Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [negation]

24 questions
4
votes
1 answer

Is there a logic with negation as (primarily) a binary relation?

The only search results I got for the exact phrase "negation as a binary relation" were a cryptic essay and/or book about "Chinese opposites." Now, what I have in mind is something like A ¬ B, read as, "A negates B." This doesn't immediately look…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
4
votes
1 answer

Does Descartes conclude that imperfection implies perfection?

In the third meditation, does Descartes' knowledge of his limitations, or his imperfections, lead to his conclusion that there must be something limitless, something perfect? In his third meditation, Descartes decides that he has an idea of some…
SwabianOrtolan
  • 81
  • 3
3
votes
2 answers

"Should" there be multiple types of universal quantifiers?

Assumptions/presuppositions. I am trying to set up a logic where every connective/operator comes in at least two flavors. For example, with respect to disjunction, rather than hold the LEM rigidly over every disjunction, we confine its primary…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
3
votes
2 answers

Is it the case that negation has an ontological counterpart?

Facts refer to real objects. They are true because there are something of which such sentences are true of, following Aristotle. What would be the reference of a fact of the form "not P"? Or there wouldn't be any reference and "not" is a purely…
user46880
3
votes
2 answers

Quantum probability theory and the idea of a "truth-value sphere"

A while ago I asked a question about using imaginary numbers as truth-values for a peculiar concept known as "the square root of negation"; I just found out that apparently this concept is being studied in detail in the context of quantum computing.…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
2
votes
0 answers

Is this a problem with verisimilitude talk, many-valued-logic talk, or something/nothing else?

A perhaps naive characterization of verisimilitude is "closeness to truth," the proximity coming from the similarity. At least, the SEP article uses, "The number of planets is 9," as an illustrative example of a verisimilar claim modulo, "The number…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
2
votes
0 answers

Would a universal (tran)set violate the law of identity?

At least, here's the argument that opened the question for me: The anticlass-theory principle: there are no discrete proper classes. There are intensional elementhood parameters such that if some set X satisfies those parameters in all such cases,…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
2
votes
2 answers

Is there a difference between contradictory and the opposite?

Is there a difference between contradictory and the opposite? In natural language, we have the idea of opposite such as 'The opposite of good is evil'. In logic, we can represent that symbolically. Let G be good. Using symbols, the negation of good…
Axz
  • 41
  • 6
2
votes
1 answer

Is the law of identity the same for negative expressions?

Is the law of identity the same for negative expressions? Does 'if not p then not p' have any specific meaning in philosophy? I am asking because I am trying to work out whether the vagueness of 'p' would mean 'not p' is also vague, and that's…
user67302
2
votes
0 answers

Existential vs. universal alternation

Is there a difference between trivial and nontrivial negation? It occurred to me that we could think of the following series of negation operations/relations: Empty negation = primordial double-negation elimination (DNE). Modulo (2), this can be…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
1 answer

Is, "No," a sentence-level negation in natural language?

In the SEP article on negation, they say: Where we do not find negation is in the one place propositional logic would lead us to look, sentence- or clause-peripheral position, as an external one-place connective interpreted as “it is not the case…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
0 answers

Peirce cuts (mirrored) + demi-negation = demisets?

[Note: I found one essay, about Aristotle, that used the word "demiset," although at a glance it seemed like they might've been substituting this terminology for a counterpart to the subset/superset relation.] Let a Peirce cut be C. S. Peirce's use…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
1 answer

Would the imaginary unit be the truth-value of sentences formed using √?

Section 4.3 of "Sentence Connectives in Formal Logic" discusses a concept of demi-negation or what is (for the sake of the text) resolved to a concept of "the square root of negation" (note that "#" is being used as the demi-negation operator): ...…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
1 answer

Is there a version of intuitionistic logic, or at least some sort of logic, where ¬¬ → is kept but LEM is not?

The Wikipedia article on double negation in logic says that intuitionistic logic does happen to keep ¬¬¬A → ¬A, as well as A → ¬¬A. I'm pretty confused by this, but I'll take it for granted for now. Still, by whatever means are used to preserve…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
vote
1 answer

Antiknowledge (as epistemic antigraphs)

So this essay covers the idea of "antisets," which are such as A, B such that A ∪ B = 0 (without A and B being themselves 0). This concept is extended in another essay to talk of antigraphs, which when merged with their antitheses result in a null…
Kristian Berry
  • 9,561
  • 1
  • 12
  • 33
1
2