logical applications across the open-ended range of actions. Any token
of a statement that asserts a logical truth is also a carrier for asserting a logical
truth, and so on indefinitely. No contextual considerations – including prag-

matic, empirical, motivated considerations – can have an effect on logical prop-
erties. A valid argument cannot cease to be valid because it would be preferable
if it were not valid; nothing can count as a sufficient reason for claiming invalid-
ity for an argument that is valid.
10. Logical Necessity: The characterization of modalities, like necessity and pos-
sibility, has been a significant task since the dawn of the study of logic.
Metaphysical subtleties aside, deductive logical truths hold as a matter of logi-
cal necessity, as we may say. In every logically possible context logical truths
are characterized by the semantic predicate of being true. Deductive proofs in
which the conclusion is correctly derived from the given premises are, likewise,
correct regardless of context. And the same applies for all logical properties. We
may think of an open-ended array of the logically possible cases – understood
semantically as completely and consistently describable states of affairs – and
arranged in such a way that logically necessary truths in any one state of affairs
are true in every state of affairs: this arrangement gives us a rough notion of
what we mean by the claim that deductive logical properties are characteristi-
cally necessary – in the logical sense of necessity. Logically indeterminate sen-
tences, which are true in some and false in some other states, are the ones that
could be used as labels, so to speak, to mark different states as such. The logical
truths and logical falsehoods, on the other hand, cannot be so used. Reflecting
on this, we observe, once again, that deductive logic is not an empirical affair –
it cannot be made to correspond to informational inputs – and the characteristic
of logical necessity of the logical attributes means that logical, meaning is
defined and preserved regardless of empirical describable matters. On the other
hand, this is as it ought to be: we could hardly consider a statement as logically
necessary if its characterization as true or false were dependent on empirical or
motivational factors.
11. Non-Representationality: If we repair to the view that the logic is determined
by the meanings of its logic-words or connectives (which is not immune to
controversy but which will do for our present purposes), we may detect readily
that such special words – like “not” and “and” and “at least one of a certain
kind” – do not have and cannot have referents that we can become acquainted
with in empirical reality. Nothing in the world corresponds to such words; if we
tried to construct hieroglyphic-like, specifically designed symbols that are
meant to present images of the things in the world, we would come to grief
when we try to find what physical object it is that corresponds to a word like
“not”. To be sure, we run into a similar issue with relations between things –
how do we depict the relation of siblinghood, for instance, in addition to depict-
ing the related siblings? Indeed, the challenge of representationality for logical
words cuts more deeply: unlike the relationships between things, the logic-
words do not operate on objects or even on events. If that were the case, we
would meet the old presumed conundrum about “negative facts” or perhaps
“non-facts” that are facts and are presumably needed in order to account for
sentences whose meaning is false: since “not” can reverse the truth value of a
true sentence to false, we would need an even more convoluted and absurd
ontology, allowing for the erasure of facts in addition to the alleged factive sta-
tus of non-facts that underlie falsehoods, to deal with such a matter. Ridding
ourselves of such misleading and perplexing conceits, we may as well settle for
the abstract character of the things on which logical connectives operate: such
things are the truth values, true and false, themselves. Gottlob Frege, the
German mathematician and originator of modern logic in some crucial respects,
was the first to see this; although the maneuver – stipulating truth values as the
referents of meanings – lacks initial intuitive appeal, it effectively preempts
those hoary ancient philosophic perplexities and also fits neatly the widely
accepted characterization of logic as a non-empirical endeavor.
12. Non-Metaphysical: We accept that there is no need for speculation about kinds
of objects to which the discipline of logic is addressed. When semantics is pro-
vided for logical systems, stipulations about the kinds of things that are being
talked about are needed; in that case, the enterprise is not one of discovery or
aiming to make defeasible claims about the world; indeed, what happens is to
check if a semantics is available in the sense that we can provide a make-believe
story that is free of inconsistency. Unlike Aristotle who considered the founda-
tion of logic to be metaphysical – grounded ultimately, and sanctioned, by the
way the totality of things is structured and how it functions – the modern view
is that it is a confusion of categories to pair logic with metaphysical inquiries.
13. Incorrigibility or Lack of Empirical Foundation: Given that deductive logic is
not empirically grounded, it is a remarkable characteristic of logic that it cannot
be corrected: it is nonsensical to anticipate that perhaps what logic prescribes
could, after all, turn out not to be the case.
14. Perspicuity, Ambiguity and Vagueness: When we construct formal systems for
the study of logic, we ensure that the symbolic resources we use, equipped with
a recursive and systematic grammar, can only be used properly in ways that
render all the relevant properties perspicuous (upon proper examination) and
preclude emergence of ambiguity or vagueness: ambiguity arises when more
than one interpretations are plausibly available to the competent practitioner;
the grammatical arrangements and demarcation of the formal language prevent
this from ever occurring. Ambiguous symbolic expressions have to be consid-
ered as nonsensical – not amenable to eking out meaning from them. Vagueness
arises when the boundaries of inclusion of an object within a category are pen-
umbral: if there is a specifiable degree to which any acceptable object has the
categorial characteristic, then we have vagueness. Concepts may indeed be
vague, although it would be far-fetched to consider every concept as being
vague. Although there are so-called “fuzzy logics” for the analysis of vague
notions, the standard logic is conditioned by the foundational acceptance that
inclusion is not vague. This means that the standard logic, as we will have
opportunities to discover, draws significantly on the classical theory of sets,
which is “sharp” or “crisp” and not vague or fuzzy; this means that for any item,
it can be determined whether it is a member of a given set or not absolutely
(either it is or it is not) and not as a matter of degree on the interval [0, 1].
15. Non-Psychological: Logic is emphatically not a subjective matter or a matter of

opinion. The parallel case of linguistic meanings can be deployed to show how
this is the case. If words had subjectively attached meanings, the medium of
language could not serve as a mode of communication; but it does serve this
purpose, and so it follows that the meanings of words are like currency bills
whose denominations are to be considered as settled so that they can be used
meaningfully and effectively in transaction. But logic is not psychological in a
broader sense: logic is not a matter of mental generation that is specific or con-
fined perhaps to a community or even a species: the point is, rather, that any
species (aliens and what not) would have to have logic if the species has a mind
that is capable of reasoning.
16. Aprioricity: This is an epistemic category – about knowing and believing and
correctly believing – but it is regarded commonly as a deep characteristic of
logic: the truth of a sentence is known a priori if it is not provided and cannot
be corrected (is not corrigible) by any empirical arrangements or discoveries. It
is considered that the whole of mathematics is known a priori. Witnessing a
third item of the same kind time and again when two items of the same kind are
put together would not instruct us to revise our knowledge about one and one
adding up to two instead of to three; the mathematical belief that one plus one
add up to two is empirically incorrigible. Similarly, logic is considered to be a
priori. The match between aprioricity and logical necessity, however, can be
challenged: it can be proven, by using what seem to be unobjectionable logical
laws, that any two names that refer to the same object do so as a matter of logi-
cal necessity – in other words, identity is logically strong: nevertheless, that this
is a matter of co-reference may be discovered historically (and, therefore, is not
a priori) as the case has been with the names “morning star” and “evening star”
which were traditionally taken as referring to distinct celestial objects but it
turned out that the presumed objects were actually one and the same, the planet
Venus. (On the side of the apriori, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant had
argued famously that there are truths that are not logically necessary but are,
nevertheless, known a priori. We may also think of the statement “I exist”
which, uttered in the first person, is surely known a priori but this is not a logi-
cally necessary statement.)
17. Non-circular: We will find that we provide recursive definitions of logical con-
nectives, like for instance the one that corresponds to the linguistic logic term
“and” – by seemingly presupposing that we already know the meaning of “and,”
which is what we are defining. This sounds like an embarrassingly defective
definitional practice: it seems that the definition is circular. For instance, we
may define the logical connective symbol for conjunction (assuming for now
that the symbol is “^”) as: “p ^ q” is true if and only p is true and q is true. But
“and” appears in the definiendum as well as in the definiens of the definition.
And yet, we have not run into circularity. We can use a metaphor to explain how
this works. Similar metaphors are found in the history of modern logic, used by
such luminaries as Gottlob Frege and Hans Reichenbach. Consider how we
may construct a precise instrument for microscopic examination: we “see”
1.2 Logical Meaning, Logic-Words and Logical Form 21
p recisely the characteristics that are visible in the smaller scale; although we
presuppose “seeing” as an activity, the “seeing” we are constructing is specifi-
cally attuned to bringing out with systematic precision the elements we are
interested in. Differences recorded in the broadly accessible target make impacts
on the specifically addressed area within which our vision is trained by means
of the calibrated instruments. Although metaphors are tricky, and should not be
accepted in the stead of definitions, our tentative metaphor given above tries to
showcase why we are not wading into circularity when we define our connec-
tives, in spite of appearances to the contrary.
1.2 Logical Meaning, Logic-Words and Logical Form
Aristotle, who is considered the originator of the systematic study of Logic, thought
that the nature of things consisting in the self-subsisting, organized and eternal
totality of what exists, provides the ground or foundation for logic. Aristotle would
define a logical law – for instance, that no meaningful sentence can be both true and
false – in metaphysical terms: “nothing can both have and not have a certain prop-
erty in the same respects.” It sounds as if the philosopher speaks of how things work
in nature – with “nature” taken in a broad sense, so as to include the totality of
things, possibly including objects that are not physically concrete. Aristotle would
also go on to add non-naturalistic versions of the logical laws but his opening pre-
sentation would be like the one given above – which, incidentally, is known as the
logical law of non-contradiction. This naturalistic view seems wrong, though.
A similar error affected the erstwhile development of geometry: it was thought,
rather intuitively but inappropriately as it turns out, that the postulates of geometry
are justified by the physical geometry of the universe as it is. Nevertheless, the fact,
if it so happened, that a physics with an entirely different type of geometry turned
out to be the one we adopt would not mean that our initial geometry was defective
in itself: it would only show, as an empirical matter, that the geometry we thought
was the “natural” geometry is not the geometry of the universe after all. This does
not prove that anything in the geometry is wrong: provided that we take the postu-
lates of the geometry to be self-justifying, every statement in the geometry is not
simply true – but, rather, logically necessarily true. This shows that our geometry is
never dependent on empirical, verifiable and falsifiable, considerations. Although
there are marked differences between logic and geometry, the parallel can be used
illustratively to make the point that it is a fundamental error to think that deductive
logic is dependent for its verification on empirical considerations. Certainly, the
purpose of investigating and systematizing the logic of a language may motivate the
study of logic but the formal systems of logic are independent of linguistic facts; it
may turn out that a given formal logic may fail to hit the mark with respect to how
the logic or logics of a given linguistic idiom.
Another analogy we can draw is to a game. The rules of a game must be given so
that the game can be played: the rules are not up for grabs. If we are to ask a referee,
we would not be asking for an opinion as to whether the rules are indeed the rules
of the game; at most, we may ask for a list of the rules and certainly dispute factual
elements in cases of applications of the rules. Even though the rules have been
forged historically, we can ignore this background, for our present purposes, and
consider the game as an independent and self-sustaining arrangement. In that sense,
dependence on empirically verifiable developments, when it comes to ascertaining
what the rules of the game are, would make it impossible to actually play the game:
we couldn’t make sure what rules to apply as we would be tracking the develop-
ments that may affect the rules. This, however, discloses an additional problem:
even as we track developments that might fix evolved rules for our game, we would
still have to know what we would be able to count as acceptable rules of the game
that emerge in the developmental process. This means that we cannot actually carry
out this enterprise: we need to have the rules set so that these rules are insulated
from empirical effects. This story illustrates quite appositely how logic is in a way
predetermined, known independently of experience in the sense that it is incorrigi-
ble or cannot be corrected or set right by appealing to empirical factors.
It is also poignant that logic is prior to actual transactions in the sense that we
have to be able to apply rules of reasoning already if we are to reason about what is
acceptable and what is not. This point seems to apply broadly, including also the
logics that are presented in natural languages. For instance, quite clearly, we cannot
both accept and not accept some putative rule X: but this means that we are already
committed to the logical law of non-contradiction – the one Aristotle was found to
be presenting, albeit initially in a naturalistic formulation: we cannot accept both a
rule X and a rule whose acceptance would logically entail that X is not applicable.
The view of meaning reflected in the preceding comments is called extensional-
ist: we take meaning to be determined by what the word refers to, or what the word
has as its referent or denotatum. Such referents are considered, adequately for the
examination of logical properties, to be the truth values of sentences: whether sen-
tences are true or false. We do not take a meaningful sentence to be receiving its
meaning by reference to facts or states of affairs. If we adopted a view that takes
meanings to be collections of facts, those would have to be the facts relative to
which the sentence is true: we would have to make sure that all other facts are also
included in the comprehensive collection of relevant states of affairs to ensure that
there are no inconsistencies: this is like saying that a sentence would be given mean-
ing by means of all the scenes in a story, in which the sentence is included or asserted
as true. It seems, then, that truth value (true-false) takes conceptual precedence over
any way in which we would define meaning by using references to facts: this is
because, consistency as a logical concept is defined by means of having the con-
cepts of true and false available to us in the first place.
The meaning or referent of a meaningful sentence is thus taken to be truth value
(true or false.) This may seem like a narrow view: sentences that have different
meanings based on content can be, nevertheless, true or false together in all possible
contexts: we say that such sentences are mutually equivalent (or equipollent in
older, now rather forgotten, terminology). Equivalence may be relative to context –
for instance, it might be relative to actuality: “the earth has one moon” and “the
earth’s sun is bright” are both true, and as such equivalent, but this is relative to the
actual state of affairs and not because of any logical relations between the contents
of the two sentences. A consistent alternative story is possible in which one of the
two preceding sentences is true while the other is false. Logical relations, like equiv-
alence, should hold across all logically possible cases and not only contingently on
what happens to be the actual case, which is after all only one logically possible
case. But sentences like “a triangle has three angles” and “a rectangle has four
angles” are equivalent in a stronger sense: no meaningful story can be presented in
which either one of them is false. And yet, these sentences are not true by virtue of
logic but only as a matter of how words like “triangle” and “angle” are defined. We
do not expect that such words would be logic-words or that these words would mat-
ter when it comes to the determination of logic. But let us think, instead, of “it is not
the case that it is raining and not raining” and “it is not the case that we have class
and we do not have class.” Observe that these sentences must be true – not as a mat-
ter of psychological impression but as a matter of logic – and must be true, or neces-
sarily true, in every logically possible context. The relevant words, whose meaning
fixes the truth value as true, are “not” and “and.” These sentences are necessarily
logically equivalent – they have the same truth value (true) in every logically pos-
sible context. Once again, the content of the sentences does not matter: one is about
raining and the other about having class. In a deeper sense, of course, they are not
about such things but about the meanings of the logic-words – “and” and “not.” The
rest – the content – simply does not matter.
Abstracting from content – disregarding content and treating only true and false
as referents for meaning – may seem to be narrowing our scope impermissibly, but
this is not the case. We should think of the maneuver that assigns truth values as the
referents of meaningful sentences to be cutting through an infinite array of linguistic
idioms in order to circumscribe only what all those idioms have in common as logi-
cal properties. Based on this, “a triangle has three angles” is logically independent
from “a bachelor is unmarried” even though they are both true always in every logi-
cally possible story but what we discern as their logically significant relationship
(that they are necessarily equivalent) is a matter simply of their both being true in
every possible case. As we see again, true and false are the “players” in this game.
These two sentences are necessarily true not because of logic-words but because of
defined meanings of words like “triangle” and “angle,” which are not logic-words.
We see, however, that their equivalence is, again, not a matter of context as they
have to be true in every context. A story about a context – a world or state of affairs –
in which these two sentences are not both true would be nonsensical.
Having adopted the view that logical meaning is a matter of extensionality, which
means that meaning is fixed by reference, we have apparently rejected another plau-
sible way of settling the concept of meaning: according to such an alternative view,
meaning can be considered to consist in sense or connotation as distinguished from
reference which is also called denotation. The notion of sense is about the content
of meaningful sentences rather than the more refined distillation that leaves us with
truth value as the meaning of a sentence. An example, a famous one, highlighting
the distinction between sense and reference is about names: the extensionalist view
also takes names to be defined by their referent. Thus, names are not characterized
in their meanings by any properties of the thing that is named but only serve as
conventional and arbitrary labels or tags for tracking an object: the meaning of the
name is, accordingly, provided fully by the referent (the item that is labeled by the
name.) The names “morning star” and “evening star” happen to refer to the same
celestial object, Venus, but their linguistically generated senses as non-logical words
were in variance from each other, with the “morning star” endowed with the sense
“the first star visible in the morning” and “evening star” having the sense “the last
star visible at night.” While the variable senses of the words give rise to, and explain,
such phenomena as having wrong beliefs about stars and how such beliefs are cor-
rected over time, from a strictly logical point of view beliefs and even knowledge of
non-logical subjects is not relevant to the determination of logical properties. Thus,
it turns out that the logical identity of the two names, “morning star” and “evening
star,” is a matter of logical necessity (since they have the same referent which is, of
course, self-identical) even though the fact that they do have this same referent was
discovered empirically: sense belongs to the realm of facts but denotation or refer-
ence has to do with logical properties (like identity understood as co-reference.)
This is a neat framework; there are difficulties and complications lurking but we
bypass them for our present introductory purposes. Having said all this, we should
also point out that ascent to logics that investigate intensional notions – as distin-
guished from extensional notions – would be needed for taking into account context-
sensitive shifts of meaning which seem to be required for transcending extensionality.
These are controversial subjects, which we cannot delve into in detail in this text.
Importantly, we also abstract from context in fixing the logical meaning of a
meaningful sentence: a meaningful sentence has a referent – a truth-value, true or
false – which is not variably depending on any dynamic context (such as the passage
of time or the change of place or the accrual of information or the shifting of indexi-
cal pointing to this or that item.) A clever trick that ensures this is to consider all
elastic contexts as embedded in a conceptual (but not stated) continuation of the
sentence: for instance, “Socrates is happy” is understood as “Socrates is happy and
such-and-such a place and at such-and-such a time, etc.” where “etc.” is meant to
encompass any conceivable dynamic context whose variable influence may have an
impact on the truth value of the sentence. Notice that it does not matter whether the
sentence is true or false but that its truth value, if indicated, is immutable. This strat-
egy – consisting in implicitly embedding notionally in the sentence what is known
as the “ceteris paribus” (“all things being equal”) clause – ensures that we can con-
sistently take as the referent of a meaningful sentence its truth value (true or false,
not both and not neither.) Whatever price we pay for this adjustment is something
we will not bother about for now; on certain occasions, we will be able to comment
on ramifications of this stipulation.
The meaning of a meaningful sentence is, strictly speaking, a separate thing from
the carrier-sentence but it is not important for our purposes to inquire into what kind
of thing this meaning of a meaningful sentence is. Aristotle would not appreciate
this avowed indifference to metaphysical considerations and he would also insist on
including in our logical studies something else we have deliberately excluded – the
concept of the “truthmaker,” which refers to what it is that makes true sentences true
(and, somewhat puzzlingly, what makes false sentences false by failing to be or
occur.) But we are not interested in truthmaking conditions, as we have remarked
rather emphatically, and we will find out that our systematic study can proceed
completely and successfully without ever needing to undertake an examination of
what makes true sentences true and what makes them false. This important observa-
tion goes together with another point we repeat often in this text: deductive logic is
not at all related to empirical (factual, descriptive, etc.) issues about the actual
world: it is all about logical structure or pattern of our schematic formulas and sym-
bolic arrangements – hence, it has nothing to do with whether statements make
actually true or false sentences. Related to all this is the emphasis, which can be
discerned in definitions of concepts, on logical necessity and logical possibility –
and not on actuality as such. Unfortunately, logical-modal concepts like logical
necessity and logical possibility can be recalcitrant to our untrained intuitions but
we will need to overcome such difficulties cautiously and systematically.
We can agree with Aristotle that only meaningful sentences are properly avail-
able for laying-down-as-true or correctly asserting. Moreover, we set up our basic
logic so that any meaningful sentence (more precisely, the meaning of the sentence)
can have one of two semantic characterizations: true or false. But we also add that
no meaningful sentence can be neither true nor false and no meaningful sentence
can be both true and false. This move is, so to speak, Aristotelian but, unlike
Aristotle, we do not claim that we have sanctioning by the way things are or by the
way nature works. We may even say that this is an arbitrary move – we just lay
foundations for a logic-game; we could have played a different game but the game
we are playing is motivated by an interest in the study of the logic of languages like
those people speak around the world. A simplified but direct way of saying this is:
rather than start with nature, as Aristotle thought we ought to do, we begin with see-
ing logic as conventionally embedded in linguistic constructions. But, notice that
we are not studying the logic of language but an instrument that may or may not
work in applications. Aristotle could see this maneuver by being reminded of the
Euclidean geometry, which he knew, but even then there is something that might be
surprising for him in what follows: Euclidean geometry is its own internally con-
structed, perfectly complete and self-standing system regardless as to whether the
geometry of our universe is or is not Euclidean – it turns out that it is not, in relativ-
istic physics, but this does not undermine the Euclidean geometry, it only estab-
lishes that there are limitations to its applicability.
In terms of logical status, a sentence can be characterized as one of the following
(and, of course, we are talking not necessarily of simple sentences but also of com-
pound sentences that are made by simple sentences): a logical truth (or tautology),
a logical falsehood (or contradiction) and a logical contingency (or logically inde-
terminate or logically indefinite sentence.) We are repeatedly examining these con-
cepts in this text – with the repetition serving learning objectives. We stipulate that
a simple (single, atomic) sentence that we symbolize in our formal system cannot
be a logical truth or logical falsehood. Of course, a sentence like “a triangle has
three angles” has to count as true necessarily (although not logically necessarily, but
as so-called analytically true), but we would have to tinker with providing a special
lexicon to allow our symbols to stand for different logical status; instead, our stipu-
lation – remember – is that any sentence can be true or false, not neither and not
both, and we codify this and show it at the level of the ultimate atomic components
of our symbolic expressions (formulas) that can be used to translate linguistically
meaningful sentences.
But something else happens too: the sentence “a triangle has three angles” is, as
we call it, analytic and true (with more to say on this in 1.4.) The meanings of the
words in this sentence suffice to establish a fixed determination that the sentence is
true. But these words, which matter and adequately allow determination of truth
value (true or false) are not logic-words; they are non-logical words like “triangle”
and “three” and “angle.” Instead, a sentence like “either it is raining or it is not rain-
ing” is logically necessarily true: the meanings of words that matter in this case to
fix the truth value of this sentence as logically necessarily true are the logic-words
“either-or” and “not.” It would be news to Aristotle that the logical characteristics
we are studying are to be taken as ultimately based on what happen to be the speci-
fied definitions of special words, the logic-words like “not,” “and,” “either-or,” and
other such words (but not all logic-words can be studied through sentential logic, as
we will see.) In textbooks, the standard way of explaining how we draw such a dis-
tinction between the kind of sentence we called analytic but not logically true and
the logically true sentence is by saying that we are dealing with logical forms in
deductive logic: while the logical form of “either it is raining or it is not raining” is
the form of a logical truth – “either X or not-X” for any sentence plugged in for the
variable X – the sentence “a triangle has three angles” has the logical form X – and
remember that we have postulated (properly, it turns out) that atomic sentences –
symbolized so that they have the logical form “X”) can be possibly true and possi-
bly false (one or the other, not both, but not necessarily true or necessarily false.)
The approach that uses “logical form” to make the case is different from the
approach that traces this all ultimately to the meanings of logic-words: we can have
the first without having the second. We do not enter into philosophic issues or
details, given our given purposes. We continue with this theme in 1.4 but, for now,
we may glance at some seminal points.
• “Either X or not-X” is the logical form of a tautology or logical truth.
◦◦ “X and not-X” is the logical form of a contradiction or logical falsehood.
◦◦ “If X, then X” is the logical form of a logical truth.
◦◦ “Only if X, then X” is the logical form of a logical truth.
◦◦ “X if and only if not-X” is the logical form of a logical falsehood.
◦◦ Etc…
▪▪ The negation of a logical form of a logical truth is a logical form of a logi-
cal falsehood – and the other way around.
• This means that any compound sentence that has the form “either X or not-X” is
a logical truth. And the same for compound sentences that have the logical forms
of logical truths or falsehoods – they are themselves, respectively, logical truths
or logical falsehoods.
◦◦ If a logical form is not a logical truth or a logical falsehood, then it has to be

logically indefinite or logically indeterminate (also called logically contin-
gent.) [For the sake of simplicity, we call now the logical forms themselves by
the status – for instance, “logical truth” – instead of using the more cumber-
some expression “the logical form of a logical truth.”]
◦◦ There are exactly three possibilities for a logical form: logical truth form,
logical falsehood form, logical contingency form.
▪▪ No logical form can be more than one of the above.
▪▪ Every logical form has to be one of the above.
▪▪ We can call the characterization of a form, as above, the logical status of
the form.
▪▪ Any sentence that has (shows, exemplifies, instantiates) a logical form has
the same logical status as the logical form it has.
▪▪ Every meaningful sentence has to have a logical form.
• Any two logical forms that have the same logical status have the same logi-
cal meaning: we can say that they are logically equivalent (we don’t use
terms like “equal” or “identical” but “equivalent” which will be studied
elaborately in subsequent sections. The key is what we mean by “logical
meaning” – and this is something we dwell on extensively in this text.)
◦◦ A logical truth is a sentence that is logically necessarily true: it is a matter of
logical form that this is the case (or, further, we trace this to the meanings of
the logical words in the sentence, which are indicated in the form.)
◦◦ A sentence that has the logical form of a logical truth is logically necessarily
true: This means, preliminarily, that for every logically possible way or com-
bination of making its component sentences true or false, in any combination
whatsoever, the sentence is always true. (But, notice that “when” here is not a
temporal matter: it is a matter of logical possibilities defined as assignments
of true/false values to all the component sentences of a compound sentence.)
◦◦ A sentence that has the logical form of a logical false is logically necessarily
false: This means, preliminarily, that for every logically possible way or com-
bination of making its component sentences true or false, in any combination
whatsoever, the sentence is always false.
◦◦ A sentence that has the logical form of a logical contingency is logically pos-
sibly true and, for other assignments of true/false to its components, logically
possibly false: This means, preliminarily, that there is at least one logically
possible way or combination of making its component sentences true or false,
for the compound sentence to be true; and there is at least one logically pos-
sible combination of making the components true/false so that the whole sen-
tence is made false. In any combination whatsoever, the sentence is always true.
▪▪ X and not-X – form of a logical contradiction
• make X true: True and not-True = True and False = False
• make X false: False and not-False = False and True = False
• The above is an intuitive example. We depend on the meanings of

“not” and “and:” “not” turns True to False and False to True; “and”
sentences are True only if both connected components are True, and
they are False in every other case. Make sure that you have absorbed
these definitions in our example above.
• It turns out that, for every assignment of truth-values to the compo-
nents (here, one component, X), the compound sentence is False:
hence, this form represents a logical falsehood or logical
contradiction.
• The fixed words, and only the fixed words, in the logical form are the logic-
words. The other symbols in the logical form are placeholders, hence variables,
for plugging in any meaningful sentences.
◦◦ X and not -X
◦◦ Either X or not -X [“either-or” taken as one phrase – it is a grammatical
accident that the “either” and the “or” are separated in linguistic notation. The
same comment applies to the expression “if-then” of the subsequent example.]
◦◦ If X, then X
◦◦ The logical forms as we present them and talk about them are here are pre-
sented in a symbolically enhanced (but not formally constructed or system-
atic) metalanguage. We do not introduce symbols for the logic-words at this
point, but we could also do that if we wanted. The formal language we will
build subsequently will have its own symbols: it will be rigidly constructed
and implemented, without offering such license as we seem to be taking
within the metalanguage (and, of course, the metalanguage also includes
English, or rather, some fragment of English in accordance with our discur-
sive needs.)
• A logical form should be thought of as a recipe or figure-like instruction-
schematic for how to make instances of the form – which is done by plugging in
any sentences in the places occupied by the variables.
1.2.1 Exercises
1. Plug in any meaningful English sentences for the variables (capital letters from
{X, Y, Z, W}) in the given logical sentence-forms to generate instances of
those forms.
a. If X, then not-X.
b. Unless X, then either Z or not-Z.
c. Neither X, nor Y.
d. If X and Y, then either not-Z or W.
e. It is not the case that X implies Y.
f. Only if X, Y or Z.
g. If it is the case that necessarily X or not-X, then it is the case that necessarily
X or actually Y.
Does it matter what specific sentences we put in the variable places? Why or
why not?
2. In the preceding exercise, circle the logic-words. Notice that the sentential logic
we will be studying can “see” – has symbols and specified ways for managing –
some but not all of these logic-words. Still, we can circle the logic-words in the
preceding exercise. How can we do that?
3. We can mark the place in the represented logical form with some other metalin-
guistic symbol: for instance, we can use different types of lines-symbols com-
pounds (let’s say from {___, −--, ===, |||}). Return to exercise 1 and
systematically use these lines symbols to express the forms. What do we mean
by “systematic”? Why doesn’t it matter what symbols we use to mark the places
of the variables in the logical form?
4. Are the circled words in the following sentences logic-words or not? (Some are
and some are not. Which ones are and which ones are not logic-words?)
a. If a triangle has three angles, then a rectangle has four angles.
b. It is not the case that a rectangle has two angles.
c. It will always be the case that a triangle has three angles.
d. It is not the case that if it rains then it snows.
e. If it is possible that God exists , then it is necessary that God exists .
f. It is possible that aliens exist , but it is also possible that they do not exist .
g. Only if it rains and pours is the game cancelled.
5. The meanings of logic-words are defined by reference to true and false: for
example, the meaning of “not” is: it reverses the truth value (true, false / T, F)
of a sentence – if applied to a true sentence the result is a false sentence and if
it is applied on a false sentence the result is a true sentence. The definition com-
prises the entire schedule (collection, agglomerate, nexus) of the cases/value-
assignments: {T-F, F-T}. Can you tell what the meanings are of the following
logic-words? Find the logic-words embedded in forms. They are, as we know
by now, the fixed parts of the forms. For the binary logic-words (the ones that
connect two sentences) the nexus of all possible combinations of truth-value
assignments are: {TT, TF, FT, FF}. For instance, the meaning of “and” can be
represented as follows: {TT=>T, TF=>F, FT=>F, FF=>F}. This should be obvi-
ous: a compound sentence with “and” as the logic-word connecting the indi-
vidual sentences, is true only in the case in which both connected sentences are
true; it is false in every other case. Try to write the meanings of the logic-words
given below. Another way of saying this is: try to give the truth conditions of the
logic-words given below. The meanings of the logic-words are their truth condi-
tions. Can you explain this in some detail?
a. Both X and Y. [Is the meaning different from the meaning of “and”? Notice
that we are talking about the logical meaning, not linguistic uses that serve
various purposes in language: the logical meaning is the truth-conditions, as
we have explained.]
b. Either X or Y. [ALARM: is it possible to answer this challenge without

removing a fatal ambiguity about what we mean by “either-or?” Can you
figure out what the two possible meanings of “either-or” are? Move to the
next two questions.]
c. Either X or Y or both.
d. Either X or Y but not both.
e. Neither X nor Y.
f. Not-X and not-Y. [Is the meaning of this expression different from that of
the preceding expression or are they the same?)
g. Only if X, Y.
h. Not-not-X. [of course, “not” is a unary logic-word, not a binary one: it
applies on one sentence-meaning; in this case, the second occurrence of
“not” is applied first; a compound sentence results; the second occurrence of
“not” is then applied on that compound sentence.)
6. The following sentence-forms have logic-words that cannot be defined simply
by their truth-conditions as with the preceding examples. Consider the one
given example and attempt the same analysis for the rest.
a. It is logically necessary that X.
Since “logically necessary” is unary, it operates on one sentence. Let us dis-
tinguish, as before, the two cases: T and F (true and false.) We regard any
true sentence, and any false sentence, as an available candidate to place for
X as we distinguish cases. For logical analysis, as a matter of logical mean-
ing, all true sentences (and all false sentences) have the same meaning. This
seems unnatural but see that this is true-false game. It is not about content.
This theme will be elaborated repeatedly and is important although not
immediately obvious. But think of the truth-conditions that define logical
meaning, as we have learned by now. Any sentence of the logical form
“X-and-Y” has the same truth conditions with every other sentence of the
same form: therefore, they all have the same logical meaning regardless of
the content of these sentences. For X in the example we are considering, we
can put any true (false) sentence. Now something happens. For some true
sentences, the result is a true sentence but for other true sentences the result
is a false sentence. The same for inserting instances of false sentences. Let us
see how.
It is logically necessary that a triangle has three angles.. [T => T] :[true sen-
tence put in, the resulting compound sentence is also true].
It is logically necessary that the capital of the US is Wasshington. [T=>F] [It is
not a matter of logical necessity; it is not analytically true, based on the
meanings of the words; it is just a matter of actual historical fact but it is logi-
cally possible that it could have been otherwise: you can write a logically
possible story in which some other city, not Washington, is chosen to serve
as the capital of the US; this story does not describe the actual world but it
does describe some world that is logically possible; it is a consistent story.]
We don’t know how we can give truth conditions in such a case even though
“necessarily” is a logic-word too. We say that a logic-word like “necessarily”
is not truth-functional. You will learn more about this in due time. Now try to
give an analysis for why each of the logic-words in the sentences given below
is not truth-functional.
b. It is logically possible that X. [It might be easier to do by plugging in
instances of false sentences for X.]
c. X is true before Y is true.
d. It is morally obligatory that X.
e. It is known that X.
f. It is believed that Y.
7. Words like “all” and “at least one” are also logic-words but it is difficult to see
how we may talk of truth conditions in explicating their meanings.
But here is an idea. “All” has some meaning-connection with “and” and “at
least one” is related to “either or”. But there is a catch. We have to specify the
universe of things we talk about and to ensure that this universe of things does
not have an infinite number of things in it. How would we express conjunctions
or disjunctions of infinite number of sentences?
a. Express the sentence “All persons are students” over a universe or domain
{John, Mary} so as to bring out the connection in logical meaning between
“all” and “and” – so that the truth-conditions for “and” are made to do the
work for expressing the truth conditions for “all.”
b. Now express the sentence “At least one person is a student” over the same
universe, {Mary, John}, so as to bring out the meaning-connection between
“at least one” and “either X or Y or both.”
8. Consider the sentence: “Mary is a student.” Are there any logic-words in this
sentence? Defend your answer.
9. The logical form of a sentence (for instance, “X and Y” being the logical form
of “It is Sunday today and there is a football game today”) is not informative
about the world of experience, empirical reality, facts. Explain what this means.
10. If the sentence X is true, then it has to be true that “X or Y or both X and Y.” This
is because, X being true, indeed at least one of X and Y is true: so, “either X or
Y or both” is true. We have a relationship between “X” and “either X or Y”
which, as we will learn, is a relation of implication: “X” implies “X or Y.” It is
logically impossible for “X” to be true and “either X or Y or both” to be false.
The first logical form is related to the second logical form so that the first
implies the other in the sense we have indicated. Does it matter that in language
we would not see the point of inferring “either X or Y or both” from “X?”
11. Can any word expressing a property or attribute be a logic-word? (Consider
predicating anything of anyone: for instance, “Schlup is a student” or “Tara is a
teacher.” Can such a sentence be logically necessary? Or it is logically
contingent, which means that it is logically possible for it to be true but also
logically possible for it to be false – regardless of what may actually be the case
if your predications are matched to names of actual entities?)
12. Is the phrase “is identical with” a logic-word or is it not? (Interestingly, “is
identical with” is like a predicate, which we considered in our preceding exer-
cise, if we conceive broadly of a predicate so that it can be applied to more than
one object – such predicates may be called relational predicates. But consider
also that the principle by which we state that “everything is identical to itself”,
which we may call the principle of self-identity, has to be a logical principle.)
1.3 Sentences and Meanings
When we study logical meaning, we regard sentences as grammatical entities whose

structure, as established through the conventions of language, may or may not con-
tain meaning. Indeed, surprising as it may sound at first, grammatically correct sen-
tences of a natural language like English, or of any language, may be meaningless.
We make an immediate stipulation: logical meaning is a matter of truth-value; a
sentence is meaningful if and only if it expresses (states, declares, asserts) a mean-
ing that can be either true or false, cannot be both true and false and cannot be
neither true nor false. Nothing else is to be accepted as logically meaningful. It is
apparent, then, that it is the meaning of the sentence that is capable of having a truth
value (being true or being false) since, as we have indicated, grammatically proper
sentences may be meaningless. Moreover, we can have an open-ended number of
sentences – physically betokened in writing or stated by means of utterance – all of
which have the same meaning or make the same statement. We may even translate
from one language to another, overlooking for our purposes puzzles that may arise
in the context of translation: then, two sentences that are betokened by physical
items (written or uttered) in different languages are, nonetheless, taken properly as
having the same meaning. Clearly, a sentence and its meaning are two different
notions: in logic, we focus our attention to the logical meaning of a sentence and not
to the sentence itself. A sentence can be grammatically well-constructed or ill-
constructed but the meaning of a sentence can be true or false.
A meaningful sentence is often called declaratory (which means that, insofar as
it is meaningful, such a sentence can be properly used to make or state a meaning,
to “declare,” or to assert – and rightly assert in case the meaning is true.) Terms used
to refer to the meaning of a sentence include “proposition” and “statement” but in
this text we use specifically the term “sentence” and we trust that the context and the
prior stipulative commitment we have imposed suffice to prevent and remove ambi-
guity. We avoid other terms for referring to the meaning of a sentence in order to
preempt any metaphysical entanglements as to what kinds of entities or objects we
might have in mind by using a term like “proposition.” There is some philosophic
controversy around the metaphysical commitments implied by distinguishing the
proposition from the sentence. Or, one may ask, what is the relationship exactly
between the sentence and the meaning it expresses? In the latter case, many
1.3 Sentences and Meanings 33
metaphors have been tried (like comparing the sentence to a vehicle and the mean-
ing to what is carried by the vehicle) but such metaphors are regularly found want-
ing. Although the debates arising from such profound philosophic inquiries are
fascinating and intrinsically worth perusing for their depth and challenges they pose
to the human mind, this is not the proper place for engaging in such issues. It is to
be understood from now on that “sentence” serves the purpose in this text of refer-
ring to the meaning of a grammatical sentence, which can only be true or false; we
are not referring to the grammatically formed concatenations of symbols we have
write in language or to the succession of phonemes that constitute spoken units.
Whenever “sentence” is also used when discussing grammatical sentences, context
removes ambiguity.
When we study Formal Logic, we construct formal languages of symbols and
impose by formal stipulation on such languages specified grammatical conventions:
the term “sentence” could be emerging again, ambiguously, as a candidate for using
to refer to the properly formed symbolic expressions of our formal language.
Instead, we opt for the term “formula” in that case: a formula is a symbolic expres-
sion, understood to be referring to nothing specifically and to be a constructed
aggregate of symbols. Such a formula, or symbolic expression, may be well-formed
within a specific formal language if it is constructed in accordance with the gram-
matical (also called syntactical) rules of that formal language. Otherwise, the for-
mula is not well formed; we can say that it is ill-formed. An ill-formed formula is
ill-formed relative to a specified formal language and its grammatical rules: the
specified formal language cannot “read” the ill-formed formula given the formula’s
relatively ungrammatical construction. There may or may not be another formal
language for which the given formula is readable because it is, relative to that other
formal language, a well-formed formula. This is not our concern, however, since we
are exclusively focused on operating within the grammatical conventions of our
given formal language. There are significant advantages we gain by using formal
languages. This will all be explained and experienced in due time.
The above remarks adumbrate an early hint about the interesting relationship
between meaning and symbolic notations. Significantly, in deductive logic, we are
speaking of logical meaning, which is not the same as the meaning-content of sen-
tences. This is a surprise, perhaps a stumbling block to grasping what the enterprise
of logical study is all about. As we will learn, the empirically verifiable – descrip-
tive, factual, contingent – content of meaningful sentences is not our business in the
study of deductive logic. An intuitive illustration of what is afoot can be attempted:
take the sentence “Rob is President.” We should say, properly – although we might
omit such pedantic precision if we can trust that it is all understood – that the mean-
ing of this sentence can be true or false. Whether it is true or false is not for logic to
analyze: it is a factual matter, more narrowly a historical issue. Logic scans this
sentence, or, properly, the meaning of this sentence as a possibly-true-possibly-
false-unit-of meaning. From the standpoint of logical analysis, what matters is that
this is a meaningful sentence – hence the meaning can be true or false. This is not a
sentence (meaning) that is necessarily true or necessarily false. It is a logically con-
tingent or indeterminate sentence (using “sentence”, as we have arranged, to mean
“meaning.”) A sentence like “it is raining here and now but it is not raining right
here and now” is a sentence that is logically necessarily false! This sentence is com-
pound or complex: it is made of two single or atomic sentences that are connected
by “and” and one of the two conjuncts is operated-on by “not.” These are logic-
words, as we will explain in due detail later on. “Not” placed in front of a true sen-
tence brings about that we now get a false sentence and the other way round. Since
it interacts with true-false to alter logical meaning (to turn true to false and false to
true), “not” is a logic-word. “And” is also a logic-word: in this case the available
possibilities are four – these are the combinations or true-false for the two sentences
which are connected with “and.”
Let us continue with our illustrative example. For logical analysis purposes,
“Rob is President” is not about the factual, descriptive, confirmable empirical con-
tent: it is possibly-true-possibly-true-unit: by unit we mean the smallest possible
grammatical and representable unit that can hold or carry logical meaning, which is
the meaning of a single or atomic sentence. A good question is: how do we know
and how do we determine that this is an atomic sentence? Let’s say at this point that
there are no logic-words – like “not” or “and.” Moreover, it is relevant indeed that
we are not at this point equipped to “look” inside the meaning and into its composite
parts. We take the whole sentence as a block, so to speak.
Interestingly, a sentence like “Mara is President” is also a possibly-true-possibly-
false-unit for our purposes of logical analysis. There is a dramatic difference in
content between the two sentences but this does not matter for logic. We are not
contending that it does not matter as such; only that it is not relevant to what logic
is bent on examining. Let us explain this. We can see intuitively, hopefully, that
logic should analyze and correctly determine such matters as: how two sentences
are related in proving one from the other or in having them both consistently
included in a theory or viewpoint. Given one sentence, does the other “follow”, as
we may say in everyday parlance? In our case, the answer is negative. Neither sen-
tence implies the other. That Rob is President does not imply that Mara is President;
nor does it work the other way round. You might actually think that either sentence
implies the negation of the other – if Mara is President, then it cannot be the case
that Rob is President. But you are assuming that there is exactly one President. This
may be true and it is actually the case for familiar political systems that mandate a
singular executive; but from the standpoint of logic, it is, again, possibly true and
possibly false; it is not a matter of logic how the institutional machinery of govern-
ment is set out. You would have to add as an assumption that “there is exactly one
President” and then, indeed, lo and behold, you should be able to prove that either
one of our initially given sentences implies the negation of the other.
When we speak of implication, what we mean, precisely speaking, is this: A
implies B if and only if it is logically impossible that A is true and B is false. We will
see this again later in this text, time and again. Notice how our increasingly more
precise definitions of the concept of implication are built with the concepts of true
and false. This is the key to grasping why our “game” is a game with true and false
(at least, in one way of presenting what logic does – keeping away from the
manipulation of symbols, which is something we will be speaking of as well, and

for now just talking about logical meaning.)
Let us also inquire as to whether the two given sentences can be included together
in an opinion or view or description that is not logically inconsistent. For a collec-
tion of sentences (which is a theory, a view, an opinion, a given description, and so
on) to be inconsistent is explosive: the theory or view needs to be revised and, if not
possible to revise it, it should be abandoned. It is easy to realize that “inconsistent”
is a negative quality: indeed, as a logical characteristic, inconsistency is a character-
istic of a collection of sentences: the definition is that, a collection of sentences is
inconsistent if and only if not all the given sentences can be true together. Since the
theory or view posits all the sentences (and, therefore, presents them as all true), this
is nonsensical: if the sentences cannot all be possibly true together, then the theore-
tician or reasoning agent has an explosively absurd collection! Notice that we don’t
have to be aware of this: subjectively, one might be convinced that her or his theory
or opinion suffers from no anomalies of logical meaning – but inconsistency is
objectively a logical anomaly regardless of psychological awareness of the issue.
The two sentences we started with in our example are indeed consistent. They are
both possibly true and possibly false (but, of course, not true-and-false together.)
This gives us exactly four mathematically possible combinations for two sentences:
true/true, true/false, false/true, false/false. One of the possible combinations is true/
true. This suffices because, by the definition we gave, there is one logically possible
case in which both sentences are together true: so, they can be or they possibly are
true together. In our actual world, on the other hand, this might not be the case! Our
actual world might correspond to the true/false combination, for instance. But this
does not affect the consistency characterization. Your theory is still logically consis-
tent even if it is inaccurate or wrong as a description of the actual state of affairs.
Our actual world is only one logically possible world. To the historian, the actual
world matters but not so to the logician because – so to speak – logic examines
properties that, if they obtain, they apply in all logically possible cases.
Of course, it is bad to be inaccurate or to fail to hit the factual mark, but this is a
different matter and it is not the business of logic. On the other hand, an inconsistent
position or view cannot be true (cannot characterize or obtain) in any possible state
of affairs whatsoever! The logical characteristic of inconsistency, if we may venture
a metaphor, stands at the gate as an austere constraining force: if we fail in this logi-
cal requirement, nothing matters: your inconsistent theory is doomed initially: it
loses and no further steps about ascertaining what may be the case in the world
makes any difference. Of course, there is a way to obtain consistency – by removing
at least one sentence from your theory – but let us further presume that your theory
is considered finished and completed – not to be touched. It is logically impossible
for all your theory’s sentences to be true together, if it is inconsistent. Therefore,
there is no logically possible case that can be described by your theory. (Notice an
interesting feature of the way we just put it: are we letting some independent meta-
physical entity – “the describable case” – to be the primary concept? We should not
think this way; rather, it is a concept like consistency that takes precedence. If the
description of a presumed case is inconsistent, then there is no such case to describe!
Asserting the contrary commits us to logical absurdity.)
It ought to be obvious by now that logic has a certain generality and foundational
character about it: logic compels assessment of any and all theories: any theory has
to be consistent, regardless of what the subject matter is, or, otherwise, it is an
absurd no-theory.
Mara is
President
Mara is Rob is
President President
and
Rob is
President
Logically Possible Worlds
Let us return to our running example. If we were to add the assumption that there
is exactly one President, then we have three, not the initial two, sentences. Try to see
that this new viewpoint, comprising all three sentences, is inconsistent! They cannot
all be true together. Of course, we could withdraw the last sentence and we are back
to a consistent set of sentences; or we could withdraw one of the other two sentences
to obtain a consistent set. Try to practice this. But the three sentences together form
an inconsistent collection of sentences.
Let us symbolize the sentence “Rob is President” by “R” and “Mara is President”
by “M.” Now, suppose that we interpret our symbols R and M so that they have dif-
ferent contents. Nothing changes about the comments we made above: both sen-
tences are capable of being true and of being false (but not true and false in the same
case); it follows that they are mutually consistent – there is at least one combination
of them both being true. Now, we saw that the introduction of an additional assump-
tion, “there is exactly one President,” unsettles matters as it generates a new and
inconsistent collection of sentences. Let us symbolize, “there is exactly one
President” by “P.” As we said, however, we cannot turn to logical analysis to be
informed about a regulation as to how many presidents there may be. We can think
of this in the following way: surely, it is logically meaningful to have a stipulation
that exactly one president ought to be allowed but it is also logically meaningful that
two presidents be allowed, and so on. You could have one world in which the rule is
that one president is allowed, or mandated; another world in which two presidents
are allowed or mandated; and so on. These are all logically possible worlds. Our
actual state of affairs or possible world is just one of all the possible worlds. Logic
has generality: it ought to apply to all possible worlds. If we labeled each possible
world by “1” or “2” and so on, reflecting how many presidents are mandated for the
system, those labels would characterize such worlds. Instead, we might as well use
our sentences – “exactly one president is allowed”, “exactly two presidents are
allowed,” and so on. But the logical characteristics ought to be generally applica-
ble – not confined to any specific possible world but applicable for all possible
worlds. It follows that we cannot logical truths (or logical falsehoods for the matter)
to label worlds.
Given R and M, if we add P, we cannot detect any inconsistency. We need a more
fine-grained logical structure. Symbolizing the restriction that compels having
exactly one president by a single sentence symbol P does not show us sufficient
detail of logical structure. We could take this added sentence symbol, P, and use it
to label some random logically possible world. We don’t see the inconsistency. Our
task becomes how to express this restriction by showing more structural detail in
our representation of the restriction. Here is what we can do: we can represent the
restriction by “M if and only if not-R” (or “not-M if and only if R.”) Indeed, the
restriction is logically equivalent (it is true/false under the same logical conditions)
with the suggested expressions. What we mean by logical conditions is this: the
whole collection of true-false values, which we get by assigning true and false to the
symbols for all possible combinations. This may seem like a forced trick but it let us
assess what has happened: we have discovered that we can have a perspicuous nota-
tional way of expressing logical structure, so that the logical properties can be eval-
uated. At the same time, we have pressed that logical characteristics must be
invariable across any logically possible cases or states of affairs or possible worlds.
The restriction we added is not itself a logical postulate: we may think of it rather as
an extra-logical meaning postulate (i.e., as a postulate that is not about logical
meaning but about “meaning” in the common sense that includes non-logical con-
tent of sentences. Once the restriction is added, however, logic again is inexorably
put to the task of checking for consistency.)
Let us examine, in brief, how the addition of the restriction, expressed so that
sufficiently fine-grained logical structure is shown, results in an inconsistent triad of
sentences. We cannot have any logically possible world in which all three sentences
are true together. Such a world would be notionally understood as a logically impos-
sible or absurd world. We show below the possibilities. (We have been using this
heuristic device of “possible worlds” without, as before, entering into metaphysical
issues as to what kinds of objects we may have in mind to make sense of such
“worlds.”)
There is exactly There is

one President exactly one
--- President
Mara is
President
There is
exactly one
President
------
Rob is
President
Logically Possible Worlds
1.3.1 Meaning and Truth Conditions
The standard sentential logic we will be studying is founded on certain elementary

assumptions. The justification for the application of formal apparatus to the analysis
of arguments and claims in language is that the assumptions at the foundation of the
logical system are adequate to a correct analysis and do not lead to unwarranted
conclusions about how the logic of the language works. It is always important, how-
ever, to bear in mind that the formal system itself cannot be incorrect or wrong as
such: it is only with respect to a specific range of presumed applications that the
question can arise as to whether the formal system is adequate to the intended task
of application.
Meaning, or we should say more precisely logical meaning, is taken as a matter
of what we call truth conditions: the meaning of a meaningful or declaratory sen-
tence – a sentence that could be logically-justifiably asserted if it were true – is
considered to be the nexus of the conditions or cases or logically definable possible
states in which this meaning is true. Notice how we are dependent on modal notions
like “possible” and counterfactual notions like “if it were the case, then it would be
the case.” Moreover, the notion of “state” or “case” must be defined specifically. To
do so, we note that the character of the logic is, as we say, compositional: the mean-
ings of the whole depend on the meanings of the parts: if the meanings of the parts,
ultimately of the atomic or individual sentences, are specified, then the meanings of
composites and ultimately of the whole sentence are precisely and uniquely deter-
mined. This is the case for sentential logic – when we don’t have symbols for com-
ponents of the sentences themselves and we treat meaningful sentences as block-like
units that are unanalyzable. Accordingly, a case or option or possible state (or inter-
pretation or valuation) is a systematic assignment of truth values to all the types of
atomic or individual sentence variables in a sentential formula: the truth conditions
for the sentence expressed by a formula is the map or nexus of all such mathemati-
cally definable assignments for all types of sentential variables (with multiple
occurrences of the same sentential variable in the formula receiving the same truth
value on each assignment). This agglomerate constitutes the truth conditions for the
formula. It is also notable that we rely on assignments of truth values to symbols
and computational determination of the truth value of the whole composite formula
(whose syntactical formation is precisely regulated by the formal grammar of our
symbolic language.) Now, in a semantic fashion, talking about meaning, we need
objects of which we can speak.
The metaphysical character of such objects does not raise any concern, or so we
stipulate and this allows us to bypass, for purposes of constructing the system, all
kinds of riddles about such notions as truth or possibility. The standard view is that
a logic system should have compositionality of meaning as we characterized it with
respect to truth conditions; any lapse in compositionality ought to be addressed
appropriately when we move to extensions like that of predicate logic. The exten-
sional view requires, in its semantic version, that there are objects that can serve as
referents or denotata for purposes of meaning; such abstract objects are not to be
understood as incurring any ontological debts. Metaphysical considerations may be
set aside as irrelevant to our present purposes of logical study. The reference to
objects plays a formally mandated and circumscribed role – as in a case of counting
on a plausible narrative to enable us to make sense and track our systematic enun-
ciations but without attaching any relevant significance to whether our posited
things actually exist or not. For our semantic purposes in sentential logic, the refer-
ents of the meanings of sentences are truth values – true or false, not both true and
false and not neither true nor false.
There is an alternative philosophic view, which comes with significant recom-
mending credentials, according to which logical meaning is not a matter of truth
conditions but, rather, it is generated by the rules under which logic-words are cor-
rectly asserted in a language. Since we are bent on the project of studying moti-
vated logical or formal languages, we need to know how this alternative view is
presented in the context of formal logical analysis: when we turn to the study of
what we call natural deduction methods for proofs, we will witness how rules are
laid down for manipulating introductions and eliminations of the symbols for the
connectives of the logical languages. According to an influential view, the logical
meaning of a logic-word, or a connective of the formal system, is determined by
the rule that governs the introduction of the symbol for the connective. To return to
the linguistic setting: a competent speaker of a language like English will accept as
correct assertion of a sentence with form “X and Y” only if both X and Y are cor-
rectly assertable. Accordingly, the meaning of “and” is established inherently not
by the conditions under which “X and Y” is true and false but by the conditions
under which “X and Y” is rightly assertable: although assertability seems related to
truth, the point is that “and” is introduced in the sentence that is to be correctly
accepted in language under the proper conditions. There are also rules that manage
the elimination of connective symbols – or of logic-words in the linguistic setting.
For instance, X is accepted if it has been asserted that “X and Y”, and so is Y: this
means that the rule for the elimination of “and” is such that each one of the con-
joined sentences are accepted in assertion once the sentence “X and Y” has been
laid down. We will not pursue this philosophically deep subject in any detail in the
present context.
Let us start with the truth conditions that are stipulated for the atomic or indi-
vidual sentence, which is taken as the absolutely minimal unit in which meaning
can fit or by which meaning can be expressed. The nexus of mathematically possi-
ble value assignments, on the stipulation that we have exactly two truth values, true
and false, is: true or false, not both, and not neither. Thus, there is a restriction on
those value assignments since we do not allow both values to be assigned and we do
not allow that neither value is to be assigned. We have also said that these are exactly
(all and only) the available mathematically possible options, under the restricting
stipulation, but we should keep in mind that the issue about how logic is different
from mathematics is not trivial. The options can be characterized as logical in the
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CHAPITRE VI
SUR LA PIERRE BRUNE
Ce fut seulement plus tard que je pus me rendre compte de la

durée de cette léthargie. Quand je m’en éveillai pour la première
fois, il me parut également possible qu’elle se fût poursuivie pendant
des mois ou pendant une heure. Les événements qui l’avaient
précédée étaient si vagues et si extraordinaires que je ne trouvai
d’abord en eux nul point où rattacher mes sensations et mes
pensées présentes.
La seule impression précise que j’eus fut que ce sommeil aurait
encore pu se prolonger longtemps, que c’était accidentellement et
non par suite de ma satiété qu’il avait pris fin. Je pensai à de
lointaines aubes de mon enfance où un domestique ayant besoin
d’entrer dans ma chambre allait et venait un instant en atténuant
soigneusement le bruit de ses pas ; quand le silence redevenait
absolu, je m’apercevais soudain que mes yeux étaient ouverts… Il
avait dû se passer quelque chose d’analogue. Je me rappelle m’être
levé en sursaut, avoir regardé avec effarement tout autour de moi :
Ceintras ronflait, calé dans un coin de la chambre de chauffe, le
buste droit, les jambes étendues, les mains jointes, la bouche
ouverte et le front creusé d’une ride : un sommeil pénible et qu’on
devinait peuplé de cauchemars. Par les hublots entraient des flots
de lumière violette : il faisait « jour ».
Puis ce fut une terrible angoisse : où étions-nous ? Qu’était
devenu le ballon livré à lui-même pendant le temps peut-être long
qu’avait duré l’inconscience de ses pilotes ? J’ouvris la porte… Le
ballon reposait sur le sol, sur ce sol du Pôle où, la veille, nous
n’avions pas osé atterrir. Dominant mon appréhension je descendis,
fis le tour de la machine et un examen sommaire m’assura que nul
organe n’avait souffert, le moteur s’était arrêté uniquement faute
d’essence ; l’enveloppe semblait un peu flasque, mais cela n’était
rien et, sitôt que le moteur serait remis en marche, il suffirait d’ouvrir
le robinet d’air chaud pour reprendre notre vol.
Je me disposais à aller réveiller Ceintras et à l’avertir lorsqu’un
fait me frappa auquel je n’avais tout d’abord pas pris garde : le
ballon reposait sur ses amortisseurs d’une manière aussi stable que
s’il avait été attaché par de nombreuses et solides amarres ; je
remarquai alors que nous avions atterri sur une longue pierre
rectangulaire et brune et que les amortisseurs y adhéraient
irrésistiblement ; on aurait dit qu’ils y étaient soudés ; pourtant, étant
donnée la quantité d’hydrogène qui, visiblement, existait encore
dans l’enveloppe, la force ascensionnelle ne pouvait être de
beaucoup inférieure à la force d’inertie représentée par le poids brut
de l’appareil ; par conséquent un très léger effort aurait dû suffire
pour déplacer ou soulever le ballon ; mais ce fut en vain que je
voulus le faire, de la main d’abord, puis en utilisant comme levier le
canon de ma carabine que j’avais emportée par prudence.
Au bout de quelques minutes, il me parut évident que cette
adhérence du ballon à la pierre et l’obstacle mystérieux qui la veille
avait entravé notre marche étaient en relation immédiate. Et j’eus
dès lors le sentiment très net d’une intelligence cachée qui nous
avait longuement épiés, pris au piège et qui dès cet instant nous
dominait.
Nous n’étions pas seuls. Preuve tangible, irréfutable, le haut
disque de métal brillait d’un éclat terne à quelques mètres de moi.
J’entendis soudain, dans les épais fourrés de cactus et de fougères,
un bruit qui me fit monter le cœur à la gorge… J’épaulai mon arme
et m’avançai en tremblant : de nouveau les feuilles s’agitèrent à dix
mètres environ sur ma gauche. Le coup partit presque malgré
moi !… Plus rien… Puis je m’aperçus que ma peur avait créé des
fantômes et que dans les brusques frémissements des fourrés le
vent seul avait été pour quelque chose ; il venait de se lever et
arrivait de la banquise en bouffées glaciales qui, dans la tiédeur du
Pôle, me piquaient par instant au visage et aux mains comme
l’eussent fait de menus et lancinants coups de couteaux.
Ceintras, au bruit de la détonation, apparut sur la galerie. Je
courus à lui et le mis au courant de tout ce que j’avais constaté
depuis mon réveil. Il se contenta de hocher la tête et ne répondit
pas ; il semblait parfaitement ahuri. Alors je lui demandai en affectant
l’air le plus détaché et le plus tranquille du monde :
— As-tu bien dormi ?
Il me parut chercher péniblement des mots :
— Mal, très mal… C’est une chose étrange… je me souviens
d’avoir subi jadis une opération pour laquelle on fut obligé
d’employer le chloroforme…
— Eh bien ?
— Eh bien, j’ai eu cette nuit l’impression d’un sommeil analogue
à celui où l’on tombe sous l’influence du chloroforme, d’un sommeil
qui accable odieusement et durant lequel, si profond soit-il, on garde
toujours une lueur de conscience pour se rendre compte qu’on est
un esclave…
— On est comme entravé, ligoté par mille chaînes, on fait des
efforts désespérés pour les rompre et l’on sait pourtant qu’il n’y a
qu’à attendre le bon vouloir d’un maître…
— C’est cela ; et puis, pour comble, des cauchemars affreux se
sont abattus sur moi…
— Quels cauchemars ?
— Comment te dire ? il me semblait que je tombais lentement
dans quelque abîme sous-marin, au milieu de pieuvres
gigantesques, et je sentais par instant contre ma peau le frôlement
de leurs tentacules…
Il se recueillit une minute, puis :
— J’ai peut-être tort, dit-il, de parler de cauchemar : cela
ressemblait moins à une chose rêvée qu’à une sensation réelle
perçue dans une demi-conscience.
Je ne pus me garder d’un frisson ; les paroles de Ceintras
avaient illuminé tout à coup en moi un souvenir obscur et, à présent,
j’étais à peu près sûr de m’être débattu quelques instants
auparavant dans un cauchemar qui ressemblait au sien…
Seulement les pieuvres y avaient été remplacées par des chauves-
souris ou des vampires. La coïncidence était tout au moins étrange
et si de part et d’autre les rêves n’avaient reposé sur rien de réel, il
fallait conclure à un cas de télépathie. Mais une conclusion plus
logique et plus effrayante s’imposait, à savoir que des êtres vivants,
hôtes de ces régions, des êtres d’une intelligence et d’une puissance
qui dès cet instant m’apparaissaient prodigieuses, nous avaient
attirés jusqu’à eux en utilisant par des procédés qui m’échappaient
une énorme force magnétique ; puis, désireux de nous observer, ils
s’étaient approchés de nous durant notre sommeil : un sommeil
qu’ils avaient peut-être provoqué artificiellement.
Allais-je faire part à Ceintras du point où venaient d’aboutir mes
inductions ?… J’eus pitié de lui. Il s’était laissé tomber sur un rocher
et ses yeux vacillants et vagues se fixaient en deçà ou au delà des
objets qu’ils regardaient ; son attitude trahissait un accablement
infini ; j’avais l’impression très nette d’assister à une effrayante
agonie morale, et je tentai de faire appel à son initiative dans l’espoir
de le remonter, de le remettre en possession de lui-même :
— Que comptes-tu faire ? lui demandai-je.
— Je ne sais pas, je vais voir…
Il fit quelques pas, s’avança vers le ballon et sauta sur la pierre
brune où les amortisseurs adhéraient. Je le vis alors s’agiter, se
balancer comme pour prendre son élan et retomber gauchement sur
ses mains sans que ses pieds eussent bougé d’un centimètre. Je
m’élançai à son secours.
— N’approche pas, pour Dieu ! n’approche pas, s’écria-t-il en
hurlant comme une bête prise au piège.
Mais j’étais déjà sur la pierre où je continuais comme je l’avais
fait auparavant à pouvoir aller et venir sans encombre. Ceintras, lui,
était aussi incapable d’y faire un pas que si ses pieds y eussent été
du premier coup inexorablement rivés.
— Est-ce que tu souffres ? fis-je en essayant vainement de le
dégager.
— Non, évidemment non, mais ils vont venir, à présent, et
s’emparer de moi… Sauve-toi, au plus vite ; seulement, de grâce,
tue-moi avant de partir, ne me laisse pas tomber vivant entre leurs
mains… un coup de carabine… là… entre les deux yeux… fais
vite !…
— Tu parles comme un fou, répondis-je en haussant les épaules.
Et puis, tiens ! essaye de te déchausser, je crois que cela m’évitera
de te donner la mort.
Il obéit sans comprendre encore et son trouble seul l’empêcha de
tirer facilement ses pieds hors de ses souliers délacés.
— Emporte-moi, s’écria-t-il ensuite, ne me laisse pas toucher le
sol puisque leur damné sortilège ne semble pas avoir prise sur toi…
J’éclatai de rire :
— Tu peux être tranquille : le sortilège n’avait prise que sur tes
souliers, probablement parce que leurs semelles étaient ferrées…
On connaît à présent suffisamment Ceintras pour ne pas trouver
extraordinaire que l’heureuse issue de cette aventure l’ait fait passer
d’un excès de découragement à une joie exagérée et en tous cas
intempestive… Quant à sa confiance dans l’avenir, qu’il manifesta
aussitôt à grand renfort de gestes et d’éclats de voix, elle eût
réconforté le plus abattu des mortels, si ce mortel n’avait vécu
depuis près d’un an dans l’intimité du pauvre diable…
— Un aimant !… Ils voulaient nous attraper à l’aide d’un aimant !
Ils s’imaginaient que nous en ignorions les propriétés… Au fait, ils
doivent être encore plus effrayés que nous : pourquoi se
cacheraient-ils s’il en était autrement ? Est-ce que je me cache,
moi ? Est-ce que je me cache ? Ah ! Ah ! Ah ! Qu’ils se montrent donc
un peu ! Je les attends… Je me promets de leur faire passer pour
longtemps l’envie de nous jouer de vilains tours.
Je crus bon de réfréner légèrement cet enthousiasme :
— Mais, dis donc, le ballon ?… comment comptes-tu le tirer de
là ?
Ceintras n’était pas embarrassé pour si peu.
— Le ballon… Ah ! oui !… Eh bien, nous déboulonnerons les
amortisseurs, et pffft !… Le ballon délesté fera un petit bond d’un
millier de mètres dans l’atmosphère… Qu’ils viennent nous y
chercher… Ils pourront garder les amortisseurs en souvenir de nous,
ainsi que ma paire de souliers !… Nous en serons quittes pour ne
plus atterrir jusqu’à notre retour ou pour n’atterrir qu’avec une
extrême prudence… Tiens ! parlons d’autre chose : j’ai faim.
Cuisinier, à tes fourneaux !
Le repas fut abondant, bien arrosé et fort gai. Lorsqu’une cause
de tristesse ou de peur persiste un peu plus de vingt-quatre heures,
il est inévitable qu’une détente se produise dans l’esprit de ceux qui
subissent cette tristesse ou cette peur. Nous apportâmes à manger,
à boire et à deviser un entrain qui n’avait rien de factice, qui n’était
nullement dû au désir plus ou moins conscient de nous étourdir,
mais qui venait du fond le plus sincère de nous-mêmes… Nous nous
étions à moitié accoutumés à l’étrange paysage, nous ne pensions
plus à nous inquiéter des mystères qui nous entouraient et, dans la
clarté violette du Pôle, confortablement installés sur les fougères,
auprès du fleuve couleur d’argent bruni, nous débouchions du
champagne avec autant de plaisir que nous eussions pu le faire au
bord de la Seine ou de l’Oise, sous un ciel limpide et léger d’Ile-de-
France.
Réconfortés moralement et physiquement, nous résolûmes d’un
commun accord d’aller à la découverte.
CHAPITRE VII
CEINTRAS ÉGARE SON OMBRE ET SA RAISON
Nous longeâmes le fleuve sur une distance d’un demi-mille

environ. Le silence était si grand que le bruit de nos pas et le
clapotement de l’eau semblaient suffire à remplir le ciel.
Quel était ce fleuve ? d’où venait-il ? où allait-il ?… Autant de
questions que nous nous posions vaguement et que nous étions, du
reste, parfaitement incapables de résoudre. Quand nous regardions
derrière nous, il paraissait, là-bas, très loin, après des lieues et des
lieues de plaine, sortir de la brume et probablement de la banquise ;
en face, à cent mètres en aval, il s’évanouissait derrière une arête
de rochers bleuâtres, abrupts et déchiquetés, le seul accident qui
rompît la monotonie de l’immensité plate…
Comme si ces rochers avaient abrité les plantes de quelque
chose qui, partout ailleurs, les eût empêchées de s’élever librement,
les végétations, à leur base, devenaient peu à peu arborescentes. A
notre approche, des oiselets, qui perchaient dans cette sorte de
bocage, prirent leur vol avec des pépiements aigus dans la direction
des rochers, puis firent un brusque détour et passèrent en tourbillon
au-dessus de nos têtes. Ils avaient de longs becs, des ailes azurées
et ne différaient guère de nos martins-pêcheurs.
Nous atteignîmes le sommet de la colline par une rampe de rocs
éboulés qui surplombaient les eaux mêmes du fleuve et, de là, nous
pûmes contempler le panorama polaire. De circulaires murailles de
brumes le limitaient sur tous les points et formaient les parois
diaphanes d’un immense vase dans lequel la clarté violette eût
bouillonné comme une liqueur. Elle se diluait au fluide
atmosphérique dans des proportions qui devaient, pour d’obscures
raisons, varier selon les lieux et les heures, car, lorsque le vent
soufflait avec quelque violence, on voyait véritablement bouger l’air.
La colline, abrupte du côté par lequel nous étions arrivés, rejoignait
la plaine, devant nous en pente douce, et longtemps, le fleuve
coulait entre de hautes falaises argileuses et bleues. A notre droite,
dans une échancrure de la muraille brumeuse, l’œil terne du soleil
avait l’air de s’ouvrir avec indifférence, sur ce pays qui n’était pas
son domaine. Çà et là, jalonnant l’immensité de la plaine et du
plateau, étaient dressés des disques pareils à celui que j’avais vu le
soir même de notre arrivée au Pôle.
Tournant le dos au fleuve, nous poursuivîmes notre excursion en
restant à mi-pente de la colline. De bizarres fleurs aux calices
charnus et contournés poussaient dans les anfractuosités du sol.
Puis, sous l’auvent d’un éboulis branlant, nous découvrîmes une
étroite caverne, ouverte comme une plaie dans la chair rocheuse du
coteau ; de petits cris brefs et perçants s’en échappèrent à notre
passage ; je m’arrêtai, indécis, interrogeant Ceintras du regard ; mais
celui-ci, que son entrain et son énergie n’avaient pas abandonné
encore, s’avança résolument et me dit :
— Il faut entrer.
Je le suivis, et je constatai avec stupéfaction que dans ce couloir
aux parois tortueuses il faisait aussi clair qu’au dehors : la lumière
violette, en s’y répandant, pénétrait dans les moindres recoins,
chassant l’ombre de partout. Les cris, dans le fond, redoublèrent au
bruit de nos pas ; puis ce furent d’éperdus battements d’ailes et des
bêtes passèrent au-dessus de nos têtes en les frôlant ; je dis « des
bêtes » parce que je fus, dans le premier moment, incapable de leur
donner un nom plus précis.
Brusquement, d’un coup de crosse, Ceintras en abattit une qui
restait encore accrochée à la voûte de la caverne. Elle pouvait avoir
vingt centimètres de longueur, sa tête ressemblait à celle d’un
serpent, mais la gueule était plus épaisse et plus large ; les ailes
étaient constituées par des membranes de couleur verdâtre, et me
parurent, pour le reste, analogues à celles de nos chauves-souris.
— C’est un chéiroptère d’espèce inconnue, m’écriai-je.
— Non, répondit simplement Ceintras en palpant l’animal.
— Pourtant, l’aspect général… et ces ailes…
— Ces ailes ne sont nullement des ailes de chauves-souris.
Regarde : elles ne sont pas soutenues par les quatre doigts, mais
seulement par le doigt extérieur, qui est démesurément allongé ; les
autres ne servent à la bête que pour se suspendre… Puis les
membres antérieurs sont plus grands, la tête est plus développée, la
mâchoire cornée et garnie d’une multitude de dents aiguës… et
puis… et puis, ça n’a pas de poil… ni poils ni plumes… Alors…
— Quoi ?
Sans répondre il fouilla dans ses poches, y prit un couteau, ouvrit
fébrilement le corps de l’animal, en sortit le cœur et le coupa.
— C’est bien cela : deux oreillettes et un seul ventricule : un
reptile !
— Un reptile qui vole ?
— Certainement, fit-il un peu pâle… Il y en a déjà eu…
— Quand cela ?
— Il y a des milliers et des milliers d’années. Celui-ci appartient à
une espèce qu’on croyait disparue, et, si mes souvenirs ne me
trompent pas, c’est tout bonnement un ptérodactyle que j’ai entre les
mains…
Ce nom scientifique me rappela des souvenirs de collège ; je
revis les animaux monstrueux des vieux âges dont les figures, sur
les manuels de paléontologie, avaient frappé si fort mon imagination.
Et je m’écriai :
— C’est enthousiasmant, c’est magnifique ! Il faut en attraper de
vivants et les emporter avec nous.
Ceintras s’était assis sur une pierre. Tenant toujours la bestiole
éventrée et sanglante à la main, il regardait droit devant lui, dans le
vague. Le bruit de mes paroles le fit sursauter.
— Les emporter… Où donc les emporter ? demanda-t-il.
— Mais… dans le ballon. Qu’est-ce que cette idée a
d’extraordinaire ?
Il secoua la tête, fit un geste vague et, d’une voix étrange :
— On ne peut pas empêcher ce qui a été d’être encore,
murmura-t-il comme en s’adressant à lui-même… Ce qui a été se
cache, mais existe encore quelque part… Et quelquefois on le
rencontre, on le trouve… Mais alors c’est que soi-même on a été, et
on ne peut plus revenir vers ce qui est ; car ce qui est ne
communique pas avec ce qui a été… ou bien c’est si loin, si loin qu’il
faudrait des siècles, des siècles, plus que des siècles pour en
revenir…
— Qu’est-ce que tu racontes ? interrompis-je avec anxiété.
Il tressaillit ; puis ses yeux perdirent leur fixité nébuleuse ; il se
redressa, se ressaisit et me dit en affectant de rire :
— Ce que je racontais ? Des choses qui chantaient dans ma tête,
des bêtises !… mais ne nous éternisons pas là-dessous.
Je pensai qu’il avait voulu se rendre intéressant, ou se moquer
de moi, et je ne jugeai pas utile d’insister. Après avoir vainement
cherché d’autres ptérodactyles, — ils n’avaient pas cru devoir rester
dans la caverne à notre disposition, — nous regagnâmes la sortie.
Soudain Ceintras, qui marchait un peu devant moi, s’arrêta,
regarda de tous les côtés et s’écria dans un grand geste de folie et
de désespoir :
— Mon ombre ! Où est mon ombre ?
La question me parut si saugrenue que je restai un instant ahuri
et incapable de rien répondre. Puis, jetant les yeux sur le sol, je
m’aperçus que ni l’ombre de Ceintras ni la mienne ne se projetaient
nulle part ; les objets étaient aussi éclairés en haut qu’en bas, à
droite qu’à gauche… Et, jusque-là, nous ne nous étions pas rendu
compte que c’était cette absence absolue d’ombres qui, plus encore
que la coloration de la lumière diffuse dans l’atmosphère, donnait au
paysage son caractère de rêve, d’impossibilité, tout au moins
d’étrangeté hallucinante.
— Mon ombre ! Où est mon ombre ? hurlait toujours Ceintras en
se tournant dans tous les sens.
Je crus qu’il continuait à plaisanter et, pour mettre fin à cette
comédie énervante :
— En voilà assez ! lui dis-je. Une fois admis que cette lumière ne
vient d’aucune source précise et qu’elle est une propriété de l’air en
cet endroit de la terre, il est tout naturel qu’elle soit partout, comme
l’air, et qu’il n’y ait d’ombre nulle part.
Il baissa la tête comme un enfant pris en faute et, après s’être
recueilli un instant, répondit sur un ton d’humilité presque honteuse :
— Ne fais pas attention… j’étais comme accablé, dans celle
caverne ; j’ai mal à la tête, et c’est très pénible de penser… presque
aussi pénible que de se mouvoir.
— Le fait est, avouai-je, qu’il me semble avoir moi aussi des
membres de plomb.
Après que nous eûmes fait quelques pas, cette impression de
lourdeur s’atténua un peu. Nous rejoignîmes le cours du fleuve et
descendîmes sur la berge, au pied même de la colline. Alors
Ceintras s’agenouilla, et penché sur l’eau comme une bête but à
longues gorgées.
— C’est tout de même de l’eau, dit-il en se relevant ; seulement il
ne fait pas bon s’y mirer, nous avons d’effrayants visages.
Et comme je m’informais de sa santé :
— Ça va beaucoup mieux, répondit-il. Mais il y a loin d’ici au
ballon, je suis un peu fatigué encore… Arrêtons-nous une minute,
veux-tu ?
Nous nous assîmes côte à côte, les pieds pendant au-dessus de
l’eau. Et, durant quelque temps, chacun de nous s’absorba en lui-
même.
— Vois-tu, dis-je ensuite à Ceintras qui, le menton dans les
mains, paraissait réfléchir, ce paysage me rappelle ceux que je
dessinais, quand j’étais gamin, pour me distraire : dans mes
peintures tout était plat et au même plan, parce que je ne savais pas
les ombrer.
— Oui, répondit-il, ce n’est que par l’ombre que nous pouvons
percevoir le relief… Je me souviens à présent que, tout à l’heure,
nous n’avons découvert la colline que quand nous nous sommes
trouvés à sa base… Nous ne distinguons dans ce paysage que les
différences de couleurs et cela nous trouble… et il nous est bien
difficile de nous rendre compte… Aussi, a-t-on idée de ça ? une
damnée lumière qui arrive de partout !…
Encore quelques minutes de silence. Ceintras reprit :
— Il y a une impression dont je ne puis me défendre : malgré
moi, en considérant ce qui nous entoure, je pense à quelque chose
d’artificiel, de truqué ; cette lumière me rappelle celle que les
machinistes de nos théâtres font ruisseler à flots sur certains décors
de féeries… Ici aussi il doit y avoir des machinistes, disposant
d’énormes forces magnétiques ou électriques, maîtres d’un fluide qui
peut rendre l’air lumineux et l’échauffer jusqu’à une température
clémente… Voilà ! seulement ils manquent totalement de sens
artistique… Eux non plus ne savent pas ombrer !… Et c’est
désagréable, même fatigant, très fatigant…
— Est-ce que tu souffres ? lui demandai-je, inquiet de son air de
lassitude.
— Non, fit-il ; seulement, je te l’ai déjà dit, cette lumière me gêne
pour penser ; il me semble qu’elle pénètre en moi, qu’elle désagrège
et éparpille toutes mes idées ; je suis obligé de faire effort pour les
tenir réunies. Et pourtant je voudrais pouvoir penser, j’ai besoin de
penser pour essayer de découvrir ce qu’ils sont.
Il s’animait, et bientôt sa volubilité devint telle qu’il me fut
impossible de placer un mot.
— Oui, qu’est-ce qu’ils sont ? Où peuvent-ils bien se cacher ?
Pas une maison, pas un édifice… Et pourtant ils existent
indubitablement : ces disques de métal, l’entravement mystérieux de
notre ballon… Dis donc, peut-être qu’ils sont invisibles ?…
Je haussai les épaules. Il se leva, fit quelques pas le long du
fleuve, et, soudain, poussa un cri :
— Viens voir : une porte !…
J’accourus. Ceintras me désigna du doigt une plaque de métal
enchâssée dans un enfoncement de la falaise rocheuse. Stupéfait,
je frappai machinalement trois coups contre la plaque ; l’écho du son
sembla retentir à l’infini dans les profondeurs de la terre.
— C’est creux, fis-je en baissant instinctivement la voix.
— Une porte !… C’est une porte ! s’écria Ceintras, et c’est sous la
terre qu’ils ont leur domicile. Voilà pourquoi nous ne les apercevions
nulle part !
— Si on rentrait ? proposai-je.
— Diable ! fit-il avec un léger mouvement de recul, cela me
semble un peu téméraire.
— Je n’en disconviens pas, répondis-je, Cependant, ces hommes
du Pôle sont intelligents, civilisés… Il n’y a que des créatures
raisonnables pour façonner les métaux, asservir les forces de la
nature… Et des créatures raisonnables, comme ils sont et comme
nous sommes, doivent toujours finir par s’entendre…
— Mais…
— Laisse-moi parler. Il n’y a pas d’hésitation possible. Notre
ballon est cloué au sol par leur volonté. Il faudra tôt ou tard, — et le
plus tôt sera le mieux — les aborder, même s’ils se dérobent… Lier
commerce avec eux, parvenir à nous en faire comprendre, obtenir
notre délivrance, c’est la meilleure ligne de conduite à suivre ; c’est
même, si tu veux savoir toute ma pensée, là-dessus que je fonde
mon unique espoir de sortir d’ici.
— Soit, je te suivrai, dit Ceintras après quelques secondes de
réflexion ; mais il faut d’abord ouvrir la porte.
— Cela ne sera pas difficile : je ne vois ni loquet, ni serrure ; les
voleurs ne doivent pas être à craindre, dans ce pays-ci !
Or, malgré tous nos efforts, la porte ne s’ouvrit pas. Elle adhérait
irrésistiblement à son châssis métallique. Cette fois, instruits par de
précédentes expériences, nous comprîmes vite ce qu’il en était : le
peuple du Pôle usait de courants magnétiques en guise de serrures
et de clefs !
— Qu’est-ce que tu veux, dit Ceintras qui avait essayé d’ouvrir la
porte avec ardeur dès l’instant où il avait compris que c’était
impossible, qu’est-ce que tu veux ! nous sommes bien forcés de
remettre à plus tard l’exécution de tes projets…
Il ne paraissait pas en être autrement affecté. Il s’assit, se remit
debout, fit encore quelques pas en sifflotant, puis finalement
s’étendit de tout son long, à plat ventre, devant la porte. Moi,
cependant, assis à quelques pas de lui, j’échafaudais divers plans
ingénieux, audacieux, mais un peu vagues : il fallait nous emparer
d’un de ces hommes qui mettaient une insistance désagréable à
nous avoir pour hôtes et le garder comme otage pour obliger les
autres à se rendre à nos désirs. Comment parviendrions-nous à
mettre la main sur lui, c’était une question que je jugeais superflu
d’approfondir pour l’heure… Une nouvelle exclamation de Ceintras
vint me tirer de ces rêveries :
— Ces empreintes… regarde ces empreintes dans l’argile !
— Il y en a partout, dis-je en me baissant. Mais comment se fait-il
que nous ne nous en soyons pas aperçus plus tôt ?
— C’est sans doute à cause de cette lumière, de cette maudite
lumière, grommela Ceintras.
L’argile moite et souple avait nettement gardé la trace des pas
d’un animal. Çà et là on voyait aussi des sillons comme en eussent
pu laisser derrière elles des queues traînantes. Plus loin, dans une
éclaboussure boueuse, s’était moulé partiellement le corps d’une de
ces bêtes qui avait dû tomber là ou s’étendre de toute sa longueur.
— Qu’est-ce que cela peut bien être ? demandai-je à Ceintras.
— Un pas ici, un autre là, dit-il en observant attentivement le
sol… cela m’a tout l’air d’une trace de bipède, du plutôt d’un animal
qui utilise uniquement pour marcher ses membres postérieurs et sa
queue : quelque chose comme un kanguroo… Cependant cette
empreinte en forme de feuilles de lierre… Je crois me rappeler…
Attends… Mais oui ! C’est tout à fait semblable, en plus petit, aux
empreintes fossiles que nous possédons de l’iguanodon…
— L’iguanodon ?
— Oui, encore un monstre des vieux âges ! Nous avons fait, en
venant ici, un saut formidable dans le passé… Des lambeaux de la
période crétacée sont, en ce pays, restés vivants ; d’antiques
espèces s’y sont perpétuées depuis des milliers de siècles !
— Mais, dis-je, puisque la vie paraît, en cette partie isolée de la
terre, avoir suivi son cours d’une façon autre que partout ailleurs,
l’homme lui-même ne se serait-il pas conformé à la loi générale ?
Qui sait si nous ne sommes pas séparés de ces hommes du Pôle
par un abîme infiniment profond ?
— Oui, peut-être… peut-être qu’ils ont, en effet, évolué dans un
autre sens et qu’il y a quelques différences entre eux et nous. Ils
vivent sous la terre : ils doivent être petits, plus petits que toi et moi,
et difformes et laids… Je les imagine assez bien sous les traits des
gnomes des légendes, comme des nains industrieux et subtils qui
forgeraient merveilleusement les métaux et construiraient des
machines inouïes au fond de leurs souterrains. Qui peut prévoir les
prodiges que le sol recèle au-dessous de nous ?
— Mais alors, ces traces d’animaux devant une des portes de
leur demeure ?
— Un troupeau qui, le pâturage terminé, sera rentré dans les
cavernes avec eux.
— Un troupeau d’iguanodons, et d’iguanodons domestiques ?
Voilà qui vaudrait le voyage… si nous étions bien sûrs de jamais
revenir pour le raconter. Seulement, j’ai beau chercher, je ne vois
nulle empreinte de pied humain parmi les autres…
— Cette ouverture n’est sans doute que celle des bergeries et,
comme ces animaux sont domestiques, ils doivent rentrer seuls au
bercail, par accoutumance…
— Ou sur un appel qu’on leur crie…
— Il se peut. Mais, après tout, je n’en sais rien et, ces inductions,
tu peux les faire aussi bien que moi-même. Quant aux habitants du
Pôle, ce sont peut-être tout simplement des gens qui ne diffèrent pas
plus de nous qu’un Peau-Rouge ou un Esquimau.
— Comment expliques-tu, alors, qu’ils ne se montrent pas ? S’ils
préparaient contre nous, sous terre, quelque terrible machination ?…
— C’est peu probable. Ils doivent plutôt être effrayés par ces
visiteurs qui tombent du ciel.
— Et le ciel est si peu clément au-dessus de leurs têtes qu’ils ne
doivent pas en attendre grand’chose de bon. Si l’homme a pris
l’habitude d’y loger ses meilleurs espérances c’est que de là lui
viennent la lumière, la chaleur… Mais ici !…
— Certainement. Et nous sommes sans doute, comme je te l’ai
déjà dit, beaucoup plus grands qu’eux… Qui sait ? Ils vont peut-être
nous adorer comme des Dieux puissants et redoutables…
Dans des phrases comme celle-ci, je retrouvai bien mon
Ceintras… Mais, lorsque l’heure nous parut arrivée de regagner le
ballon et que nous nous fûmes remis en marche,
d’incompréhensibles bizarreries se glissèrent peu à peu dans ses
moindres paroles, surtout aux moments où, après avoir parlé de
nouveau « de saut formidable dans le passé, de milliers et de milliers
de siècles », il recommençait à se lancer dans des théories
nébuleuses et interminables sur le passé et sur le présent, sur ce qui
avait été et ce qui était… A la fin, je ne comprenais véritablement
plus rien à ses discours. Je mis cela sur le compte de ma fatigue.
Nous atteignîmes enfin le ballon. Une épouvantable surprise
nous y attendait : les organes essentiels du moteur avaient été
déboulonnés avec une dextérité merveilleuse et emportés…
Ceintras me regarda, regarda la place vide, chancela et resta
une minute sans parler ; puis, très calme, il s’écria en haussant les
épaules :
— Cela n’a aucune importance !
— Mais, malheureux, comment comptes-tu repartir, à présent ?
— Nous reviendrons à pied. Ou bien, si tu as peur de te fatiguer
en marchant, je fabriquerai un traîneau… Et j’y attellerai des
iguanodons… Hein ? Qu’est-ce que tu en penses ? Ce sera
splendide, ce retour !
Il se dandinait, les mains dans les poches et regardait devant lui
en souriant béatement. Je crus inutile de lui répondre : cette fois,
j’avais compris…
CHAPITRE VIII
LA FACE AURÉOLÉE D’ÉTOILES
Étendu sur la couchette, au fond de la cabine, Ceintras

chantonna longtemps, sans prendre davantage garde à ma
présence que si je n’avais pas existé ; puis des silences de plus en
plus longs ponctuèrent sa monotone mélopée, sa voix devint plus
faible et plus lente, ses paupières papillotèrent et, bientôt, à la
régularité bruyante de sa respiration, je me rendis compte qu’il
dormait.
Alors l’horreur de ma situation m’apparut avec une impitoyable
netteté. Séparé de la patrie humaine par d’infranchissables
obstacles, exilé, à peu près sans espoir de retour, dans un pays de
cauchemar, condamné à la perpétuelle inquiétude d’un peuple
mystérieux, plein de ressources et probablement hostile, exposé à
ses incompréhensibles embûches, j’étais en outre privé, à présent
que mon compagnon venait de sombrer dans la démence, du seul
être sur lequel j’aurais pu m’appuyer…
Et la nuit polaire allait revenir ! Bientôt la clarté violette
s’évanouirait, et ce serait la lutte inutile contre l’irrésistible sommeil.
Étais-je destiné à m’en réveiller, cette fois ? S’il était vrai que les
habitants du Pôle nous redoutaient, ne profiteraient-ils pas de notre
impuissance pour nous immoler, ou, — hypothèse plus horrible
encore, — pour nous enchaîner et nous transporter au fond de leurs
demeures souterraines. Et quels supplices nous y attendraient ?
Telles étaient à présent mes pensées. Je me laissai aller à un
découragement morne et bientôt je sentis de grosses larmes
ruisseler le long de mes joues.
Mes nerfs, détraqués par tant d’émotions successives, étaient à
bout de ressort. Je défaillais de fatigue, peut-être aussi de faim, et je
compris soudain que j’allais m’évanouir. Alors, utilisant tout ce qui
me restait d’énergie, je me levai en chancelant et me versai un
grand verre de cognac que je bus d’un trait. Immédiatement, mon
sang courut avec plus de chaleur et de vivacité dans mes veines :
« C’est le seul moyen de reprendre un peu de courage, pensai-je… »
Et, coup sur coup, je bus deux autres lampées.
Ensuite, il me parut que mon sort n’était pas si atroce que je me
l’étais imaginé tout d’abord. Sous l’effet stimulant de l’alcool, de
nouvelles pensées, plus optimistes, se firent jour dans la confusion
de mon esprit, et la crise de désespoir que je venais de traverser ne
me sembla plus que la conséquence d’un trouble cérébral ou d’une
faiblesse physique… La disparition du moteur ? Mais, à moins que la
cruauté des hommes ne fût proportionnelle à leur puissance, il était
probable que le peuple du Pôle consentirait à nous le restituer tôt ou
tard. Sans doute, étant données mes faibles connaissances
mécaniques, il me serait difficile de remettre le ballon en état de
marche et de le diriger convenablement ; mais la folie de Ceintras
était-elle définitive ? Je me rappelai que de tout temps je l’avais jugé
moi-même quelque peu déséquilibré, et, certes, dans les récents
événements, il y avait bien de quoi désorienter et troubler
momentanément l’esprit le plus sain… Enfin, à supposer qu’il me fût
désormais impossible de quitter ce pays, — dussé-je même y
trouver la mort avant l’heure, — valait-il la peine, après tout, de m’en
attrister outre mesure ? Existait-il pour moi aucune raison sérieuse
de tenir à retourner un jour dans ma patrie, à vivre de nouveau au
milieu d’une civilisation familière ? Y avais-je jamais su trouver autre
chose que de l’ennui, de l’écœurement et du dégoût ? Mieux valait,
en somme, jouir sans arrière-pensée du plaisir de voir mon unique
souhait exaucé, et affronter l’aventure en homme qui n’a rien à y
perdre.
Cependant, çà et là, des irisations vertes commençaient à
ondoyer sur le manteau violet du jour polaire. Bientôt elles le
sillonnèrent horizontalement, de plus en plus étendues, de plus en
plus nombreuses, et ce crépuscule de proche en proche se
transformait en nuit avec une incroyable rapidité. Déjà je sentais,
comme la veille, une sorte de vertige s’emparer de moi, un voile
couvrir mon esprit, mes paupières vaciller. « Non ! pas cela, pas
cela ! » m’écriai-je comme si j’avais eu affaire à des ennemis
conscients… Et, comprenant que j’allais encore devenir l’esclave de
la peur, je me remis à boire, en attendant la nuit…
Elle vint et, accroupi dans le coin le plus reculé de la cabine, il
me parut qu’elle allait m’atteindre comme la massue d’un chasseur
s’abat sur une bête traquée. Mes membres s’étaient alourdis, le
moindre mouvement me semblait exiger un effort énorme d’énergie
et de volonté ; mais à ma grande surprise mon cerveau restait lucide
et, dès cet instant, j’eus le pressentiment que le sommeil
magnétique ne s’emparerait pas complètement de moi. Avait-il
moins de prise sur mes nerfs qui l’avaient déjà subi une fois ? Était-
ce une heureuse conséquence de l’alcool absorbé ? Ces deux
explications se présentèrent à mon esprit, mais, à ce moment, je
jugeai superflu de donner la préférence à l’une d’elles.
J’avais chaud et l’air s’était raréfié dans la cabine
hermétiquement close. J’ouvris le hublot ; des bouffées de fraîcheur
arrivèrent du dehors ; la petite sensation d’étouffement qui toute la
journée m’avait étreint la gorge disparut bientôt ; mes poumons se
dilatèrent plus librement et je respirai avec délice cet air qui, en
perdant sa coloration, avait repris sa pureté légère et fluide. Le
paysage du Pôle, pour la première fois, se montrait à moi éclairé
seulement par un vague et lointain soleil. A cela près que mes yeux
déroutés par ces brusques variations de clarté percevaient les
étoiles durant le jour polaire, — au sens humain et habituel du mot,
— je me retrouvai sur la Terre, j’étais chez moi. Au-dessous du
hamac où je venais de m’étendre, Ceintras dormait, d’un sommeil

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1 What Logic Studies���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1

To preempt misunderstanding, we start with enumerating some common usages of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

To give a definition of logic promptly, without navigating through related con-

implemented for decision procedures, then we will be engaged in transactions that

by a method we may use to facilitate learning – even though this is to be frowned

The logical characteristics – studied by logic and characterizing logical sys-

or express the same statement. Conversely, a meaning or statement can be expressed

1.1 General Characteristics of Logic

There are controversies surrounding tendentious claims about what characterizes

to the proffered argument form, invalidates or shows or establishes invalidity

truth, and so on indefinitely. No contextual considerations – including prag-

15. Non-Psychological: Logic is emphatically not a subjective matter or a matter of

1.2 Logical Meaning, Logic-Words and Logical Form

◦◦ If a logical form is not a logical truth or a logical falsehood, then it has to be

• The above is an intuitive example. We depend on the meanings of

b. Either X or Y. [ALARM: is it possible to answer this challenge without

1.3 Sentences and Meanings

When we study logical meaning, we regard sentences as grammatical entities whose

manipulation of symbols, which is something we will be speaking of as well, and

There is exactly There is

1.3.1 Meaning and Truth Conditions

The standard sentential logic we will be studying is founded on certain elementary

Ce fut seulement plus tard que je pus me rendre compte de la

Nous longeâmes le fleuve sur une distance d’un demi-mille

Étendu sur la couchette, au fond de la cabine, Ceintras

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1 What Logic Studies�� 1

1.1 General Characteristics of Logic

1.2 Logical Meaning, Logic-Words and Logical Form

1.3 Sentences and Meanings

1.3.1 Meaning and Truth Conditions