Logic 3

WE ARE INUNDATED WITH ARGUMENTS THAT ATTEMPT

TO CONVINCE US OF A VARIETY OF CLAIMS. P. T. BARNUM
(1810–1891), cofounder of the circus called “the
Greatest Show on Earth,” shamelessly engaged
in the art of ballyhoo and humbug, feeding the
public “bonafide baloney, with no truth in it.” His
philosophy: There is a sucker born every minute.
Logic is a kind of self-defense to avoid being
suckered in by the Barnums of the world. It will
enable you to apply deductive reasoning to arrive at
valid conclusions in complicated situations and to
avoid being fooled into believing things for which
insufficient reasons are available. The rules of logic
will help you to evaluate the vast array of claims
facing you as a consumer, a citizen, a student,
and a human being. Understanding logic will also
allow you to construct better and more convincing
arguments of your own, thereby becoming a more
effective advocate for your beliefs.

Here’s where you’ll find these applications:

• Rules of logic are used to analyze arguments in
Sections 3.7 and 3.8.
• In Exercise 81 of Exercise Set 3.7, you’ll use logical
tools to construct valid arguments of your own.

117
118 C HA P TER 3 Logic

3.1 Statements, Negations, and Quantified

Statements
WHAT AM I
SUPPOSED TO LEARN?
After studying this section, you
should be able to:
1 Identify English sentences that
are statements.
2 Express statements using
symbols.
3 Form the negation of a
statement.
4 Express negations using
symbols.
5 Translate a negation
represented by symbols into
English.
6 Express quantified statements HISTORY IS FILLED WITH BAD PREDICTIONS. HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF STATEMENTS
in two ways. that turned out to be notoriously false:
7 Write negations of quantified “Television won’t be able to hold onto any market. People will soon get tired
statements.
of staring at a plywood box every night.”
—Darryl F. Zanuck, 1949

“The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars will not occur in the
future.”
—Harper’s Weekly, August 2, 1902

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

—Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”
—John Ericksen, Queen Victoria’s surgeon, 1873

“We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way out.”
—Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
—Richard M. Nixon, TV interview with David Frost, May 20, 1977

Understanding that these statements are false enables us to negate each

statement mentally and, with the assistance of historical perspective, obtain a
true statement. We begin our study of logic by looking at statements and their
negations.

1 Identify English sentences that

are statements.
Statements and Using Symbols to Represent Statements
In everyday English, we use many different kinds of sentences. Some of these
sentences are clearly true or false. Others are opinions, questions, and exclamations
such as Help! or Fire! However, in logic we are concerned solely with statements,
and not all English sentences are statements.

DEFINITION OF A STATEMENT
A statement is a sentence that is either true or false, but not both simultaneously.
 SECTIO N 3.1 Statements, Negations, and Quantified Statements 119

Here are two examples of statements:

1. London is the capital of England.
2. William Shakespeare wrote the television series Modern Family.
Statement 1 is true and statement 2 is false. Shakespeare had nothing to do with
Modern Family (perhaps writer’s block after Macbeth).
As long as a sentence is either true or false, even if we do not know which it is,
then that sentence is a statement. For example, the sentence
The United States has the world’s highest divorce rate
is a statement. It’s clearly either true or false, and it’s not necessary to know
which it is.

Some sentences, such as commands, questions, and opinions, are not

statements because they are not either true or false. The following sentences are
not statements:

1. Think before you speak. (This is an order or command.)

2. Does “just sayin’” annoy you in everyday conversation? (This is a question.)
3. Titanic is the greatest movie of all time. (This is an opinion.)

2
Express statements using
symbols.
In symbolic logic, we use lowercase letters such as p, q, r, and s to represent
statements. Here are two examples:
p: London is the capital of England.
q: William Shakespeare wrote the television series Modern Family.
The letter p represents the first statement.
The letter q represents the second statement.

3
Form the negation of a statement. Negating Statements
The sentence “London is the capital of England” is a true statement. The negation
of this statement, “London is not the capital of England,” is a false statement.
The negation of a true statement is a false statement and the negation of a false
statement is a true statement.

EXAMPLE 1 Forming Negations

Form the negation of each statement:
a. Shakespeare wrote the television series Modern Family.
b. Today is not Monday.

SOLUTION
a. The most common way to negate “Shakespeare wrote the television
series Modern Family” is to introduce not into the sentence. The
negation is
Shakespeare did not write the television series Modern Family.
The English language provides many ways of expressing a statement’s
meaning. Here is another way to express the negation:
It is not true that Shakespeare wrote the television series Modern
Family.
120 C HA P TER 3 Logic

b. The negation of “Today is not Monday” is

It is not true that today is not Monday.
The negation is more naturally expressed in English as
Today is Monday.

CHECK POINT 1 Form the negation of each statement:

a. Paris is the capital of Spain.
b. July is not a month.

4 Express negations using symbols. The negation of statement p is expressed by writing ∼p. We read this as “not p”
or “It is not true that p.”

EXAMPLE 2 Expressing Negations Symbolically

Let p and q represent the following statements:
GREAT QUESTION! p: Shakespeare wrote the television series Modern Family.
Can letters such as p, q, or r q: Today is not Monday.
represent any statement,
Express each of the following statements symbolically:
including English statements
containing the word not? a. Shakespeare did not write the television series Modern Family.
Yes. When choosing letters b. Today is Monday.
to represent statements, you
may prefer to use the symbol SOLUTION
∼ with negated English
statements. However, it is not a. Shakespeare did not write the television series Modern Family is the
wrong to let p, q, or r represent negation of statement p. Therefore, it is expressed symbolically as ∼p.
such statements. b. Today is Monday is the negation of statement q. Therefore, it is
expressed symbolically as ∼q.

CHECK POINT 2 Let p and q represent the following statements:

p: Paris is the capital of Spain.
q: July is not a month.
Express each of the following statements symbolically:
a. Paris is not the capital of Spain.
b. July is a month.

5 Translate a negation represented

by symbols into English.
In Example 2, we translated English statements into symbolic statements. In
Example 3, we reverse the direction of our translation.

EXAMPLE 3 Translating a Symbolic Statement into Words

Let p represent the following statement:
p: The United States has the world’s highest divorce rate.
Express the symbolic statement ∼p in words.
 SECTIO N 3.1 Statements, Negations, and Quantified Statements 121

SOLUTION
The symbol ∼ is translated as “not.” Therefore, ∼p represents
The United States does not have the world’s highest divorce rate.
This can also be expressed as
It is not true that the United States has the world’s highest divorce rate.

CHECK POINT 3 Let q represent the following statement:

q: Chicago O’Hare is the world’s busiest airport.
Express the symbolic statement ∼q in words.

6Express quantified statements in

two ways.
Quantified Statements
In English, we frequently encounter statements containing the words all, some, and
no (or none). These words are called quantifiers. A statement that contains one of
these words is a quantified statement. Here are some examples:
All poets are writers.
Some people are bigots.
No common colds are fatal.
Some students do not work hard.
Using our knowledge of the English language, we can express each of these
quantified statements in two equivalent ways, that is, in two ways that have exactly
the same meaning. These equivalent statements are shown in Table 3.1.

T A B L E 3 . 1 Equivalent Ways of Expressing Quantified Statements

An Equivalent Way to Example (Two Equivalent Quantified
Statement Express the Statement Statements)
All A are B. There are no A that are All poets are writers.
not B. There are no poets that are not writers.
Some A are B. There exists at least one Some people are bigots.
A that is a B. At least one person is a bigot.
No A are B. All A are not B. No common colds are fatal.
All common colds are not fatal.
Some A are not B. Not all A are B. Some students do not work hard.
Not all students work hard.

7Write negations of quantified

statements. Forming the negation of a quantified statement can be a bit tricky. Suppose
we want to negate the statement “All writers are poets.” Because this statement
GREAT QUESTION! is false, its negation must be true. The negation is “Not all writers are poets.” This
It seems to me that the means the same thing as “Some writers are not poets.” Notice that the negation is a
negation of “All writers are true statement.
poets” should be “No writers Statement Negation
are poets.” What’s wrong with
my thinking? #NNYTKVGTUCTGRQGVU 5QOGYTKVGTUCTGPQVRQGVU

The negation of “All writers Poets Poets Writers

are poets” cannot be “No Writers
writers are poets” because
both statements are false. The
negation of a false statement
must be a true statement. In
general, the negation of “All A
are B” is not “No A are B.” In general, the negation of “All A are B” is “Some A are not B.” Likewise, the
negation of “Some A are not B” is “All A are B.”
122 C HA P TER 3 Logic

Now let’s investigate how to negate a statement with the word some. Consider
the statement “Some canaries weigh 50 pounds.” Because some means “there exists
at least one,” the negation is “It is not true that there is at least one canary that
weighs 50 pounds.” Because it is not true that there is even one such critter, we can
express the negation as “No canary weighs 50 pounds.”

Statement Negation

5QOGECPCTKGUYGKIJRQWPFU
0QECPCT[YGKIJURQWPFU

50-pound 50-pound
Canaries objects Canaries objects

Blitzer Bonus
Logic and Star Trek

In general, the negation of “Some A are B ” is “No A are B. ” Likewise, the

negation of “No A are B ” is “Some A are B. ”
Negations of quantified statements are summarized in Table 3.2.

T A B L E 3 . 2 Negations of Quantified Statements

Example (A Quantified Statement and
Statement Negation Its Negation)
All A are B. Some A are not B. All people take exams honestly.
Negation:
Some people do not take exams honestly.
Some A are B. No A are B. Some roads are open.
Negation: No roads are open.
Four Enterprise officers (clockwise (The negations of the statements in the second column are the statements in the first column.)
from lower left): Spock, Uhura,
McCoy, Kirk
In the television series Star
Trek, the crew of the Enterprise GREAT QUESTION!
is held captive by an evil
computer. The crew escapes
after one of them tells the Is there a way to help me remember the negations of quantified statements?
computer, “I am lying to you.” This diagram should help. The statements diagonally opposite each other are negations.
If he says that he is lying and
he is lying, then he isn’t lying. All A are B. No A are B.
But consider this: If he says that
he is lying and he isn’t lying,
then he is lying. The sentence Some A are B. Some A are not B.
“I am lying to you” is not a
statement because it is true and
false simultaneously. Thinking
about this sentence destroys the Table 3.3 contains examples of negations for each of the four kinds of quantified
computer. statements.

T A B L E 3 . 3 Examples of Negations of Quantified Statements

Statement Negation
All humans are mortal. Some humans are not mortal.
Some students do not come to class
All students come to class prepared.
prepared.
Some psychotherapists are in therapy. No psychotherapists are in therapy.
No well-behaved dogs shred couches. Some well-behaved dogs shred couches.
 SECTIO N 3.1 Statements, Negations, and Quantified Statements 123

EXAMPLE 4 Negating a Quantified Statement

The mechanic told me, “All piston rings were replaced.” I later learned that
the mechanic never tells the truth. What can I conclude?

SOLUTION
Let’s begin with the mechanic’s statement:
All piston rings were replaced.
Because the mechanic never tells the truth, I can conclude that the truth is
the negation of what I was told. The negation of “All A are B” is “Some A are
not B.” Thus, I can conclude that
Some piston rings were not replaced.
Because some means at least one, I can also correctly conclude that
At least one piston ring was not replaced.

CHECK POINT 4 The board of supervisors told us, “All new tax dollars will be
used to improve education.” I later learned that the board of supervisors never
tells the truth. What can I conclude? Express the conclusion in two equivalent
ways.

Concept and Vocabulary Check

Fill in each blank so that the resulting statement is true.
1. A statement is a sentence that is either _______ or _______, 6. The statement “Some A are B” can be expressed equivalently
but not both simultaneously. as ____________________________________.
2. The negation of a true statement is a/an _______ statement, 7. The statement “No A are B” can be expressed equivalently
and the negation of a false statement is a/an _______ as _________________.
statement. 8. The statement “Some A are not B” can be expressed
3. The negation of statement p is expressed by writing ______. equivalently as ________________.
We read this as ________. 9. The negation of “All A are B” is ___________________.
4. Statements that contain the words all, some, and no are called 10. The negation of “Some A are B” is _____________.
____________ statements.
5. The statement “All A are B” can be expressed equivalently as
_____________________________.

Exercise Set 3.1

Practice Exercises 3. On January 20, 2017, Hillary Clinton became America’s 45th
president.
In Exercises 1–14, determine whether or not each sentence is a 4. On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump became America’s first
statement. Hispanic president.
1. René Descartes came up with the theory of analytic 5. Take the most interesting classes you can find.
geometry by watching a fly walk across a ceiling.
6. Don’t try to study on a Friday night in the dorms.
2. The number of U.S. patients killed annually by medical
errors is equivalent to four jumbo jets crashing each 7. The average human brain contains 100 billion neurons.
week. 8. There are 2,500,000 rivets in the Eiffel Tower.